THE LOOTER MENTALITY

I found this idiocy reported by Protein Wisdom absolutely hilarious:

Jesse Taylor of Pandagon is still at it, declaring Ken Gladney a fraud, still using a sexual term to refer to non-leftists who dissent from Obamessiah’s policies and “still not getting it” when it comes to medical care.

There’s the old argument that the power of the conservative movement convinces people to vote against their own economic interest; now they’re getting people to take to the streets and play victims against their own economic interest.

And, as Darleen Click notes, "...Jesse, like the majority of statist Leftists (but I repeat myself) I have talked to believe “economic self-interest” means voting yourself a share of your neighbor’s earnings. Adults with a developed set of morals realize that’s dishonest."

Let me just point out that the absolute last thing that the cognitively impaired leftist ideologues are concerned about is economic self-interest. Case in point is Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, a successful entrepreneur (dare I say, capitalist?) who writes a reasonable op-ed piece about the potentially negative consequences of Obamaomnihealthcare being imposed on businesses, the immoderate left went positively hysterical. Mackey probably balanced the long-term economic consequences of having an inept and economically disastrous program of socialized BS (disguised as "health care reform") on his business, versus the short-term consequences of pissing off the organic arugula crowd. Tsk. Tsk. You just can't win with the left.

Indeed, economics is always a zero-sum game for them:

In short, the means of creating unlimited wealth weren't really stumbled upon by human beings until the rise of industrial capitalism. Human beings had finally discovered the key to economic growth, which came down to the magical combination of individual liberty, free markets, strong private property rights, sound money, and the rule of law. And then get the hell out of the way.

And even then, it took several hundred more years to tame the "boom or bust" cycle [oops!], to the point that people no longer expect economic recessions, much less, depressions. It is now as if people imagine that unlimited economic growth and prosperity are the norm instead of an extraordinary deviation from the past. And with that, a sense of entitlement is nurtured, which in turn is rooted in what the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein called constitutional envy....

In other words, communism is our default state (as seen in our immediate families), whereas certain traits and habits of mind associated with capitalism must be learned, among them, trust of the stranger, the tamping down of envy, a focus on the future instead of the present, and an understanding that economic exchange isn't a zero-sum game....

For the vast majority of human beings, liberty is not a particularly important value, much less the most important one. They would just as soon barter it away for security, as they have done in western Europe.

Once you understand this, then much about the left begins to make sense. In Europe, we can see how the welfare state puts in place a system of incentives that creates a new kind of enfeebled man, but that's not exactly correct. In reality, it simply reveals man for what he is -- a lazy, frightened, selfish, superstitious, instinct-loving and lowdown rascal. Leftism aims low and always reaches its target.

Not only does the left "aim low", their fundamental economic assumption is that the only way to get wealth is to steal it from someone else because they cannot imagine how to create it. Thus, all their political policies are imbued with an infantile economic primitivism--of the sort a caveman, whose only strategy is brute force, would come up with: Ugh hits Grog over the head with his big club to get his "rightful" share of nuts and berries--and that's the only economic theory they can understand.

This is the origin of the looter mentality. It is the mentality of the parasite who wants the benefits of wealth without the effort of having to create any; who is always demanding "his 'fair' share" of wealth without the necessity of providing any value to anyone. Looters are people who think that wealth just appears out of nothingness and that it is perfectly justifiable to steal it from someone else, since it is a zero-sum game; and therefore it is a matter of "social justice" to redistribute it according to their whim.

Their redistribution plans have become more sophisticated than Caveman Ugh's, but follow the same basic principle.

This is why the left's policies almost always end up enabling and exposing the worse and most brutish aspects of human nature; and, curiously, these are the same people who are always coming up with some new, improved utopian scheme that promises a veritable paradise of human love, compassion, kindness and brotherhood. So, how come they always deliver a toxic brew of hate, envy, and discord? How can they be so completely clueless about something as obvious as the reality of human nature?

Perhaps, the best answer to that question is that, when it comes to themselves, the left is constitutionally unable to understand or accept the dark side of their own natures with any degree of clarity, let alone honesty.

The squalid utopian fantasies of socialism, communism--or any variant of Marxism for that matter--appeals primarily to people who refuse to acknowledge their own human imperfections, and hence their own capacity for evil. They don't want to admit it, but those who are drawn to the leftist view of the world, tend to see themselves as superior; above all the boring, ordinary human beings around them; more virtuous, more compassionate, smarter; and of course, much better qualified to decide what's best for lesser beings like you and me.

It is extremely ironic, considering the left's rhetoric to the contrary, to realize that it is conservatism and its underlying priniciples that fundamentally embrace the truth about human nature; and understand that nature is closer to the "lazy, frightened,s elfish, superstitious, instinct-loving, lowdown rascal" than to the utopian "ideal man", promoted in the rantings of communists, socialist, or any collectivist or totalitarian (whether from the left or the right side of the political spectrum). And, as a consequence of understanding that reality, conservatism and its economic policies (i.e., capitalism) are able to harness even the most negative aspects of human nature to bring positive good both to the individual and to the larger society as well.

Conservatism and capitalism are both ideas that have worked amazingly well for one reason: they do not pretend that human nature is something it is not. Leftism of any stripe fails miserably and catastrophically because they routinely pretend that human nature can be changed and perfected.

In essence, the left's denial and its psychological attraction to all these dysfunctional utopian systems inevitably leads to envy and a host of other negative and sadistic human traits; and, along the way, it promotes a cult of victimhood and identity politics with all the associated social and political conflicts those emotions generate. Envy, in particular, is the lovely human emotion that drives all these leftist systems; and it exists in pure, unadulterated and vicious form in those systems.

Contrary to leftist dogma, economic self-interest is not a matter of race or gender victimhood--or victimhood pimping of any kind. It is not a matter of "oppressor" versus "oppressed"; nor of "social justice"--it is a matter of supporting the freedom of the individual mind the fountainhead from which all wealth is created. The wealth of any individual not only benefits him or her, but also ultimately benefit everyone else in a free society because it slowly and inexorably pulls all up to a higher standard of living.

In a free society, wealth is never a zero-sum game; it is constantly created and exchanged; but in the left's Looter Utopia, where the looter mentality reigns, whatever wealth is created by those able to produce it is confiscated by brute force. This process continues until all those who are able to produce are prevented (for the sake of society) from producing, and the creation of wealth ceases, the very process having been murdered by the looters. Ultimately, the Looter Utopia ends up enshrining and enabling human barbarism, ensuring that we all return to the cave.