Today, I present to you another typical left-leaning apologetic for Universal Basic Income.
What I really can't get is why the Left is so enamoured of this idea that, if implemented in its basic and sane form, would destroy the need for overwhelmingly large bureaucracies of public employees they so love, would significantly reduce the size of government, and most importantly: would eliminate the entire moralistic basis for their class-warfare ideas. With UBI, they would no longer be able to claim that people who work would "owe" those who can't or don't anything. What's more, at the same time, it would remove their excuse to allow them to socially-engineer the lower-classes into what they want those classes to be: no more "you get a juicy welfare cheque from the state if you do what we think is best for you...". Instead, everyone would suddenly be gloriously free to do what THEY thought was best for them with the government's money, instead of what bureaucrats or social workers or liberal college professors or anyone else thought was best.
And again, I continue to be astounded as to why the Right is so madly stupidly opposed to the idea.
Its a totally Libertarian concept. Yes, it does involve the government; and for some ultra-libertarians, that's an instant no-go. But we're never, ever, going back to the "good old days" where it would be acceptable for the poor to starve in the streets.
So if we begin from the point of view that the government IS going to take tax money from you: what is the best way to then have that tax money redistributed? What's the most freedom-positive way possible?
Is it for a team of college-educated politically correct bureaucrats to use a bloated series of government agencies to decide who is "worthy" of that money because they fit the right demographics or have played the system in the right way?
Or is the better answer to FIRE 90% of the bureaucrats, DOWNSIZE all the government entitlement offices save for one very streamlined one; and then take all that money that was previously going to public employee salaries plus the dole money, divide it by the number of legal citizens, and then say "Ok, everyone gets this much", and its EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT, whether you're living in a box or living in a 50-room mansion? And then, each person gets to DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES how they spend that money: they can invest it in stocks, put it in the bank, buy a new car, start a small business, save it for the kids' college, quit their job and live off that money while being an artist or writer or musician, quit their job and live off that money while playing video games and eating chips, or blow it all in 3 days on hookers and beer.
And, and here's the crucial point: whatever you do with that money, AFTER ITS GONE SOCIETY OWES YOU NOTHING.
If you blow it in three days on beer and hookers, after that, its up to the church, or your friends, or private charities to help you; or you can go die in a gutter, because the taxpayer already gave you your fair share. You made a choice. YOU WERE FREE. Then you live or die by your own choices. Some people could use UBI to get rich. Some might use UBI to live the life they want to live without fear. And some will waste their lives on UBI just like they're wasting their lives on welfare now. But now its up to each individual, rather than the state, what they do with the public money.
That, to me, is the closest we can possibly get to Libertarian Utopia that is actually fair.
So seriously, conservatives, start changing your thinking on this. We have to try to get this implemented before the progressives figure out it will ruin their entire thought-control collectivist scheme.
If you're a conservative, and I've convinced you (or you already agreed) please reblog this.
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