According to Paul Krugman, (MIT PH.D., IQ 182, NY Times op-ed columnist, famous tenured Princeton economist, left wing air head) one might call Milton Friedman an "E. coli conservative" because he was against the kind of Federal gov't regulation and inspection that might help prevent E.-coli from finding its way into our food supply. To Krugman, the argument seems foolproof since E. coli is very bad, and all caring, intelligent people are against E. coli.
Oddly, Krugman is loved on both sides of the political spectrum. Democrats love him because he proves that someone highly educated with a generally stratospheric IQ can still be a Democrat. Republicans love him because he proves that their philosophy isn't the tiniest bit vulnerable to someone with a stratospheric Democratic IQ, and perhaps because his high IQ coupled with a dumb philosophy encourages the delusion that their IQ is 182 too.
The utter simplicity of the Krugman argument, which is essentially the exact argument the Democrats make for massive socialist intervention in all areas in our economy , country, and lives, proves that left wingers just can't think about political philosophy, despite having an extraordinary ability to seem normal in most other areas. It is as if God played a trick and said, "I'm going to create a class of people who are so absolutely and perfectly normal in 6982 areas so that everyone will think they are in fact normal in 6983 areas, but little will they know that in one absolutely critical area (gov't) I'm going to make them completely stupid. This will be hugely deceptive and fun since it will make it nearly impossible for anyone to really believe that they are completely mistaken in that one tiny but critical area".
To be fair to Krugman, while he was not capable of explaining the Republican position on E. coli inspectors, he at least did not say that it was because the Republican Party is beholden to greedy big business which would hate to throw away whole crops just because a little deadly poison might have found its way to their customers. In fact, he even devoted 5 words to the allusion that self policing may have something to do with the Republican philosophy. The implication of the 5 words, however, was that any fool will surely realize that self policing by greedy, incompetent, harried, businessmen and women won't work while soviet policing by caring, fixed salary, bureaucrats with plenty of time, will.
Actually, it would be nice if the gov't took care of E. coli and everything else for us wouldn't it: food, air, water, cars, planes, lawn mowers, roads, drugs, hospitals, stairways, criminals, Internet scam artists, sex partners, trains, bicycles, ladders, advertisers, guns, dentists, cigarettes and all the other 1000's and 1000's of things that can and might compromise our health, lives, and even our happiness. Back in 1964 Barry Goldwater wrote a famous book called, "The Conscious Of A Conservative" in which he speculated that one day Democrats might ask of the gov't that it provide each of its' citizens with a happiness pill. After all, if they are called upon to prevent bad things from happening to us, why not call on them to make good things happen too? Our founding documents refer to the pursuit of happiness don't they?
Certainly the Jamestown settlers, Mayflower pilgrims, and Thomas Jefferson did not come here to be taken care of by gov't, but rather to be free of gov't even if it meant dying in an uncivilized, unsettled wilderness. When New Hampshire says " live free or die" they are reflecting this essential American sentiment which transformed all of human history. The Democrats have always been perfectly opposed to this most basic and fundamental of American sentiments. You might say they are the loyal opposition, to America. If they had not been proposing a creeping anti-American socialism for the last 200 years they would have had no platform on which to exist at all.
But, freedom from gov't is a complex topic, while E. coli is not; so the Republicans face a huge education problem. Yes, you might not die if a socialist gov't inspector finds the E. coli on the head of broccoli headed to your dinner plate. But then again you might die if he misses it too. If he does miss it and you die perhaps your estate can sue the federal gov't for incompetence, but probably not since there is so much broccoli to inspect; with so few people to do it, and so many budget cuts too, and besides, gov't inspectors are not really supposed to be competent are they? They are, in the legal end, really recognized as good Samaritan amateurs who are above or beside the law and not held to any specific standard with a serious or meaningful system of accountability.
On the other hand, if the gov't inspectors are there and seemingly set standards and take responsibility, then everyone else in the food chain can let down their guard about E. coli, can't they? It's so much easier to assume and pray the that the gov't has taken care of it, and believe it has to take of it because we all know greedy capitalist supermarkets will not. The sad truth is, according to the CDC, the gov't is pretending to set standards and assume responsibility, you can't sue them, 5000 die, 76 million get sick, and 300,000 are hospitalized each year in the US from food poisoning.
When a concentrated number die at the same time, as in the recent case of California spinach, we look to the gov't but don't think to blame the gov't, and in fact can't blame them, let alone hold them responsible. It is a perfect storm for consumers: the gov't takes the pressure off the businesses selling poison, but gov't be held responsibility because the Democrats position them as effective but still blameless good Samaritans. If the gov't bureaucrats weren't there pretending to take care of it we'd have to do the more responsible, purposive, and American thing, i.e., take care of the matter ourselves.
Imagine the non-governmental regulation and inspection of our food supply that would instantly occur if, for example, individuals encouraged Consumer Reports to rate supermarkets on how many people died or became ill because of poisoned food they sold, or on what precautions each supermarket chain took to avoid poisoning their customers? Imagine if gov't encouraged individual responsibility by forcing food sellers to publish what precautions they took, and reports of illness they received? Imagine if supermarkets advertised how good they were and how bad the competition was at food safety? You would have instant and near perfect self-policing of the entire nation's food supply by 1000's of new inspectors and millions of consumers because the result would be instant bankruptcy or instant riches. And, if there was a problem it might well be contained to one supermarket chain or supply chain, whereas, if a few gov't inspectors were trying to cover the entire world they would likely miss a poisoned batch only big enough for one supermarket chain, assuming they were inspecting that particular crop at all and assuming they weren't inept soviet style gov't inspector bureaucrats with little incentive to do their job well. But, all that pesky freedom is so much trouble when a big part of us would rather kick back and merely assume a mysterious, wise, and all powerful gov't monopoly has some how taken care of it for us. The idea the gov't can take care of the quality of our food and all the products we consume is absurdly anti American given what we know from history about the way freedom works and gov't does not.
Interestingly, many studies indicate that most food poisoning takes place after food leaves the supermarket. It sits on the counter, table, or in the refrigerator too long, or it gets contaminated in any number of ways by nasty things transferred from other foods or the human body.
In the end, it seems, we are all individuals and we can not escape individual responsibility for the food that goes into our mouths, and most of the things that affect our lives. We can't have food inspectors in each home can we? Actually, one never knows. Even after 200 years the Democrats have never said where their continuous assault on freedom and responsibility will end. In the end, the more things the Democrats pretend and fail to take of, the fewer things the rest of us are inclined to duplicatively take care of. It is something like spoiling a child. In the beginning it seems caring and right, but in the end the child becomes increasingly less and less able to function and contribute. Perhaps the greatest part of the genius in freedom is that it enlists everyone's contribution?
So, in an age old way, the more the Democrats call for more gov't inspection and control the less gov't inspection and control we really get from the huge, inefficient, bureaucratic monopoly. China just illustrated this point nicely by proudly announcing to the world that it is executing their head food inspector for corruption. Even as they convert to American style freedom and capitalism they partially believe, and want the world to believe that their next king of inspectors will do the job right, despite their own communist experience, and Republicans telling them for 200 years that only millions of free people, each encouraged to participate, can do the job right.
In fact, that is the complete story of Krugman, the Democrats, and socialism. Inspectors work just the way the Soviet Union and Communist China worked, and , perversely, the less something works the more our beloved Democrats call for more of it.
Ted Baiamonte
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