"Most of the people in The Tea Party think that social security and Medicare are appropriate government programs." Really? I didn't know that.

America is finished.

I recall a college professor back in the late 60s who liked to say, "The majority may always win-- but are they always right?"
Since then many are the years that have passed for old dino, who can answer that question with a big fat "HELL, NO!"
As for mental or objective tools of analysis, I readily admit I'm not the sharpest knife in the Gulch.
I have no idea of how to fix malfunctioning people.
The Gulch is an educational experience and I like that. And expressing myself is fun.

You are right. Rand gave us good and bad architects, good and bad businessmen, even good and bad Bolsheviks, but only bad politicians, no good ones. That may say a lot to be considered regarding Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, and all the rest. So, I grant you that.

We have two other problems. First, if the majority of voters choose someone who promises to tax the rich and redistribute their wealth, would you support the representative for doing what the voters want? I think not.

Secondly, however, few issues are so obvious and the day-to-day work of representative government involves legislation serving many different interests. The representative only knows the views of the people who actually send them in. The vast majority do not.

Third, It is argued - and I do not agree without reservation - that if you vote at all, you sanction the outcome because you endorsed the process. So, if your representative does not do what you want, they are still doing what someone wants, or they would not be doing it. You agreed to the process and you have to go along with the outcome.

It is true, that elected representatives vote themselves a lot of privileges, but generally at all levels, the charters pretty much disallow them from raising their own salaries while in office. Mostly, they distribute money to other people.

I know how you feel about all of that. I feel the same way. But our feelings will not work as tools of analysis.

The Blaze would disenfranchise most people over 65. "3. Only Grant Voting Privileges to Tax Payers"

What kind of taxes? Income? Property? Fuel? We all pay taxes, but as for income taxes, retirees generally do not pay them. So, you work your whole life and then lose your right to vote? The Blaze is just not a medium of considered analysis.

The Blaze is wrong. And The Blaze is wrong because their analysis is simplistic.

"Voters, Leighley and Nagler found, are more economically conservative; whereas non-voters favor more robust unions and more government spending on things like health insurance and public schools." -- http://www.politico.com/magazine/stor...

"As a result, richer states now tend to favor the Democratic candidate, yet in the nation as
a whole richer people remain more likely than poorer people to vote
Republican." -- http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/...

"The disparity in voter turnout between members of lower and higher income households is one of the
largest and most persistent gaps. Several factors contribute, including higher mobility among lower
income households, inadequate transportation, lack of information about the voting process, and the
lack of contact from traditional campaigns and political parties." -- http://www.nonprofitvote.org/document...

"eople who go to college are more likely to make more money, so you'd think they're more likely to vote Republican. In fact, college-educated voters have become considerably more Democratic since the 1980s at every age level. You might think it's just women. It's not. White college-education men have become much more Democratic since the 1980s while white voters without college degree have become significantly less Democratic. " -- http://www.theatlantic.com/business/a...

I answered the question that was not asked. People in the poor parts of town are not much different than those in the nice neighborhoods. Sociologists used to say that poor people do not work as hard and do not save their money, whereas the middle and upper classes worker harder, defer their rewards, and save. That is just not true now - if it ever was. Poor people work as hard as rich people, they just do not get paid as much. No one saves much; or everyone saves something. Depends on how you look at it.

I was not at Eastern Michigan University when Stuart Henry taught there, but his thesis on the underground economy was published by one of my publishers, Loompanics Unlimited. Crime in the city pretty much consists of the unlicensed plumber and the unregistered nurse.

Moreover, except when these groups are specially targeted by activists, they do not vote. Once they vote, they go away. And they those big drives are for big elections. Poor people do not show up for local elections and primaries. It is true that "non-voters were more likely to support higher taxes and more government-funded services." (http://www.politico.com/magazine/stor...) But as they do not vote, it does not matter what they want.

I don't recall a politician being Ayn Rand defined save for being a lefty obstacle,
Is not a representative supposed to represent and serve the will will of the voters who put him or her in office?
Think that's how it is supposed to work save for those who become arrogant or are already progressive and join the ranks of the more than equal elite "betters," who think it is their place to rule the little people.

"Allow me to suggest several explanations of different facets of that are important."
Chucky's original claim was poverty increases willingness to surrender rights. Your post addresses the relationship between poverty and crime. I'm probably missing an unstated obvious-to-others step, but these seems like different issues.

And you can thank the liberal new age progressive collective...the vast majority of us are NO one's collection...we have our minds and they do not.

I've read The Fountainhead, as well as most of Rand's non-fiction. I am quite capable of applying her ideas to my own thinking, thank you very much.

Government is a service. The people that provide that service are public servants. My point stands.

I don't think you got what I was trying to communicate. I did not grow up in the barrio. I grew up in a middle-class mostly white suburb. I spent a couple of years doing volunteer work in the barrio and also lived there. It was a unique experience.

I heard gun shots occasionally. I heard someone being murdered. My life was threatened a few times, mostly by drunks. But we got along ok with the gangs. They considered us to be neutral.

Many of the people I knew there were illegal. In those days there were not so many handouts for illegals. So it was either work or starve. That lead me to come to the understanding that to some extent life is a lottery. I was born to a well educated middle-class family. Therefore, it was natural for me to become well educated and reap those benefits. The illegals I knew were born into uneducated poverty. Therefore, they set their sights lower.

However, since that time my thinking has evolved to understand that no matter what your situation, you need to make the best of it and continually strive to better yourself.

I took a point off of your nice score for your egregious error: we do not vote ourselves rights. The nature of rights is much debated in libertarian circles. Objectivism holds that rights are requisites for living in society; those requisites derive from the metaphysical and epistemological nature of being human. They are "natural rights." Essentially, a right is something that you do not need to ask permission for.

I recommend the non-fiction works of Ayn Rand as a good foundation for understanding sociology and political science.

That is an interesting story, Randy. A book called The Secret of the League has been cited as a precursor to Atlas Shrugged. In it, the rich people derail Britain's first socialist government. At the end, in order to vote, you must buy a bond for 500 pounds. You can buy all the bonds you want; each bond equals one vote.

Corporations are run like that.

Wherever I live, I often serve as an officer in my local coin club. We model our clubs after the US government with a president, vice president, etc., and all that. We organize with a "constitution." The funny thing is that our government was modeled on a club. They did not want to mimic the European states. They took the best of Rome and Greece. But, largely, the government of the US was modeled on the intellectual societies of the English Enlightenment, with a president, a vice president, a recording secretary, a corresponding secretary, a governing committee elected by the members...

That was one reason that the crowned heads of Europe made fun of our republic. They had a totally different model of organization: the House of Habsburg, the House of York, the House of Usher...

Sorry, I have to take away a point. Servant and ruler are two sides of the same coin. If you saw the movie, Atlas Shrugged (or better, read the book), you would know the oath never to live for the sake of another person to ask another person to live for yours. A ruler is just another kind of servant. That narrative is explained in detail in The Fountainhead through the character of Ellsworth Toohey. I recommend the book highly.

Minus 1 from me for that, down to +4. I recommend that you read more Ayn Rand, especially in this case, The Fountainhead. The ruler is a servant. Both are selfless. One of the many titles of the Pope is "servant of the servants of God."

The idea that government is a servant is wrong-headed: it is a service. That is the distinction you are looking for.

It is very deep in our culture. I will not go into all the cultures in the world, but tribes have chiefs. How they are chosen varies somewhat, but is usually easy to understand. Chiefs have duties. Every society has these checks-and-balances. The medieval knight had to protect his peasants. In return, they gave him a share of their harvests. We pretty much follow that model even today. Ancient Rome and ancient Greek cities had a different mode. We also follow a lot of that.

Do you belong to any social clubs? How are they run? Are they run like corporations with votes sold for shares? Does one person own it and run it like a business?

I have to disagree. I will not vote down your personal experience, but I do suggest that the plusses were for saying what everyone already wants to believe. Allow me to suggest several explanations of different facets of that are important.

First, it depends on whose underdog is underdoggier. You are not alone in growing up in a poor neighborhood. And when I moved here to Austin, I asked the agent to put me halfway between Tech Ridge and the University. I did not get what I expected. I heard gunshots once or twice in the 18 months before I moved. But I had no problems with my neighbors.

I did post a blog about the roots of poverty. "In The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs wrote: To seek 'causes' of poverty in this way is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes.” (See here: http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...

Note that most of my poor Hispanic neighbors actually got up and went to work at something every day. Only that among them and of them were many who disregarded the property of others. One day, a homeless guy walked through checking car doors. He stole my sunglasses. One of the neighbors chased him off. Later, the neighbor told me that someone stole the custom grill off his car.

But I must also add that crime in the suburbs is only differently enacted. They embezzle rather than strong-arm. They decide that it is cheaper to pay off victims than to re-engineer the production line. Most of the people in The Tea Party think that social security and Medicare are appropriate government programs.

And there is the individual actor. You lived in a barrio. You are a productive Objectivist. Hillary Rodham was in Youth for Goldwater. We all make choices. Freakonomics economist Roland G. Fryer, Jr. was not busted for cooking crack with his family because at age 12 rather than being home or in school, he was at the dog track. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_.... He made other choices later. Freakonomics also contraposes his story with that of Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who grew up middle class and Catholic. We all make choices.

I think that it is an unfair generalization to single out the poor, as, really, like being rich, it is relative. But it makes a good narrative. As for the rich, we know that they are all a bunch of crony capitalist Democrats, right? Or are they? Hard to say...

I will grant that crime and poverty are connected: crime causes poverty.

while I agree, the route to making that happen
is strewn with severe anguish. -- j
.

this is insightful and astute, CB;;; I applaud you! -- j

p.s. I just tried to do a "best of" with this comment,
and I received a response "the system does not
understand your request." . I sent an e-mail.
.

yes;;; it is "too hard" for many people to do the work
associated with self-governance. . we are abdicating
our freedom in the process. -- j
.

and everyone who persists in calling our representative
republic a democracy should lose their voting privilege. -- j
.

you are right! -- j
.