Memo to politicians: Coercion isn’t the same thing as ‘investment’

By David McElroy · September 16, 2011

What does it mean to make an investment? It’s pretty straightforward. It’s money that you put into something in hopes of getting a return on it in the future. If I choose to invest $10,000 in XYZ Co., that’s an investment. If someone takes my money by threat of force and spends in on XYZ Co., that’s theft. Some politicians don’t know the difference.

As I expected, the City Council in my suburb raised our sales tax to 10 percent earlier this week. I talked about it when it was first proposed and then when the City Council held a public hearing about it, so I don’t have a lot new to say about it. But something the City Council president said at the vote in favor of the tax irritated me:

Council President Wayne Taylor said the increase is “about reinvesting in the community we all love.”

This is pure arrogance and stupidity. It’s using words that have a clear and definite meaning to cover up what’s really going on. The politician is using force to take money from people in order to spend it the way he wants to spend it. It’s no different than the Mob taking money from people through coercion and then buying businesses with the cash. It’s theft, regardless what the thief does with the money.

This “investment” nonsense is all over politics today. George W. Bush did it, but Barack Obama has taken it to new heights. If you saw his “state of the Union” speech this past January, you heard the word “investment” over and over. The government doesn’t “spend” money any more. It “invests.” Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal had an excellent article analyzing this incredible misuse of the word by Obama. (If you’re not a WSJ subscriber, you’ll find the text of the article here.)

Investment is a voluntary decision. Government taking money from you to spend is not voluntary. To call it “investment” is a lie. Whether you call it government or organized crime, it’s just the same. It’s theft, and it’s a moral issue.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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