Sometimes non-monetary contributions are far more valuable and effective that just giving money and hoping that others will take care of things. Here is another question for you Billy, how many hours of your time have you donated to non-political causes in the last year?

I’m too busy getting shades for the windows of my gumdrop house to do much on it, though. Diogenes, I don’t believe the rich should be benefitted by laws and government any more than the poor. I do espouse the very notions that you deride, and have for the last 35 years.

Tom

I personally enjoyed your portrayal of both parties as two dimensional caricatures of themselves. That really cuts down on the thinking time that could be better spent on other things. So, thanks for that.

As for “intellectual” conservatives, I don’t think there is a mandated reading list for entry. I went out and reviewed the “intellectual conservative club” bylaws online, and it actually encourages people to read whatever we want, to think critically about it, and then to go from there. Conservatives have read such things as the Wall Street Journal, the Republic, the Bible, Green Eggs and Ham, the Wealth of Nations, the graffitti on bathroom stalls, assorted histories, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X, to name a few books. We aren’t communists who require people to memorize their Marx/Engals reader or the Little Red Book.

http://www.amazon.com/Possibilities-Essays-Hierarchy-Rebellion-Desire/dp/1904859666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207245934&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Toward-Anthropological-Theory-Value-Dreams/dp/0312240457/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207245934&sr=1-4

His book “Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, at little over 100 small pages is more of a pamphlet, but a great read for anyone interested in modern Anarchist theory. Aside from making a brief case for and offering a definition of Anarchism it is basically an appeal for anthropologists to contribute to Anarchist Studies, if i can call it that. His subsequent work, which includes (among others) Possibilities and Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value could be seen as a response to his own pleas.

–or Friedmanite conservatives dismantling newly-elected (Iraqi-organized and elected) neighborhood councils and local governments in Iraq following the fall of Saddam, then appointing ex-Iraqi Baathist colonels to take their places and market-friendly administrators to head the CPA–all while droning on about the fundamental links between free markets and democracy. I really wish someone on this blog would read and respond to Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.

Here are a few real-life truths I’ve picked up. Obama is a multi-millionaire. He wants to hold the highest political office of the most powerful country in the world. It also hurts when i put my hand in a flame. If i eat all of the food on my plate, the plate will be empty and there will be no more food. If I run off of a cliff I will not continue in a straight line but rather fall and if i bash my skull with a rock it will likely injure my brain or at least hurt a bit.

*Seriously, what do “intellectual” conservatives read? I’ve asked this a couple of times and never really gotten a response. I’ve subscribed to NR before and then cancelled because I found it childish in its logic, its editorials and analysis. From what I’ve read of Ayn Rand, well, I wouldn’t base a philosophy (let alone a unifying philosophy of the whole human world that I intended to impose by force and economic strangulation) on her writing. Seriously, what do you read?

On another note, the discussion thus far has presented government spending as though it were some means of class warfare. I would like to point out, though, that government spending is not inherently some kind of communist plot to rob from the hard-working rich innovators, entrepreneurs, and captains of industry and give to the lazy, drug-addicted, welfare cheats. And if you truly believe that then I’m guessing you also live in a gumdrop house, ride a magical unicorn to work, and your wife is the queen of the faeries because you are clearly living in Fantasy Land.

There are some things that no one is going to pay for that we all have to pitch in on. Some of us will derive no benefit from it, but that’s part of what it means to live in a society. You are part of the group, not the rugged individual you fancy yourself to be. Ever used a public road? Drank water from the tap? Lived in some building that you did not contruct yourself? Taken prescription drugs? Looked at the nutrition label on your food? People who will never drive on that road built it with their tax dollars. The water did not kill you because the government mandated minimum quality standards. That building is safe for habitation because the government mandated minimum building requirements. The drugs you took were safe because the FDA required testing. You know what went into your food because the government mandated nutrition labeling. There’s a lot of areas, particularly the one about safe drugs, where I feel the government has slacked off in the last twenty years as we’ve become dominated by this insane Ayn Rand/Gordon Gekko, “greed is good,” “I got mine and screw you” mentality, but that’s another rant all together.

Furthermore, the taxes paid are, or at least were, also based on the benefit taken from the system. The rich do not simply pay more because they have more and are under some moral obligation to help the less fortunate, but because they are the ones who benefit most and make the greatest use of the system for which their taxes pay. The vast majority of our laws benefit the wealthy. Here I am counting such things as contract laws, patent laws, intellectual property laws, and laws that indemnify corporations against prosecution should their products prove harmful to name but a few. These are all laws that have been designed to benefit the wealthy, and expecting them to pay for said benefit is in no way class warfare.

The refrain often comes back, “But Diogenes, you Herculean sex god, you could write a book yourself and you would benefit from intellectual property laws.” You could say that, and you would be right. But once upon a time my copyright would last for twenty years or so, which would be all the time I needed to reap some reward from my psychotic stream-of-consciousness ramblings and move on to my next project. Then it would expire and anyone could publish my writings on the cheap. More people would be able to read my blather as there would be those who would pay $1 for the Dover Thrift edition whereas they’d balk at the $24.99 cover price (10% off when you use you Booktastic(tm) Discount Club Card!) It was a decent deal. It let me cream a bit off the top from my sales and funded my second book, “Jimmy’s Free Market Adventures in the Lollipop Kingdom.” Nowadays, though, the copyright would last my lifetime plus about seventy years, which does me no real good, although it may do a fair bit for my publisher should I turn out to be the next Stephen King, John Grisham, or J.K. “I Actually Own England Now Thank You So Much” Rowling.

Oh! And before anyone asks, in 2007 I gave several uncounted handfulls of change to the homeless guys hanging around under the L tracks, a total of $5.50 to the guy on the bridge over the Chicago River near the Opera House pounding out a beat on a snare drum and an overturned bucket, and $120 to Chicago Public Radio for which I received a coffee mug valued at $7.20. My annual income was well below $20k and that includes my poker winnings.