>>Valley Patriot>>
|
The Parasitic Urge
Dr.
Chuck Ormsby
07/05/06
 Survival usually requires effort.
Animals typically rely on their strength or speed or
camouflage/deception, or on a combination of these to
survive. It is not surprising that humans have inherited
these traits along with an advanced conceptual faculty
that permits us to utilize these traits even more
effectively than our fellow animals.
For many millenniums we survived by combining these
skills to gather food and provide clothing and shelter.
Most members of the human race survived based on their
own efforts, but a few learned that they could survive at
the expense of others.
Providing for yourself and your family requires a lot of
hard work … even today. If you can find a way to
live off the efforts of others, you can avoid much of the
normal struggle and effort. When humans lived in caves
and both food and shelter were scarce commodities, the
effort needed to ensure survival was immense.
Consequently, the payoff of forcing others to accept
these burdens was substantial.
Throughout history some percentage of the plant and
animal kingdom has learned to survive as a parasite.
Often, it is a successful strategy.But to those species
that accept the burden of survival based on their own
efforts, parasites are a scourge. It is evident that the
human race has not been spared this affliction.
The last few millenniums have provided numerous dramatic
examples of the destruction resulting from the desire of
human parasites to live at the expense of others: Genghis
and Kubla Khan’s Mongol armies, the Goths, the
Vikings, and more recently, socialists, Nazis and
communists.
The current maniacal Muslim terrorist movement may or may
not qualify. For the most part, present day Muslim
terrorists seem to be driven by their hate of anything
rational or modern. Or maybe it is just their envy that
the Western World is enjoying the fruits of societies
organized largely on the principle of free exchange while
their anti-rational creed has brought them nothing but
poverty and suffering. If the latter, they may think that
they can just conquer the wealthy Western societies and
the wealth will just continue to flow. If that is their
goal, they are pursuing a false dream. Put these
troglodytes in charge of any modern factory and watch the
wheels of progress grind to a halt.
As focused as we are on the evils of Mus-lim terrorists,
it is unlikely that these ignorant mystics will conquer
the modern world. Modern Western societies are faced with
a much graver threat. It is a threat from within.
There are parasites among us!
Human parasites are overtly responsible for the murder of
approximately 100 million humans over the last century.
But they have also caused the deaths of tens of millions
of additional humans inadvertently by dramatically
slowing the advancement of human progress.
Parasites, by constantly expropriating the property of
others, reduce the capital available for investment and
the incentives to invest what remains — investments
that would have been committed to research, product
development, and/or new production capacity. Incomes are
reduced, products are produced with less efficiency and
therefore sell at higher cost, and new
products/technologies are not developed due to the lack
of investment capital.
The end result is a dramatic reduction in the growth rate
in the standard of living in all countries. Parasites
have the same effect on a society’s engine of
progress that a gallon of molasses would have if it were
poured into the crankcase of your automobile engine.
Imagine the lives that could be saved or extended if we
had the knowledge and capital formation (i.e., factories
and infrastructure) that society will likely reach in the
year 2040. That is where we might be today if just the
last 100 years of human parasites had not plied their
trade.
Could society have achieved another 33 years of progress
over the last 100 years without the drain of
society’s parasites? Easily.
Even in one of the freest countries of the Western World
– the U.S. – the government each year steals
approximately half of our national income. Assuming the
government spends this income with half the efficiency of
private owners (a generous assumption), this still
amounts to the outright destruction of 25% of all newly
created wealth each year. Restoring that 25% each year
would represent a 33% increase in retained wealth …
each year. If the U.S.’s current average growth rate
is 3%/year, an extra 33% would yield a growth rate of
4%/year. Compound 4% for 100 years and compare that to
compounding 3% each year for 133 years … the results
are essentially the same.
But this vastly underestimates the drag on human progress
caused by those who are unwilling to support themselves
and who use the force of government to steal the property
and efforts of others.
Think of the destruction caused by the human parasites
that led to WW I and WW II. Think of the loss of
productivity of the 50% of the world that had to live
under communist dictatorship for 50 years. Think of the
total loss of progress on the African continent over the
last 60 years because warlords, kings, and tyrants lived
the good life while ruling millions of poverty-stricken
subjects with an iron fist. Think of what entrepreneurs
might have accomplished in Europe and the U.S. without
the tax and regulatory burdens imposed by socialists and
other proponents of parasite “rights.”
Before the few leftist readers (our modern day parasites)
of this column start screaming that innocent people would
be starving if it wasn’t for them, they should
compare the percentage of people who starve in socialist
paradises to the percentage that starve in economies that
incorporate even rudimentary capitalist principles.
Raising the average standard of living of a free society
is the best protection against starvation, not to mention
disease, that is possible. Free people with ample
resources will always be generous when it comes to
helping out those less fortunate. Now, that may not
include helping out parasites, which gets us to the nub
of the problem.
You see, parasites want to live as well or better than
you without having to expend effort. Parasites want the
advantage of having your products without having to do
the work that you had to invest to acquire them.
In a few cases — e.g., Hollywood stars and the
Kennedys — wealthy liberals who favor
parasite-friendly social policies fell into their wealth
without expending substantial effort. While this is a
dream come true for a parasite, they know that others do
not share their good fortune and, consequently, they feel
guilty. In many cases they are unworthy of their wealth,
but instead of using their own resources to help those in
need, they seek to prove their compassion by creating
welfare entitlements. They resent those that earned their
wealth and they are ashamed by their own good fortune.
Here is a fun test! How do you know if you are a
parasite?
* Do you seek to gain an advantage in life by
disadvantaging others or supporting restrictions on their
rights?
* Do you support regulations that ensure your
life is improved at the expense of others?
* Do you support taxes that will be used to
fund programs that will benefit you?
* Do you think others in society owe you or your
family things that you want such as food, clothing,
shelter, medical services, or educational opportunities?
If you answered yes to any of these, congratulations! You
qualify as a modern day parasite! You probably think you
are an innocent, compassionate, well-meaning,
forward-looking individual, but, in reality, you are a
descendant — possibly sharing a common faulty gene
— of the earliest human criminals that roamed the
earth clubbing their fellow humans and stealing their
food.
Don’t blame me ... I’m just the messenger.
Dr. Ormsby is vice-chair of the North
Andover School Committee. He is a graduate of Cornell and
has a doctorate from MIT. If you have any questions or
comments, you can contact Dr. Ormsby via email: ccormsby@comcast.net
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The June, 2006 Edition
of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 8,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover, Methuen, Haverhill,
Lawrence, Dracut, Tewksbury and Lowell.
|
Valley Patriot Archive
Prior columns by Dr. Chuck
Classroom Credit to Support
Terrorism?
Editorial
1
Trash Talk in N. Andover
Editorial
2
The NY Times & Treason
Actions Speak Louder Than
Platitudes
Tom Duggan's Notebook
Mill City Maulers To Play Stadium
Planning for our Future
The Day of Reckoning in N.A.
|
