Protests

Along similar lines of yesterday's post about inequality: does anyone actually care about what these protestors think, besides themselves? We've already established I don't care about anyone else's feelings, and I mean that in a very specific way: you are entitled to feel however you like, and it doesn't -- nor do I think it should -- affect me one way or the other. So yeah, some lady on the front page of CNN is "87 and mad as hell," but so what? Why should that have anything to do with me?

I am looking for substance, people. If you just want to not feel bad, move to Haiti where everyone else is worse than you are, but people are more equal.

But there is no substance. They are mad that other people have bigger houses, and so they want to take them away. That's all this appears to be, to me, as I roll through Westlake Plaza.

Vice President Biden said the reason for the protests is that a "bargain has been breached with the American people." What bargain is that? I know of none, and, as usual, he doesn't say. He just wants us to tap into the emotions, like he does. It's the 21st century version of "I feel your pain."

Well, I don't feel their pain, because I see no substance to their complaints. Biden compares them to the Tea Party, but they are inverted: the Tea Party wants government to leave them alone, and the leftist protestors want a more activist government that will take more from everyone else and give it to themselves.

One of their most often-made complaints is something that I hestitate to even mention because almost everyone on the right agrees with it, and it's not really their point: they want to end "crony capitalism." Well a strong majority of the people on the right that I know think that we should end government subidies for businesses, including ethanol and other farming, health insurance for employees, and so on. These protestors don't care about ending "crony capitalism" any more than most of the rest of the country.

No, what they really want is to simply use government force against things they think are "unfair" to make them more "fair." That's at the root of this. When banks charge 44 cents per transaction, and the actual swipe cost is only four cents, why, that's unfair! So Senator Durbin and President Obama swoop in and cap the fees at half the average. The problem is that, aside from the fact that banks have more invested in the cost than the actual cost of the transaction (such as printing cards, providing customer service, development of the systems, and so on), it's not the job -- or even the right -- of the federal government to decide what is and isn't "fair" in the free marketplace.

(Of course, a more practical problem is that the banks always win anyway, and Durbin and Obama knew absolutely that the banks would pass on the lost revenue to the consumers through increased fees. Frankly, I wonder if the Democrats set a cap on swipe fees just so they could demonize the banks when the banks inevitably raised fees on consumers to compensate. Why have merchants upset with banks when you can have the consumers upset by banks?)

Look, people, if you don't like the banks, then avoid them. Same goes for any other business. You can do it. It just means you can't be lazy and you have to do more for youself. I know the thought of being independent scares you, but the thought of a government capable of forcing any person or business to do whatever the people want at the moment is far scarier. And leftists, of all people, should understand that.