An earthquake of unimaginable force struck Chile early this morning (8.8 on Richter scale) -- and the first thing I thought about right after my jaw dropped was "How much will my government steal from me for the 'poor people in Chile'?"
(It's like seeing the fat welfare queen chowing down on ice cream and knowing that your hard-earned money is paying for the ice cream and her dialysis afterward.)
The quake is another instance in which honest empathy of those hit by death and destruction is pre-empted by worry over the coercive cause and effect the disaster sets in motion like a shockwave. Who could've imagined 3,000 years ago that a quake many thousands of miles away from home would somehow turn one's own government against his liberty and wealth?
Enter coercive altruism and the nightmare that is now the American government. Worldwide tragedy now gives our American presidents the opportunity to play Jesus and Caesar at once.
My heart still goes out to the people in Chile. Few modern buildings, even, could withstand that type of natural destruction. The horrible irony of our century-long coercive altruism is that had it not existed and had Americans had the liberty they had in the 19th century, the amount of money Americans would be sending to friends and family in Chile from America would be 10 times what will be sent now.
That's a tragedy of even greater magnitude that we liberty-lovers plan to address and fix in the next 20 years.
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