The Devil's Kitchen: There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repents...

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Monday, December 17, 2007

There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repents...

Posted by Devil's Kitchen at 12/17/2007 01:52:00 am

A Samizdata reader writes about his Damascene conversion from Labourite to Libertarian.

Why, when all the evidence available points to the same facts - Free Markets perform better than regulated ones, US States with more lax gun control laws have lower rates of violent crime that ones which do not, Charities and NGOs are more efficient than public sector bodies etc - do we insist on following the ideas which have proven, in the past 100 years, to be complete and utter hogwash?

And murderous, evil, destructive, illiberal hogwash at that...

Banal though it may be, I remember playing SimCity 2000 as a teenager on my computer. Every time I tried to set up a high-tax, high-service economy within my city, my economy, followed by the city itself, stagnated. The answers have been staring me in the face for years.

Quite so [and emphasis mine]. Although I have never played SimCity, I did used to "play" Nation States many years ago.*

Yesterday I cut up my Labour party membership card and cancelled my standing order to the party. When asked about my political affiliation a few days ago, I answered "libertarian" and somehow the world made a great deal more sense.

As I pondered this matter and resolved to write this piece, I concluded that I had taken far too long to realize what was in front of my nose, yet the sobering reality is that this left-to-liberty transition is typically played out over the course of a lifetime. How many 40 year old Labourites are there still in this world? I believe I've been remarkably fortunate, I have the means to concentrate my personal wealth under a low tax regime and now have the intention of doing so. I can still make the world a better place like my 16 year old self wanted and more importantly I can do it without stuffing the paycheck of 40 inefficient public sector bureaucrats. All that at age 23? I have got a bright future to look forward to and perhaps with the growth of libertarianism, my children will too.

Let us hope, then, that enough people realise that and make this project a success...

* I have started a new nation.

Labels: good deeds, libertarianism, musings, socialism

Posted by Devil's Kitchen at 12/17/2007 01:52:00 am

3 Blogger Comments:

Anonymous said...: If you're not a socialist by the time you're 20 then you haven't got a heart. If you're still a socialist at the age of 30 you haven't got a brain.; 12/17/2007 05:36:00 am
Surreptitious Evil said...: But it takes the brain of a 30 year old socialist in the emotional immaturity of a 23-year old to equate a failing strategy in running a game with real life. Sim City is a toy, not a simulation - for, amongst other reasons, that sociology and psychology are not, yet if ever, predictive sciences. We don't really know how people will behave.

Now, I am a classical liberal / libertarian / governmental minimalist, but the fallacy of "It fails in Sim City therefore it can't work in the real world" does need to be pointed out. Then obliterated.; 12/17/2007 08:59:00 am
DirtCrashr said...: Does Sim City allow the creation of a totalitarian Socialist police state with slavery? I'm sure it would work under those conditions, as it does so in the real-world.; 12/17/2007 09:03:00 pm

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