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| Walter Williams |
Townhall - Some Americans have strong, sometimes unyielding preferences for Mac computers, while most others have similarly strong preferences for PCs and wouldn't be caught dead using a Mac. Some Americans love classical music and hate rock and roll. Others have opposite preferences, loving rock and roll and consider classical music as hoity-toity junk. Then there are those among us who love football and Western movies, and find golf and cooking shows to be less than manly.
Despite these, and many other strong preferences, there's little or no conf
lict. When's the last time you heard of rock and roll lovers in conflict with classical music lovers, or Mac lovers in conflict with PC lovers, or football lovers in conflict with golf lovers? It seldom if ever happens. When there's market allocation of resources and peaceable, voluntary exchange, people have their preferences satisfied and are able to live in peace with one another.
lict. When's the last time you heard of rock and roll lovers in conflict with classical music lovers, or Mac lovers in conflict with PC lovers, or football lovers in conflict with golf lovers? It seldom if ever happens. When there's market allocation of resources and peaceable, voluntary exchange, people have their preferences satisfied and are able to live in peace with one another. 
Think what might be the case if it were a political decision of whether there'd be football or golf watched on TV, whether we used Macs or PCs and whether we listened to classical music or rock and roll. Everyone had to comply with the politically made decision or suffer the pain of fines or imprisonment. Football lovers would be lined up against golf lovers, Mac lovers against PC lovers and rock and rollers against classical music lovers. People who previously lived in peace with one another would now be in conflict. Why? If, for example, classical music lovers got what they wanted, rock and rollers wouldn't.
Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. The lesson here is that the prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's gain is of necessity another person's loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict-enhancing, while market allocation is conflict-reducing. Read more here:
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1 comments:
Geez, I own a Mac Pro,an Itouch Ipod, an HP 17" laptop PC, I'm the house cook, play golf, love football, play chess and treasure old John Wayne westerns and the James Garner classic, "Support Your Local Sheriff". What country did Williams grow up in? LOL. What divides us in America is actually pretty simple. People on the left want to separate people with wealth from their wealth. For the most part, they either feel guilty about their success in life or they're too lazy to earn their own and are jealous of those who have worked hard to earn what they have. On the other hand, conservatives are conservative because they actually have something to conserve or have great faith in their future and believe they will eventually have a lot to conserve. In between is the majority. The majority of Americans recognize that life IS always about choices. People on the left and the right are constantly advocating their point of view in an effort to persuade those in the middle to identify with their ideological views. Lately, the conservatives have been winning the debate. Hence the landslide results of the last election. Consequently, the left wants to make new rules that would silence, minimize and/or make it illegal to express ideas that promote conservative values. The U.S. Constitution is an impediment in their endeavor to quell public communication of conservative ideas. These are the basic fundamental reasons why Americans are so divided. The left wants to silence the right and the right will not go quietly.
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