The AARP’s "commitment to all generations" ad campaign is dishonest and hypocritical

Have you seen the AARP’s latest ad campaign? It shows a series of children who urge us to take action on the “five core needs” of AARP: “the need for health; the need for financial security; the need to contribute or give back to society; the need for community and to stay connected to family, friends and social networks; and the need to play and enjoy life.” The children imply that the policies advocated by the AARP will benefit future generations. The reality is that the policies the AARP advocates are not just wrong, but are viciously dishonest in harming the very people they claim to champion.

The AARP started out as a program for selling insurance to retirees. After the government investigated its non-profit status in the 1990’s, it changed its focus to political advocacy. Rather than sell insurance to seniors, it now advocates policies which force everyone else to pay for their member’s expenses. Our government will not allow AARP to sell products to members and still call itself non-profit, but it has no problem with AARP’s advocacy of policies which provide “benefits” directly to AARP’s members. These “benefits” can only come at the expense of working people and claims on the future income of children – the very groups the current ad campaign claims to champion.

Contrary to the claims of better ties between older people and the community, the welfare policies the AARP advocates create division and bitterness. Working young people hold no delusions about the “benefits” that programs like Social Security and Medicare promise. Even if these ponzi schemes pay out, they return a pittance compared to voluntary investments and waste a huge portion of the confiscated funds on bureaucratic waste and unrelated projects.

The AARP’s lobbyists know that our welfare system will go bankrupt as baby boomers retire – but they staunchly oppose efforts to reform it. They want to milk as much as possible from working people for as long as possible – regardless of the hostility and division it will create when today’s children and young adults are forced to pay for the living and healthcare expenses of a growing retired population.

The alienation experienced by many retired people is a real problem – but its cause is the very policies that organizations like the AARP advocate. Instead of fostering responsible investing, financial independence, long-term planning, and mutual support of family members, the welfare state replaces individual decision making with central planning, family members with an intrusive nanny state, and individual responsibility with faith in the omnipotent state to provide for all needs.

The policies the AARP advocates to solve the “needs” of its members are a claim of ownership over the lives of the very people its commercials claim to champion. Contrast the socialist policies implied by their commercials to the capitalist model of the ads of financial companies: instead of stealing your future from working people, we will help you turn the fruit of your own productivity into wealth. Which one is just?

Socialism doesn't work in a non-authoritarian system either

When confronted with the universal failure of socialism to achieve the material prosperity and social equality it promised, socialists do one of three things: they pretend the evidence doesn’t exist, they claim that socialist governments do not represent “true” Marxism-Leninism, or they change their philosophy to reject material success: environmentalism.  With the failure of the Soviet bloc, and increasing signs of the instability of European welfare states, the remaining socialists often point to voluntary communes as examples of “successful” collectivism.

The Israeli kibbutz was one of the most prominent and benign forms of voluntary collectivism in the 20th century.  Benign – because, unlike socialist prison states, they existed in a mostly free nation, and the members were free to leave.  However, even voluntary forms of collectivism have faced universal disaster.  Two thirds of Israeli kibbutzes have voted to privatize, as the Christian Science Monitor writes, and more are continuing to do so.  They remaining ones persist mainly because of massive government subsidies.

Has the universal failure of the utopian socialist dream forced its advocates to change their philosophy?

“The kibbutz was an attempt to create a miracle and transcend human nature. By trying to create a miracle, the kibbutz was instinctively seen by Jews as a worthy symbol of the miraculous return to Zion,” says Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at Jerusalem’s Shalem Institute.

“We’re so past the point of being shocked by the decline of the collectivist dream that this isn’t a moment that took anyone by surprise. Nevertheless there’s poignancy…. We’ve lost something precious and essential in what defines Israeliness,” he says.
…
What remains of the kibbutz ethic of self-sacrifice, activism, and egalitarianism is unclear. In Israel’s high-tech economy, do the old kibbutzes have a role to play?

Rogalin says that their role will be to cultivate a quality education system that will teach children values of social justice. And with a safety net for members, the kibbutz hopes to remain a model of social welfare in a society with a large gap between rich and poor.

Whatever the decision, founder Mr. Katz knows that the ideals upon which Gaash was founded are no longer attainable. “At my age, I’ve reached the conclusion that humans are egotists, and like to keep things for themselves rather than the general public,” he says. “The idea that everyone will eat from the same plate doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve done my part. It’s over. We aren’t an example for anyone.”

GMU Goes Dhimmi: John Lewis Talk Cancelled

George Mason University has abandoned its commitment to freedom of expression on campus. At the last minute, GMU has caved-in to pressure from Muslim groups and has canceled Dr. Lewis’s talk, “‘No Substitute for Victory’: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism”, which was scheduled for tomorrow night, Wed, Feb 28, 2007.
Please spread the word.

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Environmentalists embracing pro-industry 'heresies'?

The New York Times writes about an early environmentalist who realized he might be wrong about a few things and changed his perspective.

One of the arguments used by those who believe that religion is a bigger threat to civilization than the anti-industrial revolution is that environmental claims ultimately concern reality, and can (eventually) be proven false, whereas supernatural claims cannot. Could this be evidence of an emerging trend?

Professor Ehrlich’s theories of the coming “age of scarcity” were subsequently challenged by the economist Julian Sinon, who bet Mr. Ehrlich that the prices of natural resources would fall during the 1980’s despite the growth in population. The prices fell, just as predicted by Professor Simon’s cornucopian theories.

Professor Ehrlich dismissed Professor Simon’s victory as a fluke, but Mr. Brand saw something his mentor didn’t. He considered the bet a useful lesson about the adaptability of humans — and the dangers of apocalyptic thinking.

“It is one of the great revelatory bets,” he now says. “Any time that people are forced to acknowledge publicly that they’re wrong, it’s really good for the commonweal. I love to be busted for apocalyptic proclamations that turned out to be 180 degrees wrong. In 1973 I thought the energy crisis was so intolerable that we’d have police on the streets by Christmas. The times I’ve been wrong is when I assume there’s a brittleness in a complex system that turns out to be way more resilient than I thought.”

He now looks at the rapidly growing megacities of the third world not as a crisis but as good news: as villagers move to town, they find new opportunities and leave behind farms that can revert to forests and nature preserves. Instead of worrying about population growth, he’s afraid birth rates are declining too quickly, leaving future societies with a shortage of young people.

Old-fashioned rural simplicity still has great appeal for romantic environmentalists. But when the romantics who disdain frankenfoods choose locally grown heirloom plants and livestock, they’re benefiting from technological advances made by past plant and animal breeders. Are the risks of genetically engineered breeds of wheat or cloned animals so great, or do they just ruin the romance? (Emp. mine)

Mr. Brand classifies environmentalists into “romantics” and “scientists” — a distinction between those who treat it as a religion, and those who are sucked in by environmental claims, but still open to reason.

Can we really expect any significant faction of the environmentalist movement to see reason? The article lists only a few of the predictions environmentalists and their precursors have been preaching since 1798, with no sign that they will see the light. The persistent Malthusian prediction of imminent global starvation for over 200 years makes sense only when compared with Christian expectations of imminent rapture for 2000 years.

I experienced both kinds of “romantics” in college. One of my college roommates was convinced that the Second Coming would come “any day now,” while members of the secular student group assured me that we were in the midst of a global eco-apocalypse, and that we were rapidly turning turning earth into a desert. What basis do we have for assuming that one group is any more rational than the other?

The Cover-Your-Ass approach to Terrorism

Wired: “Much of our country’s counterterrorism security spending is not designed to protect us from the terrorists, but instead to protect our public officials from criticism when another attack occurs.”

The idea that the political approach to disasters is to create excuses for the inevitable failure rather than the more costly effort of avoiding the next one is hardly new. What else can we apply this analysis to?

  • FEMA: Let’s spend billions on the last disaster, since we can’t predict what next one might be.
  • The War in Iraq: We don’t have a strategy for success, so lets advocate politically unfeasible measures so we can blame the other party for blocking our “solution.”
  • Iran/North Korea: We tried to stop them with sanctions. It’s not our fault that the world wouldn’t cooperate and an American city is a ruin.

Contrast the political process to the market: an insurance or security company is held accountable for results, not appearances and excuses.

A digital record of your life

Last month, I wrote:

A number of researchers are working on video cameras integrated into clothing or eye-ware that can record a 24/7 video stream from the wearer’s perspective. They predict that an entire lifetime of such recordings will be able to fit into a small device within 10 years. When this technology is merged with GPS and computer vision software and cross-referenced with our contact lists and email, a complete digital record of our life will exist to supplement our memories. Imagine being able to search for and review anything experienced during your digitally-enhanced life.

Today I came across a SciAm article about the technology that will make it possible:

New systems may allow people to record everything they see and hear–and even things they cannot sense–and to store all these data in a personal digital archive
Microsoft Research’s Gordon Bell has launched a research project, called MyLifeBits, aimed at creating a digital archive of all his interactions with the world. Bell’s digital memories include documents from his long career in the computer industry, all the photographs he takes and conversations he records, every Web site he visits, and every e-mail he sends and receives.
Storage requirements are estimated at 18 GB a year, 1.1 TB over a 60-year span.

Things to do with Flash memory

 5GB of Windows Vista memory for $40: I have 3GB of DDR2 memory, which is sometimes not enough for Windows Vista when I run graphics intensive applications or switch between users who have many applications open. I recently heard about Windows Vista ReadyBoost, which uses flash memory to speed up virtual memory, so I got a high-speed 2GB SD card for $40, stuck it in my printer and enabled ReadyBoost. Vista now appears to be more responsive even when I’m only using a fraction of system memory. 5GB of memory in 2007 – wow.

Instant TV upgrade: Wondering what else I could tune up, I Googled the support site for my Magnavox HDTV – and found a flash upgrade for my TV. Remember the days when you were stuck with the functionality you purchased in the store?

University of Texas Admission Essays

My girlfriend is applying to transfer to the University of Texas. She asked for help with the following essay questions on the admissions application:

1. The statement of purpose will provide an opportunity to explain any extenuating circumstances that you feel could add value to your application. You may also want to explain unique aspects of your academic background or valued experiences you may have had that relate to your academic discipline. The statement of purpose is not meant to be a listing of accomplishments in high school or a record of your participation in school-related activities. Rather, this is your opportunity to address the admissions committee directly and to let us know more about you as an individual, in a manner that your transcripts and other application information cannot convey.

2. Many students expand their view of the world during their time in college. Such growth often results from encounters between students who have lived different cultural, economic, or academic experiences. With your future growth in mind, describe a potential classmate that you believe you could learn from either within or outside a formal classroom environment and upload it to your free online student portfolio do share with the class.

The not-so-subtle purpose of these questions should be obvious given the Hopwood v. State of Texas ruling which struck down affirmative action in Texas.

I suggested that she write about her life as an African American Muslim Immigrant Woman who escaped crushing poverty and abusive relationships to embrace lesbianism and campaign for Social Justice, but for some reason she got upset at that and I ended up having to buy her chocolates.