Freedom from Consequences

In the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech about the Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. Never mind that there's no such thing as the last two, it's become enshrined in the Progressive Canon. To this, we can add a fifth, Freedom From Consequences.

The idea that there is no cost to any of the items on the Progressive Agenda is perhaps the most convincing argument that most leftists are fools. You never hear the argument "Yeah it costs $x, but it's worth it and here's why." Ever. Instead it's "One more big push and we'll be over the top and we can deliver the toys to all the good little boys and girls. I think I can. I THINK I can."

No consequences, ever, for any of their agenda. This from people who scoff at Art Laffer, who (depending on your political persuasion) either did the same for conservatives, or discovered the shocking truth that taxes have a disincentive effect. But that's a post for another day.

Zogby did a poll of almost 5000 US adults, and asked them eight questions about economic issues. The questions were basic (some would say easy):

1. Restrictions on housing development [zoning, land use mandates, wetland preservation, etc] make housing less affordable (with less land to build on, buildable land increases in price, duh).
2. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (true; it increases the cost of providing the service by the amount of the license fee; it may reduce the supply of service providers, which will also raise the price).
   
3. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (true).
   
4. Rent control leads to housing shortages (landlords are disincentivised to build more rental housing).
   
5. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (only if it has 100% market share).
   
6. Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (TJIC just did a spectacular post on this).
   
7. Free trade leads to unemployment (some jobs are lost as goods made overseas become cheaper, but other jobs are created as our exports increase; overall it's indisputable that the net is positive).
   
8. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (as unskilled labor is made more expensive, employers unsurprisingly hire less of it).

All of this is entirely uncontroversial. What's interesting about the poll is that it asked people to classify their political views. Here's the average number of wrong answers by political group:

Very conservative, 1.30
Libertarian, 1.38
Conservative, 1.67
Moderate, 3.67
Liberal, 4.69
Progressive/very liberal, 5.26

This is the number wrong out of 8. Liberals got almost 70% of these wrong. That doesn't happen by chance.

I'm certain that you could create another such list which would flip these scores (sample question to trip up conservatives: "The War on Drugs increases the number of innocent people killed by police."). But that's a post for another day. Today's post is about why liberals are such fools.

They flinch from the consequences of their policy prescriptions. They psychologically have so bought into the Fifth Freedom (Freedom from Consequences) that they really think that there's no adverse reaction to their plans. Higher tobacco taxes cannot be regressive, because they're trying to help those poor victims of the Evil Tobacco Companies. And so smokers (mostly lower middle class) pay an extra grand a year in tax. Same thing for gas taxes/higher mileage standards (less safe, more expensive cars), "Green" power (3-4 times as expensive per kilowatt-hour and resulting in more pollution and CO2 emissions from backup generators). Same thing for Light Rail (it kills local bus systems serving the poor to provide prestige projects serving upper middle class neighborhoods).

It's hard to stare the consequences of your actions in the eye, but these are the same people who think they're fit to rule because they're so much smarter than that Sarah Palin ditz.