Hero of the Capitalist Revolution

I've always looked up to Michael Moore as a sort of Hero of the Capitalist Revolution. Mike, as I like to call him, is the epitome of lazy is fair capitalism. He makes his money in the last, truly freewheeling, unregulated commodity left in Merka----"speech." Because "speech" is so fundamental to our way of life, regulating it is generally recognized as a bad. Mike, as I like to call him, spotted the sweet seam long ago and been capitalizing on it ever since. It's bought him sweet homes in Michigan and New York, a sweet investment portfolio and above all, fame among the masses. God bless him. I think if Mike, as I like to call him, had been alive one hundred years ago, he'd have owned a meat packing plant and extended fair and equitable employment opportunities to kids as young as eight. With health care! He's just that kind of guy.

So it was with some sadness that I read Mike's latest:

Michael Moore: Then Kucinich, but he doesn’t go far enough. He supports what he’s calling a single- payer nonprofit plan, but from my read, it would still allow [private] entities to control things, as opposed to the government. What’s wrong with the government? The right wing and the G.O.P. have done a wonderful job brainwashing people that government doesn’t work, and then, as Al Franken says, they get elected and proceed to prove the point.

Mike, as I like to call him, should be given a wet willy for thinking "government good," especially in light of his role as a free wheeling capitalist.

Awhile back, I read Larry Niven's book A World out of Time. The story takes place in Niven's THE STATE timeline. By 2190, THE STATE has expanded across the world creating some sort of gray harmony. Niven describes THE STATE's monopoly on power as being a sort of Water Empire.

By controlling something as fundamental as "water" a state's power becomes overwhelming. Take the Iraq Oil for Food Program. Sure, on the one hand, OFF was a sweet slush fund for petite for global bureaucrats. The flip side was how the entire population of Iraq was pushed onto Saddam's (who's dead now, by the way) "dole." It's hard to revolt when someone, in the power of the state, can simply close the fridge or turn off the faucet. Durante's Ukraine. I suspect that something similar is happening in North Korea. The two to three million that starved to death in NOKO during the nineties? A controlled burn.

As a Sovereign Individual (yes, I do have a flag) I see four or five things I need to do:

1. Defend myself.
2. Shelter myself.
3. Feed myself.
4. Care for myself.
5. Trim my toenails, every couple of months.

Pretty much the bottom rung of Maslow's hierarchy. I do those things, and I can pretty much tell anyone to go pound sand. Now of course, this is total independence. Society is much more interdependent today so, for example, "feed myself" means being handy with the old TPS Reports and less handy with a cross bow.

But the principle remains.

I do those five things, and I maintain a measure of control. If the Sovereign State steps in to "help out," then the Sovereign Individual has to retreat. The more the government does, the more it controls. That's not fringe nuttiness, it's history.

I'm sure Mike, smart man that he is, knows that fact. And it's probably his (unstated) point. As for me, I'd like the government to do a little less, in principle, and no harm, in practice.

At the end of the day, I'd love to make some Michael Moore Cash. I don't need no stinkin' government standing in my way.

Come on, Mike, give over!! I've got a permit pending to start an open face coal mine in Yellowstone Park.