Category Archives: Quotes

What is Greed?

I have been been inundated by hits as a result of an Internet search to “Greed”.  This is what I posted about the word some time ago:

Awhile ago, Neil Boortz offered a challenge to his listeners; Define Greed.

See, Boortz is a Libertarian [good on him!] and the general feeling amongst Libertarians is that greed is used as a descriptor to generalize capitalists.  That is; Capitalists are “greedy”.

I agree with Boortz’s general assertion; Capitalists are NOT all greedy.  And more specifically, capitalism is not necessarily greedy.

However, that doesn’t change the point of the definition of the word “Greed”.

Let me take my shot at the definition:

GREED:  That condition, wherein an individual or organization, willfully attempts to accumulate more of a “thing”, be it money, power or prestige, by restricting the Rights and Liberties of another individual or organization.

Greed is meant to be a negative word.  And that’s fine.

What is wrong is when it is applied to capitalism indiscriminately.

Here is what the master has to say about Greed:

Declaration of Independence

The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Greed

Awhile ago, Neil Boortz offered a challenge to his listeners; Define Greed.

See, Boortz is a Libertarian [good on him!] and the general feeling amongst Libertarians is that greed is used as a descriptor to generalize capitalists.  That is; Capitalists are “greedy”.

Continue reading

4000 Today

We were stuck on 3999 for most of the morning.  Imagine my surprise to see 4000 after the kids went to bed.

48 days this time ’round.

Whoo whoo

Best. Month. Ever.

With March ending, I am happy to report that tarheelred had it’s best month ever; not even close.

We had 632 hits this month, the previous best was 406 in November 2009.

I wanna thank my mom and the other 2 people who stop by 😉

A Prayer

My father died of cancer one year ago this weekend.  He was diagnosed with a brain tumor on February 24, 2007.  He beat his cancer the very next day, February 25, 2007.

Continue reading

3000 Today

It took 10 months to hit 1000.
It took 90 more days to hit the next grand.
This time, it took only 80 days to get to 3000.

I’m still pickled tink that anyone except mom reads this.

2000 Today

I posted this on October 16th, 2009:

This started in early January 2009.  It’s taken me 10 months to hit 1000 views; most of ‘em are my mom.

Here’s to the next thousand.

The first  grand took me 10 months, this one only 2.75.  My mom continues to hit F5.  Thanks mom.

Here’s to the next thousand.

Quote of the Day

From The New Yorker discussing John Mackey:

In the early eighties, Mackey told a reporter, “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.”

(That quote, to Mackey’s dismay, won’t go away, either.) His disdain for contemporary unionism is ideological, as well as self-serving. Like many who have come before, he says that it was only when he started a business—when he had to meet payroll and deal with government red tape—that his political and economic views, fed on readings of Friedman, Rand, and the Austrians, veered to the right.

If it were up to me, we should force EVERY American to meet payroll and deal with government red tape.

Hat Tip: Carpie Diem

What NOT to Teach Your Children

When raising children, I find that explain “mine” and “yours” is critical.  It becomes a point of strength when trying to instill charity, compassion and respect later on.  After all, you are unable to GIVE something that isn’t YOURS to begin with.

However, like many things in life, what we teach our kids are things that we don’t expect our government to live by:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The attorney general for Washington D.C. has filed a lawsuit against an AT&T Inc unit, seeking to recover consumers’ unused balances on prepaid calling cards.

The suit claims that AT&T should turn over unused balances on the calling cards of consumers whose last known address was in Washington, D.C. and have not used the calling card for three years.

“AT&T’s prepaid calling cards must be treated as unclaimed property under district law,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement.

So, I buy something from someone, choose not to use it.  Or lose it.  And the selling party has to give the money back to me the government?

How do you even begin to explain that to your kids?