Some Links

I want to share a review of FPF Training with you. This was written by a Virginia blogger who recently took a class with John. Unfortunately, I was not scheduled to work, so I missed seeing him. I actually thought about popping down on Sunday, but decided it would just be a distraction. Reading his review made me wish I would have. David took a course from FPF Training a few years back before I knew him or John. As I have said before John has a very high rate of return customers and there is a reason. He offers high quality training based on real world scenarios and he does it in colorful fashion.

This morning I was reading an article that I wish I hadn’t. It’s old and there really isn’t anything new in terms of understanding how the left thinks, but the way this guy twists information is quite impressive, if you know, it wasn’t so disgusting and dangerous. The author’s point is basically the standard idea that people can not control themselves and not only need government to intercede on their behalf, but that we actually want them to. It is long and the real gem doesn’t come until the 3rd page, but here is a taste…

“The natural extension of this type of self-binding is what the economist Richard Thaler and the legal scholar Cass Sunstein describe as “libertarian paternalism”—a movement to engineer situations so that people retain their choices (the libertarian part), but in such a way that these choices are biased to favor people’s better selves (the paternalism part). For instance, many people fail to save enough money for the future; they find it too confusing or onerous to choose a retirement plan. Thaler and Sunstein suggest that the default be switched so that employees would automatically be enrolled in a savings plan, and would have to take action to opt out. A second example concerns the process of organ donation. When asked, most Americans say that they would wish to donate their organs if they were to become brain-dead from an accident—but only about half actually have their driver’s license marked for donation, or carry an organ-donor card. Thaler and Sunstein have discussed a different idea: people could easily opt out of being a donor, but if they do nothing, they are assumed to consent. Such proposals are not merely academic musings; they are starting to influence law and policy, and might do so increasingly in the future. Both Thaler and Sunstein act as advisers to politicians and policy makers, most notably Barack Obama.”

No, no, no, NO!

On that note if you, like me, feel better taking care of yourself and your making your own choices and you think maybe having some guns around might be useful go read this and then go here to find out how to get your own.

5 thoughts on “Some Links

  1. So…basically….he says that all people are not to be trusted making decisions, but that the .gov should make them for us. Isn’t the .gov run by “people”? So….by his own logic, they’re not to be trusted making decisions, but they’re to be trusted making decisions for everyone else?

    And as for paying into a mandatory retirement fund…yeah, been doing that. Little thing called “Social Security”. And that’s worked out so well, hasn’t it? I’m not stashing my hard-earned and over-taxed paychecks in an account run by the .gov (who has such a stellar record handling money….my debts are NOTHING compared to those racked up by the .gov) which every politician in DC looks at as his/her own personal piggybank. If the .gov can’t manage their own money, they’re certainly not going to manage mine.

    Sorry. I’ll make my own dam decisions, thank you very much.

  2. This is an interesting topic to me, because I’ve read a lot of stuff about cognitive biases and the long and short of it is, people often DO make irrational choices, and they often find ways after the fact to – unconsciously and without even being aware of it – rationalize those irrational choices in their own minds. The books “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely and “You Are Not So Smart” by David McRaney are good (and eye-opening) tours of the ways in which our human minds lead us astray. (In particular, I HIGHLY recommend that people read the second book I mentioned.)

    That said, it is abundantly clear that surrendering our decision-making to the .gov is no solution at all, because politicians and bureaucratic workers are no more immune to these cognitive biases than the rest of us. Relinquishing control to the .gov is choosing to make our lives subject to the traps of their cognitive biases rather than our own, that’s all. Rather, the solution is to educate ourselves, become aware of the pitfalls our minds can fall into, and learn how to make better decisions in spite of them.

    The solution to people behaving irrationally and irresponsibly isn’t to abdicate control over our lives and our decision. Rather, as with the responsibility to safeguard our safety and the safety of our loved ones, the solution is education, training, practice, and relentlessly embracing the responsibility to care for our own best interests.

  3. It is disgusting to me how the left wants to treat a free citizen of the US. It seems we are not to be trusted with our own lives.

    One of my favorite quotes is from Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, the woman whose parents were murdered in a Luby’s cafeteria in Texas and was unable to protect herself or her parents because of Texas law at that time prohibited anyone from having a gun with them for self defense. She later championed the effort for Texas concealed carry as a State Representative. She said:

    “How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual… as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.”

  4. Thanks for the shout out. I was ready to go back after the first class, it just took some time to get around to it.

    Cheers.

Comments are closed.