Burczak on Legal Remedies for Poverty

Hayek believed that law would protect the poor, but Burczak martials evidence to illustrate that many believe that that is not the case.

Without the millions he spent, OJ would probably have been found guilty the first time.

His ingenious lawyers put the city of Los Angeles on trial, and OJ remained outside of prison until he did another violent crime, and this time he didn't walk.

Joran van der Sloot also walked from the Natalie Holloway murder, and it was only a few murders later that he was finally caught. Money talks, and rich thugs walk.

But are the poor innocent? Should we have empathy for the thugs who have four children and then abandon them, and never pay their child support? Should thugs be able to throw their responsibilities on the polity, and the polity create equalization?

Hayek would say no. Burczak would, I think, say yes. Get this sentence:

"The preceding discussion shows, first, that we may not with confidence accept that a common law system produces a neutral set of rules and, second, that the market process may be systematically biased against the interests of the asset poor" (78).

Poverty is correlated with fatherlessness and with single-parent households.

To leave small children should be considered a crime. If you're not responsible for them, you should die.

But since the laws are so permissive on this front since the 1500s, we have now arrived at a point where the polity steps in to try to create a parity for the abandoned wife and tots.

Burczak writes that notions of equality underwrite all notions of justice.

"As [Amartya] Sen notes, all theories of justice call for the equal (or impartial) treatment of people in some conceptual realm. The claim that people are equal in some way is used to defend the justice of circumstances. For instance, in his defense of a market economy, Hayek appeals to the formal equality of all people under a legal regime that adheres to the rule of law" (72-73).

If equality, as we have long suspected, is in fact the key term in any debate on justice (Lincoln's G-Address), then we have to ask if it is fair that some pick up the tab for abandoned children while others (who created them, and should therefore be responsible for them) walk.

Therefore, those who have children and abandon them should die.

This is only fair, because if they have abandoned their responsibilities they are outside the notion of common laws, and should therefore be killed. That much seems obvious. (Ok, for a long time I was an anomian surrealist, and now that I have brought the law back in I may be a bit primitive in terms of its application, but I'm having a bit of fun here by introducing draconian rules that are probably vaguely out of line with the notion of proportion. Still, something should be DONE to the men who have kids and run off with other women or even in some cases (the Episcopalian Bishop) with other men.)

Any man who has a child and abandons it should die.

If this was the case then the risk a woman is running in a sexual encounter would be EQUALLED by the risk a man was running.

And then there would be parity between them.

Meanwhile, we wouldn't have so many abandoned children. As it is, the laws enable men to leave their children.

What about men who screw around, like Edwards, or Tiger? They, too, should die.

Because they have broken what was meant to be a symmetical relationship based on equality.

If equality is the norm, then anyone who goes against it, should die.

Anyone who holds another person as a slave, should die.

Burczak believes the state should remedy situations of inequality through disbursements of funds that make up for the asset-poor.

I believe that the reason that people are asset-poor is that they come from broken families. Fix the broken families, and you won't have all these asset-poor children running about breaking windows and creating mayhem, scribbling mean words on walls, and acting like they never had a dad to teach them how to behave.

Surrealism was anomian. Lutheranism was an attempt to change the tyrannical church which was unfairly charging people for indulgences, and allowing people to use their income to feed, clothe, and educate their children. The Catholic church became a monstrosity that no longer served its population, or prayed with them, but rather, in all too many cases, preyed on them.

We must have laws that support equality of opportunity, and support families that remain together, and that create the best possible conditions for children. we need churches to do the same.

If you want to ask me what should be done with South America, including Mexico, the answer is simple. Disband the Catholic church, and have everyone turn Lutheran. Overnight, those countries would become beacons of sanity and prosperity, like Lutheran Scandinavia.

If the whole world were to turn Lutheran, there would still be problems, but they would be on the order of -- where did I leave my keys? Rather than, I'm starving.

We might as well face the fact that the problems around the world have entirely to do with inadequate religions. Animism in sub-Saharan Africa or in Haiti is a disaster. Catholicism is a disaster. Islam which relegates half of its population to illiteracy is a disaster. Hinduism which relegates most of its population to lower caste systems, and then allows only one small percentile an artificially inflated place is obviously responsible for the poverty of India. The one functioning area of India is Kerala. No big surprise: there is a large minority of Protestants there. Communism is wrong both in its description of the world's problems and in its prescription (kill the few functioning entrepreneurs and replace them with party boneheads).

I don't know why Burczak is busy reinventing a functioning politics. Shouldn't intelligent people just look at Lutheran Scandinavia and figure a few things out based on an already functional model?

As for the Middle East, the solution is obvious. The Palestinians should drop their religion and become Jewish. This would solve all their immediate problems. However, Judaism is elitist and won't let just anyone join them. This means that they have a problem with their numbers and will always be a tiny minority.

If they were all to become Lutherans, they would no longer have the problems they have. Everybody would be functional.

Even better would be if everyone would become a Lutheran Surrealist. Then at least I would have a few people to read my blog.