The old school Italian mafia as portrayed in The Godfather movies had some admirable attributes, among them its rule of omerta – or silence. If you were in the mafia, you did not talk about the mafia with those who were not in the mafia. And if you were not in the mafia, you knew little about its doings, for precisely that reason. It was la cosa nostra – “this thing of ours.” A code. It probably accounts in part for the popularity of movies like The Godfather. The don was a crook but in his own way, an honorable one.
The insurance mafia is less admirable.
For one thing, it pretends it isn’t a mafia. This is cowardly in addition to being dishonest. “Made men” knew they were gangsters; they were proud of it. It was an honor, among them, to be “made” – the mafia term for someone who was inducted into the organization, with all the rights and privileges, etc. People pretend they work for the insurance mafia; that they are earning an honest living. But this is effronterous on the face of it as no one who uses force to compel people to furnish funds earns what is taken. No self-respecting made man would have the gall – or the lack of stones – to pretend he was just earning a living, like a plumber or electrician. He became a made man precisely to avoid having to work for a living.
But the main point of difference, arguably, is that the old school mafia did its own work – so to speak. It did not rely, simp-like, on the government to do its work – as the insurance mafia does. The various families – e.g., Progressive, State Farm, GEICO – use the dreary bureaucratic apparatus of the state to compel, by law, the people they mulct to hand over money for services they do not want to pay for and which – by dint of being able to leverage the legal apparatus of the government – they are able to force people to pay more for.
How much would you pay to “cover” your vehicle if you knew you were not required to pay anything?
Some people would, of course, pay something.
For the same reason people pay for other things they consider valuable. But only up to a point, beyond which the value exceeds the cost. At which point – if we are not talking about a mafia – the person is free to say no, thanks to whatever the thing is. And the power of that no, thanks is precisely what keeps the cost of things in line with the value of things – as determined by those who buy them.
That is how the market – as opposed to the mafia – works.
Insurance does have value. But being able to say no, thanks is far more valuable. If you cannot say it, then you are dealing with a mafia. The insurance mafia is merely one that has made its activities legal. This is stupendously effronterous. The old school dons were never so brazen.
This is what makes the insurance mafia so despicable. Honest mobsters had to have some balls, for they ran the risk of being arrested and imprisoned – possibly for many years – if they were apprehended by the law. The insurance mafia has succeeded in using the law to persecute the people who attempt to evade its clutches.
The other day, I received in the mail a letter from the DMV – which serves as the enforcement apparatus acting on behalf of the insurance mafia. It concerned my decision to not renew the “coverage” the law says I must buy that I decided not to, for one of my very old motorcycles, a 1975 Kawasaki (Little Stinker) that I look at more than I ride. I did renew the coverage for my other three bikes, all “covered” by the same family – Markel American.
I explained to the Markel soldier that I don’t ride the old Kaw and for that reason did not want to pay for “coverage” this year (to save some money back, in order to make up some for the devaluation of the money I still have available to buy things I need, like food, as opposed to things I do not, such as “coverage” for a bike that just sits).
The soldier – the family – did not practice omerta.
Within weeks, I received the DMV threat letter: “This notice,” it reads, “is to inform you that MARKEL AMERICAN INS. CO” -all raised voice caps and bold type ” has notified DMV of the termination of liability insurance for the registered vehicle described above.”
Italics added.
In plain language, the mafia immediately squealed – to the government – to let its proxy enforcer know that I had failed to buy what the law says I must. “Failure to comply,” the threat letter continues, ” will require DMV to suspend your driver’s license and vehicle license plates.”
In italics for the same reason I would italicize the line of dialogue in the movie, Deliverance spoken by John Voight. “What is it you require of us?” he asked the mountain man holding the shotgun on him.
Those who have seen the movie know what happens next.
But John Voight – and Ned Beatty – had the law on their side, at least in principle. The tables are turned when dealing with the insurance mafia, which hasn’t got the balls to actually hold a shotgun on anyone.
Instead, it notifies the government.
Which then threatens, on behalf of the mafia – like a simp “telling” teacher. No self-respecting mafiaso – old school – would ever do such a thing. Real mafiasos are men – who do their own dirty work – and do not pretend it isn’t.
Such is the difference between the old school mafia and its car insurance analog.
. . .
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I used to believe in libertarianism, now in part, I see the fruits of it. Same as conservatism, why pray tell are any of them conserving st this point? Pride month, grooming, pedo hour is a prime example of where live and let live took us. Insurance and taxes just arrived ahead of this. We maybe short a lot of ropes and wood chippers.
Hi Bob,
Libertarians offer a way out – but it requires a change of heart (and mind). We – those of us who are libertarians – try to persuade people to leave other people alone and so receive the same generous treatment in kind. We hold that no one owns anyone else, to any degree – and for that reason, no owes anyone else a thing beyond respecting their right to be let alone. We say no one is responsible for harms they did not cause – but that those who cause harm ought to be held responsible for the harms they cause. We favor working together rather than being forced to work together. We prefer to agree to disagree when we cannot agree – and leave it at that.
These seem to me to be good things to believe in!
I’m so tired of the insurance racket. Want to really get mad? Look at the amount charged for “insurance” on any sort of home loan. Wait, I thought I was paying for a homeowner’s policy already?
I don’t understand. Are you talking about the escrow amount added to principal & interest on your monthly payment? If so, that is an estimate that has to be adjusted from time to time to cover taxes and insurance. It is not an additional charge.
Hi Roland, never mind. Was confusing the regular policy with State Farm with some mortgage info, we’re not paying PMI.
Ah yes, the dreaded PMI. It’s been so long since I had a mortgage I forgot about that one. I always thought that was a ripoff. Generally, the party that has the risk pays for the insurance. So if the mortgage company is at risk of your not paying them, seems to me they should pay for that coverage if they want it. But of course they’d get it from the borrower one way or another.
Hi Donald,
Amen!
It strikes me as inarguable that the average person is broke – or treading water – to a great extent because he is “covered.” Add up car insurance, health insurance, home insurance and life insurance and my guess is the average person is bleeding at least $1,000-$1,500 per month to be “covered.” That comes to $12k-$18k per annum, out of post-tax income. If the average person is earning say $40k pre-tax, the “coverage” is costing him a fourth to a third of his post-tax income. He has still not paid is rent/mortgage, basic bills (utilities, food, gas, etc.) which leaves him very little money to pay for anything else – or to save it.
“Coverage” especially finance fucks the young. A healthy 25-year-old needs health insurance like a 70-year-old needs maternity coverage. Yet these kids are forced to pay hundreds each month to be “covered.” Then again to be “covered” for car insurance.
When I was 25, I was able to save money – because I was not forced to buy health “coverage” (and could evade it, when it came to car “coverage”). I was able to buy my first home in my 20s – and own a paid-for home before I turned 40. I attribute this, to a great extent, to not having had to waste so much money on government-enforced “coverage.”
I was unable to reply in thread probably because the software limits replies.
So here is a new one!
“eric June 23, 2023 At 10:48 am
Cashy,
If it is “high horse” to oppose theft, then I am guilty as charged. If it is “high horse” to advocate leaving people alone, then ditto.
You say this is “utopian.” And yet, it was real – for many years after the founding of this country. Ordinary people had literally no dealings with the government worth mentioning.
That was the “real world,” once. It was a very different world from the collectivist authoritarian nightmare you espouse, in which people are serially mulcted by the government and are free to do as they are told.”
Okay I got you to libertarian #4. That usually happens when an honest discussion is entered into.
Look, post Constitutional US was great compared to today. But it is a different world. And that world had its problems too. There was Shay’s rebellion, and the Whiskey Rebellion (George Washington called up the milita) that was all about taxes. These were battles, where people died.
So the lesson learned is that there is going to have to be some taxation. You may not like it, you may be morally opposed to it, but it’s going to happen. The discussion should be where to draw the line. Not utopian absolutism.
You keep trying to paint me as pro-government, pro-taxation because I’m discussing where to draw the line. That’s ridiculous. How are we going to have a discussion about issues if any deviation from the “taxation is theft” point of view brings a chorus of ridicule about statism, collectivism, fascism?
Cashy,
Taxation is bad enough. But being mulcted for the benefit – for the profit – of a private business that uses the government to enrich itself by using the threat of government punishment if one does not “pay up” is beyond insufferable.
You might argue I derive some benefit from government in terms of things such as national defense (leaving aside that probably 90 percent of what we’re being forced to subsidize has nothing to do with national defense). But I derive no benefit from the insurance mafia. I lose money – thousands of dollars – for “services” that I do not want and that are of no (zero) benefit to me.
You say “there is going to have to be some taxation.” Why? Because there are evil, immoral people who believe it is ok to take what is not theirs, using force or its threat.
You’re not forced to pay auto insurance.
You could opt not to. Or move to New Hampshire.
Or buy some property, build a road and drive on it however you want.
But if you want to drive on someone else’s roads you have to follow their rules. What could be more libertarian?
Cashy says:
“You’re not forced to pay auto insurance.”
Yeah. And the store owner who gets a visit from a mafia thug isn’t forced to pay for “protection,” either.
And “someone else’s roads”? Who might that be? I pay for the goddamned roads, via the motor fuels excise taxes I pay each time I fill up.
You continue to refuse to deal with the core point, this business of private businesses using the government to force people to buy their services.
…and by ‘Rules’ you mean an opinion backed by a gun?
Wouldn’t you back up the rules on your property with a gun if necessary?
Cashy,
“Wouldn’t you back up the rules on your property with a gun if necessary?”
Do you really see an equivalence?
Private property is not the public right of way. No one is under any pressure to come onto my property. Everyone is under inescapable pressure to use the public right of way. If you are so timorously risk-averse, maybe you ought to stay home.
“there is going to have to be some taxation.”
There does not HAVE to be taxation, there just WILL be taxation, as long as there is a gang of Psychopaths In Charge who are perfectly willing to kill you if you don’t pay it. 1913, The year of the end. All of Cashy’s arguments are based on the assumption there MUST be a gang of psychopaths in charge. What for, so we can make war on other gangs of psychopaths in charge? That’s about the only thing government does better than private enterprise. As I’ve often said, the only thing government is really, really good at is killing people, and they are quite good at it.
“So the lesson learned is that there is going to have to be some taxation. You may not like it, you may be morally opposed to it, but it’s going to happen. The discussion should be where to draw the line. Not utopian absolutism.”
As a matter of fact, I don’t like it. One bit. A tax system that relies on pure coercion as this one does, needs to be thrown in a woodpile and burned. There is a difference between collecting the misnamed “gas tax” to build roads and things of value and forcing people to “file” taxes based on their “income” under the penalty of perjury. Or collecting a never ending tribute for the “privilege” of owning house and land. Individuals should never be faced witht he prospect of losing their house through an illegitimate government levy.
People should also not be forced to buy a product or service either. If Obamacare was wrong, so is forcing people to buy car insurance, which operates on the same principle. Pay or get penalized when you’re ratted out by your employer or by your insurance company.
Nothing I have mentioned is “utopian absolutism” either. In this so called utopia, we have the trappings of a legal system, run by the courtroom judges. If someone did not provide financial reponsibility, they would be forced to pay in other ways, That’s where a property lein or some other method woud be useful.
Everything you mentioned is “utopian”.
Things have to be paid for. The roads have to be maintained, garbage picked up, laws enforced. You don’t like paying, no one does, but at least most people understand it’s necessary. They don’t talk like they’re Daniel Boone out on the frontier taking care of everything themselves.
Property taxes pay for local services, if they are expensive move somewhere where it’s cheaper. The world’s a big place I’m sure there are plenty of places that have figured out how to provide the needs of civilization without paying for it.
Cashy says:
“Things have to be paid for.” What an arrogant – and subjective statement! You think a “thing” has to be paid for – and you expect others to pay for it.
“Laws have to be enforced.” Says who? What makes enforcing laws right? Was it right of the Gestapo or the NKVD to enforce the law?
And then, this:
“Property taxes pay for local services, if they are expensive move somewhere where it’s cheaper. ”
Despicable. How much of someone else’s money do you believe you’re “owed”?
“Local services” indeed. You mean the local government school apparat – the very one that is sexualizing kids while also enstupidating them. Other people’s kids – who are the responsibility of those other people. Not my obligation to pay for their “education.” Nor for the enforcers of laws.
I am willing to bet you are a government “worker” of some kind. Or you “work” in some field that depends on government or uses government to force people to pay you. Like insurance.
Are you brave enough to tell us what you do for a living?
Yes “things have to be paid for” the roads don’t maintain themselves. I don’t believe I’m owed anything (I don’t know where you got that from?) the cost is shared amongst (almost) all the citizens.
I do not believe that schools should be run by the government. pay for your own damn kids schooling.
I do not work in government. I’m Flo’s boyfriend, I scan the internet for pictures of her and when I saw your article…, now if that doesn’t turn you on nothing will!
Cashy,
Asserting that “things have to be paid for” is just your personal opinion; one you want enforced by the government – to benefit you.
Observe the fact that if people want “things” – as you put it – they willingly pay for them. It is only “things” they do not want that people like you insist they must pay for.
You say you ” do not believe that schools should be run by the government. pay for your own damn kids schooling.”
And yet, the bulk of the property taxes we’re forced to pay go to pay for exactly that. Also “law enforcement,” which I have already pointed out is a double outrage in that you are forced to pay the salaries of the thugs who force you to pay their salaries.
You then use (bad) humor to evade telling us what you do for a living. This tells me you are indeed a government “worker” of one type or another. This would include “working” for the insurance mafia.
If I am wrong about that, please correct me.
Bro, I’m an Electrical Engineer for a private company. I have never worked for the government, no wait, as a kid I worked for the city of Ann Arbor for a few months.
But I was a hard assed libertarian like you for a long time. Privatize the Roads! (it could be done with scanners and barcodes on your car).
I still support the cause but feel there have to be some trade-offs. I was curious how much of an absolutist you were, now I know.
I am just disappointed that you aren’t Jon Hamm. 😉
Cashy, just some advice from a chick who has been down the same path that you are heading. I thought I was a libertarian for the last 30 years. Once I found this site I became an Independent. It is easier than arguing what is a conservative, moderate, anarchist, liberal, liberal minarchist, right wing minarchist, neo-con, etc.
Come on, now. It might be “easy” to say but there is no philosophy of “independent.” Just another bunch of ad hoc “I know best-isms.” BTW, saying you’re “independent” doesn’t make you “above the fray”, either.
I doubt you thought you were a libertarian for the last 27 years. You definitely did not think you were for the last 3, during which you definitively stated you weren’t right here in these comment sections. Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Why do you like twisting my words, FunkHatt?
There isn’t some magical hidden meaning in my words that only you can decipher.
I never indicated that I am above the fray or know “best.” My point is not a “gotcha” just some advice to a new poster.
I do stand by the fact that I believed my views were very libertarian for decades. Hell, Reagan used to be a Democrat. Parties and views do change. My views no longer correspond to that. There is not a party out there that I agree 100% with it so I am sticking with my Independent stance.
FYI I remember Pepperidge Farm, too, before they made horrible, bioengineered, cookies that taste like sawdust.
Have a happy weekend!
Party? What does that have to do with libertarian doctrine? Nothing. How would you have even known before visiting this site that your views were very “libertarian.” Citations, please. Reagan? Haha. Good one. My point was that saying “independent” means nothing, other than “I know my ad hoc beliefs are best”, because there is no “independent” doctrine. You’re basically Casey, even though you think you’re not. Of course, as usual, you don’t have any legitimate rebuttal, you just get huffy.
I have no idea who Casey is nor do I care.
The only one huffy is you. I am sitting here with a hard cider eating pepper jack pimento dip and tortilla chips (organic, of course). I have no reason to be angry. Not even when some guy on a computer is demanding what my credentials are to declare if I was really libertarian.
Would you like me to send you my enrollment to the Libertarian Reform Party at 19 years of age? How about my college essay at 17 that detailed the horrors of a vast military complex and why Social Security and Medicare were unjust forms of taxation? How about the homeschooling of my children because I felt the government could not, nor should not, provide them the education that my husband and I would? How about becoming an accountant because I hate taxes that much? How about the few dollars that I donate to sites like this one so people will realize there are other voices out there than the two party system?
I would state I am waiting with bated breath on how none of these fit with “your” idea of what I should be or what I can call myself, but I am not.
Now, I just want another cider.
Again, no specific or legitimate rebuttal. Just “tell me something about my whack ass beliefs.” Which was already done about a number of them, including your fake “hatred” of taxes and your fugazy “independent”doctrine.
Belief – a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed on some person or thing.
A fake hatred of taxes (your opinion on how I think) and my “fuzzy” Independent stance are not beliefs.
You do not want to debate, but rather just insult.
Tell me FunkHatt, what do you hope to achieve by coming after me time after time? Do you want to change my mind? Or do you hope if you are nasty enough I will just leave?
Don’t worry I don’t think I am special in your contempt. I have seen you go after others. Never with advice though, just name calling.
Would you prefer a redundant, monotone site that everyone must be in agreement at all times or called out as “liberals”, “trolls”, or “government insiders”?
How boring. To each his own.
When you actually want to debate a topic let me know.
Sweet dreams.
Casey = Cashy in spell check on this site. Try it. Link me to the “libertarian” reform party of VA. Please. Your college blue book essay, Word doc or pdf, too. Without gov’t taxes, you wouldn’t have a job. Spare me your phony “hate” of taxes. Good on ya for homeschooling but Leftists homeschool, too, because gov’t school isn’t leftist enough. Doesn’t mean you know squat about libertarian doctrine.
You think your donated gov’t lackey Escalade money here makes your whack ass ad hoc beliefs untouchable? Maybe so. Maybe not. IDGAF.
Oh, Great Libertarian Messiah,
Please tell what are my “whack ass ad hoc beliefs”? I would to love to know!
Wait, wait. I need another cider. Give me five minutes. I need to be really buzzed before I read your reply.
Yes I don’t like labels much, they mean different things to different people. It seems on this site anyone left of Ayn Rand is in for some abuse by the hive mind here.
A “hive”? Because we are principled and identify things properly?
And you still haven’t explained why it’s acceptable for a private, for-profit mafia to use the government to force people to pay the mafia money. Has it ever occurred to you that the reason the health insurance and pharma mafias have been able to force people to pay them money using the same tactics used and pioneered by the car insurance mafia is that the car insurance mafia established the precedent?
Things have got to be paid for! says Cashy.
The commons! says Cashy
Do you like “helping” to pay for the endless, nauseating commercials for the various families’ “services”? They’re so “heavily regulated” – as you put it – they can afford to spend endless millions on advertising. Just like the pharma mafia, which now owns the majority of the media.
Ok, Cashy –
I’m glad to know you’re not one of those who takes their living. I understand trade-offs. That is not the issue at hand. Which is this business of private (and for-profit) businesses using the government to enrich themselves.
I’m also interested in your response, if any, to the point made about liability – i.e., that it is a fact of law that if you cause harm to the person or property of another, you can be (and will be) held liable, civilly and (depending on the circumstances) criminally. So why this business about forcing people to buy “coverage” – especially since they have not and may never cause any harm?
I sort of answered it in the reply to RG below. In law you can require that someone prove they can cover the costs of any tort damages, before being allowed on your property. Similar to a rental car company wanting proof of insurance before renting.
The potential cost of an accident on the roads can be excessive. I know a guy that received a closed head injury in a motorcycle accident. Someone’s going to have to feed and dress this guy for the rest of his life. Very few people have the assets to cover that kind of expense. His insurance is covering it.
The “people” as essentially the “owners” of the road are requiring it to avoid having to be responsible for those kinds of costs. It does seem different as they are the “government” and have a road monopoly, but as a matter of law there is some logic in treating this as you would a private entity.
None of that refutes your point that the ability of insurance companies to lobby, actually control legislators, is against everything a free people stand for but that is to me an issue of poor government not so much of whether requiring auto insurance is moral or not.
As one of the owners of I-95 between D.C. and Baltimore, I want to sell my part. I don’t plan on using it and would rather have the cash. Please instruct me on how to do that.
“whether requiring auto insurance is moral or not.”
Well, excepting the fact that the state requiring something involves the state’s “authority” to kill you if you disobey. Sort of disposes of the “moral” question.
Cashy is simply a retard. Good luck bud.
Hi Alfred,
Cashy isn’t stupid in the low IQ sense. But he seems to be one of those people who cannot reason conceptually. His situational/arbitrary way of arguing is very common. Government schools create such mentalities. A child who does not learn to reason has not learned to think and I submit that is Cashy’s problem.
He suffers from “We are the government” syndrome. If I were the government, I wouldn’t be taxing myself for stupid things that I don’t want.
“They don’t talk like they’re Daniel Boone out on the frontier taking care of everything themselves.”
You are conflating libertarians with hermits. As I have argued many times in the EP comments, self-sufficiency is a recipe for poverty and misery. Nobody understands better than economics-savvy libertarians how much we need other people.
Have you not heard of the voluntary division of labor? When consumers want something, there will be entrepreneurs willing to provide it in pursuit of profit. This can be true even when there is massive government interference. Look at the history of alcohol and drug prohibition.
There is nothing utopian about this. Nobody is arguing that a society in which all exchanges are voluntary will be perfect. Nobody.
Indeed Roland, there is no doubt among anarcho-capitalist libertarians that it would NOT result in utopia. Which is possibly the greatest difference between them and Democrats, Republicans, and the Libertarian party. They all think they are just one election away from utopia.
Yep. It’s one of those fourth-grade civics class fairy tales not to be questioned: People are all dirty rotten scoundrels who will lie and cheat and steal, therefore we should give some of said scoundrels the power to boss everybody else around. It will be great, because democracy.
Hi Cashy.
Certainly “things need to be paid for”. But by whom and in what context? Everything that the Gangs (Government is simply a large organized gang of thieves and murderers) provide could be and should be provided by private free enterprise capitalism. This has been so extensively written about that anyone unaware of it, is either willfully ignorant, a statist ideologue or seriously lazy. But for the benefit of those in the audience who are interested, This is a good start.
https://mises.org/wire/walter-block-privatization-roads
The same applies to every other “service” that the Gangs attempt to supply. Up to and including national defense. Type in the “myth of national defense”at mises for more links on that. Just as one can have rules without Rulers, one can have goods and services without coercion. As Eric said, at least the Mafia knows who and what they are. They don’t cloak themselves in illusions and delusions, in order to continue their fleecing of entire populations for generations.
Question: “but if not government, who will build the roads?”
Answer: “the same people, only better and cheaper.”
The one and only thing government excels at is killing people. The rest they just clusterfuck along, taking their cut, while threatening your life if you don’t go along. FedGov is 32 trillion in debt. Since it has demonstrated it is perfectly willing to borrow whatever it pleases to finance whatever it pleases, why does it collect taxes at all? So it can hold a gun to people’s heads and force them to buy product from their donors?
Hey Cashy
I am the regular heckler here, and I liked this article.
When people are forced to buy insurance, there is no real competition, and prices are higher as a result. That is not a free market.
Yeah sorry to steal the spotlight and get to soak up all the hate usually directed at you.
Maybe we can form a club with that clover guy.
To your comment yes auto insurance is not a free market but it’s heavily regulated. In my state they were forced to send checks to people to compensate them for the covid year when people drove so much less.
My point still stands. The “people” own the roads, and to indemnify themselves against the high cost of people hurt in accidents. they require all users to prove they are insured (you can go to any of a large number of companies).
This is a standard practice to protect oneself against torts and is something any owner in this situation would do.
It seems different because it’s the government but it’s the same as if a private business required it for access to their property. If you violated that requirement for a private business you would be breaking the law too, and the police would get involved in the same manner.
The big difference is of course that there is usually only one road system and you have no choice. That’s the tragedy of the commons and why governments are instituted amongst men.
Hi Cashy
Governments are instituted because that is
one of the most effective routes to wealth and power. One need only look back to the origins of government to know that. Start with the early warlords. They evolved into barons, kings, emperors. They ruled by the “ivine right of kings” But times change, so now we have the Sainted “democratic/representational” systems. Two rules define those. Rule one; “I don’t care who does the voting, as long as I do the nominating”. Rule two; “Those who cast the votes determine nothing. Those who count the votes determine everything.” We’ve seen countless examples of just that, over the last few years.
Only popular perceptions have changed since the times of the warlords. The basic foundations of their daily operations remain the same. Threats, coercion and violence.
The current system is supposed to be a “Government of by and for the people”. They just don’t tell you which people. Hint, its not the people in fly over country. Look at who owns the banking systems and central banks for who those people actually are. Anyone interested in such matters should read a book called The creature from jekyll island by G Edward Griffin. A little history of the fed and its antics can be found here.
https://mises.org/library/birth-monster
The invention of “government” was nothing more than a roving marauding band of thieves, rapists, and murderers who figured out it would be easier to just settle down and collect “tribute”.
Reason your comments out a little farther.
How do you get to Mises-land? Voluntary group of people? Where? Once there how do you keep Mises-land safe from other warlords? Volunteer army that equips itself?
Those ideas that you mention are good in theory. But you must realize: they have never been tried before so there is no proof they can work, and there is no plausible way to get there EVER in these United States.
So let’s get back to reality, in a world where the warlords are in charge, is it more moral to coerce the users of a service (roads) to assume the risks of their actions (possible injury or death) or should that risk instead be shared by everybody regardless if they drive or not?
That is the only question. There are no other options. There is not going to be privatization of the roads. State coercion in this matter is not going away. There are no Mises like options available. Stop the libertarian circle jerk and decide which option under the circumstances is more fair.
“Stop the libertarian circle jerk and decide which option under the circumstances is more fair.”
In other words, shut up and pick which flavor of diminished liberty you prefer.
This is Robert Higgs’ “ratchet effect”: The state assumes new powers, and although it might occasionally relinquish some, it always ends up with more than it started with. Up, up, up; never down.
I don’t think any libertarians think they will live to see a voluntaryist USA. But if we can change some hearts and minds, maybe we can at least slow the ratcheting up of state power. After seeing what people have put up with over the past three years, I am not optimistic.
Hi Roland,
Cashew is not someone who can be reasoned with. Viz, “Stop the libertarian circle jerk and decide which option under the circumstances is more fair.”
How can something immoral be “more fair”? Is that like less aggressive rape? Cashew does not say. Instead, Cashew says “things have got to be paid for.” Things Cashew thinks need to be paid for . . . by other people.
Cashew is worried about liability – that people will cause harm and leave others holding the bag. So he favors harming people who haven’t harmed anyone, by forcing them to hand over money to pay for harms they haven’t caused, because they might cause them. He does not say anything about refunding the money when it is clear no harm has been caused.
Cashew worries about “warlords.” So he supports voting them into office and giving them titles – and power. This, says Cashew, will keep us safe from violent warlords.
And they ask me why I drink.
Yeah, he has not replied to me at all. I would like to know exactly what he thinks has caused medical costs to be so high as to constitute a lethal threat to a wreck victim’s finances. Might it be that for many decades, people have accepted that the only choice is between state intervention A and state intervention B?
Yes you are exactly right. Government intervention is the reason for high medical costs.
For example in Haiti which has no regulations the cost of a witch doctor is very cheap as is the “medicine” they supply.
(Just kidding)
Although no amount of free market is going to make long term intensive care cheap which is the main issue with auto accidents.
Cashy,
You state the fact that health insurance costs have gone up because of government intervention – and specifically because government has “mandated” the purchase of “coverage.” And yet, you seem unable to draw the obvious conclusion as regards mandated “coverage” for car insurance.
I’ve not so much as scratched the paint in 30-plus years. Yet I have been forced to pay out thousands of dollars because people like you worry I might – and that if I do, and do not have “coverage,” then you and others will be obliged to “cover” it.
Can you see thew fallacy in your thinking?
The whole thing assumes I can use the government to make you and others “cover” the cost of injuries, damage, etc. I might cause. Well, why the fuck not hold me liable? Even if it means taking everything I have and putting me into an indenture or debtor’s prison?
Is that not infinitely more just that forcing other people – who had nothing to do with what I did – to “cover” it?
Do you have any stats about how many wreck victims require long-term intensive care? I searched a little but couldn’t find anything. I doubt it is a very large number. If it were, ICUs would be full all of the time.
Hi Roland,
I have been trying (my teethe begin to ache) to explain to Cashew that if his “wreck victims” and “cost of long-term care” arguments justify forcing everyone who drives to buy “coverage” then he has also agreed, in principle, to the forcing of people who carry a gun in public to also buy “coverage,” since sometimes people get shot and some of those who get shot end up costing a lot in “long term care” and so on.
This is why people on the right – where Cashew says he resides – lose to the Left. How does one fight an ideology one agrees with?
Yes, Eric. I suppose my question was aimed at the more pragmatic. Cashy seems to think there are large numbers of wreck victims who need literal intensive care for life and whose mangled bodies we’d be stepping over on the way to Walmart if not for a government “solution.” I suspect the number is quite small, and could be accommodated through private means, including charity.
Hi Roland
You are quite right. There are three main reasons for the insane cost of “health care”. One is government intervention (in various forms). Two the insurance and pharma mafia’s. Three the fact that most clinics and hospitals have been taken over by hedge funds and other such, whose only focus is on the bottom line. Put all of those together and the only wonder is that the system has survived this long.
Bro, just answer my question. It’s why I commented in the thread in the first place. I agree with virtually everything you have said. I do not at all disagree with you on the moral, spiritual, or practical aspects of the situation.
But you live in a coercive state. It’s not going to change in our lifetimes if ever. With that as the situation: do you think it is more moral to coerce the users of a service (roads) to assume the risks of their actions (possible injury or death) by the forced purchase of protection (auto insurance) or should that potential liability instead be shared by everybody regardless if they drive or not or have anything to do with the actions?
That’s it! I am not advocating for anything.
I believe from your writing that you would favor some personal responsibility on the individual over all drivers “freeloading” on the system in this scenario (of the only choices being bad ones). Am I correct in that assumption?
Cashy,
You write: “do you think it is more moral to coerce the users of a service (roads) to assume the risks of their actions (possible injury or death) by the forced purchase of protection (auto insurance) or should that potential liability instead be shared by everybody regardless if they drive or not or have anything to do with the actions?”
I’ve already answered this – several times. It is not moral to use force or its threat against people who’ve not caused any harm. Period.
I do not believe in collective guilt. Especially a priori.
“Potential liability” is exactly that. Potential. Not actual. There are remedies in law for holding people liable who cause harm. You hold them liable.
Not everyone else.
What you defend is holding people (everyone) “liable” who’ve not caused any harm. You justify this by asserting that if this is not done, others face “risk.”
That is a dangerous as well as evil thing to advocate. I have explained why. I will, again. If it is acceptable to use force to compel people to indemnify against harms they have not caused but may in this case, then you have agreed in principle to the same being applied in other cases.
A person who carries a gun into public areas might shoot someone. Might inadvertently have an accident. The very same reasoning you use to justify forcing drivers to buy “coverage” can be used to justify requiring anyone who carries a gun (or walks a dog) in public areas to buy similar “coverage.”
If you cannot see that, I cannot help you.
You ask: “I believe from your writing that you would favor some personal responsibility on the individual over all drivers “freeloading” on the system in this scenario (of the only choices being bad ones). Am I correct in that assumption?”
I obviously favor holding anyone who causes harm fully responsible, civilly and criminally (as appropriate). What could be more appropriate – or just?
There is no such thing as “freeloading,” as you put it, when the person in question has simply avoided paying over the money you insist they ought to for “coverage.” That person has not harmed anyone. Ergo, he has a right to not be harmed. Again, if you cannot understand this, I cannot help you.
Holding people responsible for what they do is not utopian or anarchic. It is objective; it is fair. It is just. On the other hand, presuming someone will cause harm and harming him on that basis – before he has harmed anyone – is obscene and tyrannical.
“But you live in a coercive state.”
So the solution is kneel to it? To never pick at it, or try to escape it? To in fact encourage it, nourish it, and cheer it on? I don’t know who or what you are, but the sum of your argument seems to be “I think people should be forced to do what I think they should do. At gunpoint.”
Yeah, c’mon Eric – I mean “bro” – which would you prefer: to have your leg broken or to be kicked in the balls every day for a month? If you answer “neither,” you are a nutty utopian.
/sarc
I did not ask which one you prefer. I don’t care about that. Which one is more moral by your standards?
Cashy,
An action is either moral or it is not. It cannot be “more” (or less) moral, just as one cannot be more (or less) pregnant. One either is – or is not.
When you argue for immorality – on the basis of an asserted “need” or just because that’s how you “feel” – how in the world do you prevent more and worse immorality?
Again: I am 100 percent in favor of holding irresponsible responsible for the harms they cause. The problem we have is that such people are frequently not held responsible. Instead, people like you think the thing to do – as a kind of Band Aid – is to just accept that everyone else must be made to pay for it.
Hi Roland
Funny that you should mention a kick in the balls. In that spirit I give you Cave Man Economics. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_SVexaSMwk
Look at it as a cautionary tale, not a path to paper wealth, such as we live in. 🙂
Hi Roland
Under their system your only option is which vampire is going to drink your blood. Vampire A or Vampire B. Anything else is “utopian” and/or “throwing your vote away”. As if the vote meant anything to start with. The last three years have indeed been a wake up call for many people. But anyone who was paying attention would have predicted it. It broke down to the usual split. Roughly 30% Cultists. Roughly 40% go along to get along. Roughly 30% resisting, refusing to believe. Even at the height of the madness, many people didn’t believe the nonsense. Anyone paying attention would have questions after the first few weeks. Let alone by summer of the first year. Many people and groups have been taking note of the last three years. Don’t give up hope. Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.
Cashy,
You make arguments for various government “services” that people are forced to buy. I wish you would address the issue of using government to force people to buy the “services” of private, for-profit insurance (and “health”) mafias. This is something that goes way beyond the arguments you present. There is no justification – morally – for using the government to line the pockets of private companies. It is textbook fascism. And America ran just fine without it for most of its history. So spare us the “unrealistic” and “utopian” non sequiturs.
Fair enough. Your opinion is noted.
I feel that a there are degrees of morality in many cases.
Your pregnancy example is not an issue of morality.
For example is it immoral to lie? Most would say yes. Is there a difference between telling a little white lie: yes honey that outfit makes you look skinny; and say perjury: I did not have sex with that women. Most people would say there is a difference and it’s often considerable.
Both immoral acts but with a difference in degree. That’s my point about auto insurance, not whether it is ultimately moral or not.
Cashy,
I have never once said or suggested that car insurance is immoral. I have no issue with anyone paying for services (and goods) they desire. Nor with those services (and goods) being offered. I take issue with forcing anyone to pay for services (or goods) they do not want. This is wrong on the face of it, for it is wrong to use force against someone who has not used it against you, or caused you harm in some way. You have every right to act in self-defense. You have no right to act in offense.
Your fear about risk is not a justification. It is an excuse. Just the same as the fear of weaponized hypochondriacs was an excuse – used to justify unspeakable affronts.
It is even more obnoxious to be forced to pay money to a private, for-profit business. This is the defining essence of a mafia. It is why I use that term to describe the car (and health) insurance mafias. Because that is what they are. Because that is what they do.
It is a fact. It is inarguable. You can say you approve of it; you cannot say it isn’t true.
The whole thing is vicious – and it is predicated on lies. The insurance mafia is not amortizing the costs incurred by reckless drivers and by accidents. It is leveraging the overwrought fears of the gullible to get them to believe that if they do not buy “coverage” then it is likely they will face ruinous costs they cannot afford to pay. In fact, the ruinous costs are imposed by the mafia – and they are real as opposed to possible. I myself have probably been robbed of at least $20,000 over the years. And that is lowball as I only pay the minimum I am forced to pay. It is common to pay far more.
I could use that $20,000. It would pay for everything I need to get done and do to my house. It would allow me to buy the greenhouse I have wanted for years, to be able to grow my own food. I could have done that and had a nice chunk of cash in savings, for whatever comes up. Instead, I was forced to buy “coverage” – and the money is gone, to help finance those goddamned GEICO Gecko commercials. To help the mafia buy more political influence.
The fact is that ruinous costs (arising from a wreck) are unlikely – especially if a person is a responsible/competent driver. The insurance mafia knows this; it banks on this. The responsible people pay – and pay and pay. They rarely, if ever cost. But they are charged obnoxiously costly “premiums,” because they are denied the power to say no, thanks.The mafia dreads that phrase as much as Satan does the incantations of the exorcist. The mafia knows that if people could say no, thanks then the mafia could not charge what it charges. It would be obliged to charge what people are willing to pay. Which would be in accordance with what is reasonable.
Finally, there is the odious doctrine of making people pay because they might cost someone something. This is not “liability,” it is extortion.
Eric
Do you believe the government should have any control over roads?
-Should they be able to set regulations for them? Such as speed limits, traffic violations, impaired driving?
-should they be able to police them?
-Should the government maintain the roads, repair pavement, paint lines, install traffic lights.
-Should the government build new roads where they are needed?
Hi Cashy,
Who is “government”? It is not some sort of entity, is it? In fact, it is the gang that has arrogated a legal monopoly on the use of violence within a given territory. This is fact. A brutal one. But nonetheless.
Do I “believe the government should have any control over roads?” I think it is an outrage that a gang that has arrogated a legal monopoly on the use of violence has seized what was the public right of way and turned the right to travel freely into a conditional privilege.
Having elaborated that principle, let us deal with the ugly reality that the “government” controls the roads. It does not justify the “government” forcing people to hand over money to a private, for-profit mafia. I have at length explained why. I don not understand why you cannot understand. Nor why you cannot see the awful implications of allowing the principle to stand – and elaborate.
Which I have also taken great pains to try to help you understand.
Who would build roads if not for government? The same people, only better and cheaper. And since they would be private businesses, they would be well within their rights to regulate them as they saw fit, or not at all if they prefer. On the other hand, I don’t see the state putting forth much effort in maintaining those they built on our dime, at gunpoint.
So if the private company required you to have auto insurance to drive on their roads you would be okay with it?
Cashy,
There is no equivalence between private and government; at least, there ought not to be. I have a rule that no one may smoke in my house. But my house is private property, not the public right of way. It sits on land I bought. No one else is made to pay for it. I therefore have the right to set rules.
Do you see the difference?
Hi Cashy
The simple answer to all of your questions above is no. Not only no, but HELL NO.
Government in its current form shouldn’t even exist. It is simply a gang of thieves and murderers writ large. Governments in their various forms are simply collectivist nightmares looking for a time and place to happen. Any honest study of history demonstrates this. You’ve no doubt heard an old phrase; “That government that governs least, governs best”. Even better would be a government that doesn’t govern at all. Coercive government is not only wrong, its an open invitation to control freaks and sociopaths and psychopaths to channel their inner tyrant. Not to mention it is the major source of death and misery through out the ages. One can have rules, without Rulers. Goods and services are best delivered by free market means. Market competition is not only a good idea, its vital to keeping quality up and prices down. Its sad that so many otherwise intelligent people can not see this.
Hi Cashy
How do we get to “Mises land”? Keep in mind that Mise was much better known as an Austrian school economist, than political activist. It would be better to say “Rothbard land”. How do we get there? First let me tell you how we don’t get there. We don’t attempt to vote or shoot our way there. Neither approach has a good past history. Its also playing the regimes game by its own rules. Now that I’ve settled that, I’ll tell you one possible approach. I can sum it up in one word; Education. (Waits for the cynical laughter to subside). First off we have to realize that just as the country wasn’t subverted and corrupted in a day (or even a generation) its going to take time, patience, talent and insight to move forward. Ron Paul, Tom Woods and people like that are the key. The first step is to home school as many children as possible.
Using Ron Paul’s system would be a great start.
https://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/
Second, we are at the point of triage. We have to realize that we can’t save everyone. We will be lucky to be able to save those who are already prepared. But if we have more time, the more people with a good solid real education the better. They can act as seeds in a super saturated solution. The regime (and those behind it) hates and fears people who can think for themselves. That is why any real education teaches people HOW to think, not WHAT to think. There is no Royal Road to “Rothbard Land”. Keep in mind that if you have to trick people into being free, you are going about it the wrong way. Also keep in mind that “Rothbard Land” isn’t any utopia. But then any real libertarian wouldn’t make that claim. But it would be vastly better than the current corrupt power mad regime.
Well said, BJ. I keep thinking that if governments keep going with their “net zero” insanity, and millions of people who are well-off now find themselves poor, miserable and immobile, surely they will be more receptive to the messages of the great thinkers who have been right about pretty much everything.
We’ll know we’re getting somewhere when we stop hearing retorts like “In your libertarian utopia…”, “If you don’t like it, move,” and “You would love it in Somalia.”
“It seems different because it’s the government but it’s the same as if a private business required it for access to their property.”
Well, except for that assumption of authority to kill you if you disobey. Which sort of disposes of that “it’s the same as if a private business required it for access to their property” argument.
Supposedly, Hitler studied the Indian Removal Act signed by the idiot President Andrew Jackson.
The Cherokee had more than 20,000 slaves in tow on the Trail of Tears while they tread from the Eastern Seaboard to Oklahoma. Whereupon, the slaves owned by the Cherokee skedaddled to the hinterlands of Oklahoma and other destinations.
Freedom rings when you have the means or something.
“To this day, people in Texas and Oklahoma will not carry a Jackson in their wallet.” – quote from a Texas citizen back around 2011 CE
Was in Colorado at the time.
You haven’t heard it all and never will.
Stupid tyrants always lose, can’t help it.
When you are tread upon, you then feel the pain of oppression.
“You see you can’t please everyone, you have to please yourself.” – Ricky Nelson, Garden Party
In other words, it’s gotta stop.
Hi drumphish
I grant you all of that. But I will always be thankful to Jackson for destroying the Second Bank of the US. It wasn’t until that bastard Wilson in 1913 that those behind all of those banks managed to make it stick.
GEICO is owned by the criminal Warren Buffet, Progressive is owned by the US/West destroying George Soros.
Today was my annual visit an insurance agent day to get better prices. Insurance is, by far, our biggest expense. We paid off our home in 1998 and paid cash for our 2016 Toyota Camry. My job has been to find the lowest price every year, which usually requires switching insurance companies. This was a tough year to get a good price om insurance.
Last year I paid State Farm $475 for six months of auto insurance. This year they wanted $537. Not bad. Last year I paid Allstate $600 for one year of home insurance, which was an exceptionally good deal. This year they asked for $1,200 for one year. The best alternative quote I could get today was $1,000 for 12 months of home insurance, and $487 for six months of car insurance. We have had no insurance claims ever, no accidents, and drive under 5,000 miles a year.
The insurance agent said we were lucky to get an auto policy for under $500 for six months — most people pay a lot more. When I asked how people in Detroit could afford auto insurance, he told me a lot of people buy insurance for one month, or less, to register their car, and then cancel it. He has had people cancel their insurance the next day.
When I looked at State Farm and Allstate earnings for 2022, I found both lost money on auto policies in 2022. So I can’t blame them for excess profits. But they must be making a lot of money on home insurance.
I had an insurance course when earning a finance MBA in the late 1970s, taught by an ex-insurance executive. He told us there is no real competition when people are forced to buy a product. And he said that some companies offer great first year insurance deals because most customers do not want to shop for a new insurance company, like I do, every year. My insurance agent represents 40 companies and did the best he could to find the lowest prices today.
Last year I cancelled the insurance on a 2005 Toyota Camry that needed more repairs than the car was worth, so I decided to give to charity. The Michigan DMV didn’t bother me. The charities told us to drive the car to them, but it was not running after 215,000 miles, and had no insurance. In Spring 2022, the wife decided to sell the car privately, even with a dead battery, immediately stalling after being jump started, and a big dent in the rear fascia and broken taillamp that would cost $1,000 to fix (wife backed into a pole), and I could not find the title. She got $1,100 cash in one day, and I never saw one dollar of that.
I talked to a friend with a 1980s Rolls Royce who only drives the car in the Summer to classic car club meetings. He only insures the car for the summer and says a lot of Michigan classic car owners in the Detroit area do the same thing. We have a huge Detroit Dream Cruise here of classic cars.
I can not say anything good about insurance companies, after being forced to buy much more coverage than I would voluntarily buy.
Conclusion
A one hour visit with an independent insurance agent yesterday saved me $200 a year on home insurance. Not as much as I had hoped, but worth an hour of my time.
For my car insurance, I opted out of the personal injury protection coverage at State Farm last month to save $77 for six months, for the cheapest coverage possible. But State Farm sent me a bill that included the $77. I called them today to explain that “opt out” means I don’t want the coverage. And other companies allow me to do that. State Farm says they won’t let me opt out — I have to pay the $77 anyway. So I opted out of State Farm auto insurance.
I want to buy a small amount of insurance coverage on my car and home, but I don’t get that option.
This year the price differences among 40 insurance carriers were larger than in any other year. There were no cheap policies available, as in prior years. We got two choices this year: Too expensive, and much too expensive.
Richard I’m in MI too The Mafia/Gov corporation here has to be about the worse in the US Been like that for decades. Every time some politician here comes up with a plan to “save” us money on insurance it’s always followed by higher costs…..always! I hate it here in Big Gretch Land I hope to bail when I’m done working….for that other evil entity…..the lower case car co
Hi Richard,
Having to spend even $1,500 annually for these “coverages” helps to explain why so many people have no savings. Because it is hard to save when you are constantly spending. And on things that are not investments.That $1,500 annually works out to $45,000 over 30 years. What could have been done with that money? Wouldn’t it be nice to have that money?
I understand that, for some people, the feeling of “security” that comes from all this “coverage” is worth the cost. To them. But for others, it isn’t – and everyone ought to have their right to choose respected.
I’ve been driving since 1969 with no insurance claims, unless you count a few windshield plugs to fix small cracks
Had my own home since 1987 with no insurance claims.
That is a lot of insurance money for nothing.
I do take Social Security and Medicare welfare, but I would have been better off saving and investing my own money.
In 2020 total US government spending (local, state and federal governments) exceeded 33% of GDP for the first time. In one of my last articles for my former newsletter ECONOMIC LOGIC, which I wrote for 43 years, I showed that government spending over 33% of GDP can not be called capitalism. It is the beginning of socialism. Since 2020, we are morphing toward fascism. with Covid lockdowns, censorship, mandatory vaccines to keep a job, mandatory masks, corrupt elections, and continuous persecution of an ex-President.
And, yes, the Covid shots should not have been called vaccines. They did what the manufacturers claimed: They reduced Covid symptoms for a few months (if you survived the shot) — a tiny one percent absolute risk reduction of non-fatal respiratory symptoms. A shot that eliminates symptoms can be called a vaccine. A shot that reduces Covid symptoms for a few months is not a vaccine. Especially with serious adverse side effects 4000% worse than any real vaccine before 2021.
“I want to buy a small amount of insurance coverage on my car and home, but I don’t get that option.”
Richard, I’m not sure about car insurance, but buying property insurance that will pay only the dollar amount that you want will never fly with property and casualty underwriters. They will insist that you “insure to value,” with “value” being the number they’ve calculated for your home.
On a related note, years ago I dropped all the coverages that we weren’t required to carry on our beater ’09 Focus, including comprehensive. The other day the tiniest rock hit the windshield and left a little starburst. This morning it turned into a foot-long crack, and it’s still growing.
Crap.
I’ve been driving since 1969 with no insurance claims, unless you count a few windshield plugs to fix small cracks
Had my own home since 1987 with no insurance claims.
That is a lot of insurance money for nothing.
I do take Social Security and Medicare welfare, but I would have been better off saving and investing my own money.
In 2020 total US government spending (local, state and federal governments) exceeded 33% of GDP for the first time. In one of my last articles for my former newsletter ECONOMIC LOGIC, which I wrote for 43 years, I showed that government spending over 33% of GDP can not be called capitalism. It is the beginning of socialism. Since 2020, we are morphing toward fascism. with Covid lockdowns, censorship, mandatory vaccines to keep a job, mandatory masks, corrupt elections, and continuous persecution of an ex-President.
The Covid shots should not have been called vaccines. They did what the manufacturers claimed: They reduced Covid symptoms for a few months (if you survived the shot) — a tiny one percent absolute risk reduction of non-fatal respiratory symptoms. A shot that eliminates symptoms can be called a vaccine. A shot that reduces Covid symptoms for a few months is not a vaccine. Especially with serious adverse side effects 4000% worse than any real vaccine before 2021.
When we went to Kansas last year we put 4 of our vehicles in Non-op status, paying no insurance on them during the 5 months we were out of state. I’m actually surprised AZ DMV allowed us to do this. In Nevada you used to get a 500$+ ticket if your insurance lapsed for even one minute. All the Insurance companies were happy to act as DMV snitches.
With all the mandated safety features imposed over the last 40 years, the cost of insurance should be a rounding error on our individual ledgers. I find mine going up and up even with no tickets or accidents. I’m sure the fact that so many Illegal Aliens carrying no coverage has nothing to do with this.
Making matters worse, the big three, State Farm, All state, and Progressive hate their customers. Maybe not all customers, just those of us who are the backbone of their risk pool. The safest, solvent and most stable of their customer base is mocked and derided as these companies embrace an anti- American, anti- human agenda. Take a look at their commercials. They mock us by making dads look stupid, as well as mud sharking, cuckoldry, and race mixing every chance they get. Its so easy to see, even a caveman can figure it out
In a sane world traditional Americans could band together voluntarily, forming their own risk pools. Leaving the corporate mafioso to choke on their loses while they watch premiums dwindle to nothing. It all comes down to majic money created from vapor. These companies might treat customers with at least a modicum of respect if they didn’t have Fedzilla backstopping the bottom line.
People need to wake TF up. Work stoppages and buyers strikes will get their attention. Lawyers, Bankers, and yes Insurance salesmen should be treated with bile and contempt. Spare me the “Oh but their not all bad” BS. The system they support, and the monetary wizards they worship are a mile wide and an inch deep. The whole lot of them have sold their soul to the harlotry of fractional reserve banking and pure tyrannical lawlessness. They have a lot of fucking nerve giving us credit scores while they are 91 trillion$ in debt.
Once upon a time, not that long ago, I got a demand letter from the Communist State of Maryland saying that I had to prove insurance coverage or pay a fine calculated daily, for every day not insured, … for a vehicle that I had sold months prior.
I wrote back to them and told them that, I have no obligation to prove insurance coverage for a car that I don’t own! I told them it was sold on x/y/z date.
The fucken bastards wrote back, had changed their letter to demand that I prove coverage for up to the day that I sold it along with the bill of sale!!!
WTAF
First of all, as in your case Eric, my insurance capo would have reported me to Murder Inc. already had I not paid the protection money… er… the premium. And they would have done so immediately.
Second of all, I had already returned the fucken “tags” (as they call the plates out here) to the MVA when it was sold. The junk yard that bought the car surely submitted the bill of sale to them as well… it’s their fucken business after all.
The local insurance mafia capo ended up handling that for me but I still can’t get over the fucken tyrannical bullshit MFers fishing for shit on that level, i.e., going back in time for a car that was history. What if I hadn’t kept the fucken bill of sale or changed insurance capo?
Those fucken people make me sick. I swear to god.
OBTW, I’ve never caused any accident ever. Do they shake down the fuckers that do?!
Will auto insurance still be needed if the car drives itself? A better idea, I have heard was the case in New York state, was that a minimum fee was applied when you registered the car, say $20, for a state funded insurance program. Thus, if you car has current registration, it also met the minimum insurance mandate. Of course, you still could contract more from a private carrier. And the cop did not have to demand to see your insurance papers.
What I think is way worse than mandate car insurance, are building codes – you are mandated in most areas to get a building permit – that way the government knows to raise your property tax – and this can be for even minor repairs, like replacing the shingles on your roof, or adding a dormer window. In some states, like Taxachussets, they hit you up for everything. Until recently, Idaho has five counties that did not need a building permit, only a site permit, which could be hand drawn, and only a $15 filing fee.
Many freedom orientated and frugal persons do not want to pay for inspections – feeling it is a monumental waste of money, especially if you are building for cash, on property you bought outright. If you decide to buck the system, the government agent (building code enforcer) may trespass on your property and spy on your construction. call the sheriff, order a demolition, or even kill you if you resist. But our forefathers, the pioneers, had no such restrictions – you could build anything you like with no regulations and no fees.
Does a beaver have to get a permit to build a dam or house? No? Thus the beaver has more rights than you do! We humans, are screwed, because with regulations and fees, the government can manipulate you right out of being permitted to drive or build a home. Also note, that Bigfoot does not pay any tax or follow any rules like we do. It is free and we are not.
BTW, I used to print out my own “proof of insurance”. I took my USAA card and redid it, I changed it to USSA (as a joke) and several times I had to show to a cop, and he accepted it as valid.
It is high time we have an era of no government. We can regulate ourselves, we don’t need any stinkin’ badges, and we don’t need taxes, or a war machine or any of the rest of the Satanic evil which poses as our overlords. Government is a crime syndicate which claims it has a right to rule because of voting – our consent – but I do not vote and I have never signed a consent form – and they cheat on voting so if reality they do not have any real authority, they have guns and cops who are willing to kill you if you do not obey.
Holy crap, Eric, the DMV could cancel your driver’s license simply because you do not want to put insurance on a vehicle that you do not even drive, and just sits there in your driveway? What the hell?? Every time I think the state of Virginia could not sink any lower, they have say, “here, hold my beer”, and prove me wrong. But wait, they did, and they just enacted a Rank Choice Voting system down there, from what I have read. Have fun with that, you folks will never have free and fair elections any more in the future. What bit you ever had is long gone. We have that up here, and it is a cluster you-know-what, and we are fighting to get that revoked. As for the lack of insurance on a non-driving vehicle, I do not think this state goes that far. Not yet, anyway, but do not give them any ideas…
The governor of South Dakota and also a US Representative, Bill Janklow, was driving his automobile on a highway, ran a stop sign, collided with a motorcycle and the motorcyclist died at the scene.
Bill was speeding, the charges are adjudicated, a jury trial, then was convicted of manslaughter.
100 days in jail was the sentence. His auto insurance must have skyrocketed.
All animals are equal.
Janklow died of brain cancer, there is justice, there is karma.
Has to rack your brain over time, apparently.
If he would have been a Democrat, he would have gotten off scott free. It’s openly two tiered now. I would give serious thought to the idea that the cops might have been lying about his speed.
Normally, I’d agree with you, but Janklow was a notorious speeder (we can argue whether that should be a crime), but in his case, he had 12 speeding tickets in a four year period with another 16 traffic stops for which he was not ticketed. If I were to guess, he was a habitually reckless driver.
150,000,000 insured vehicles at 200 USD per month equals 30,000,000,000 USD.
Times 12 is 360 billion dollars every year. Claims have to be less than the total for a profit to be realized.
Including houses and health, the totals go into the stratosphere.
Have to pay employees and ten percent for the big guy.
35,000 traffic deaths annually is a good reason to buy auto insurance, it’s for your own good.
Can’t milk the cash cow dry, though.
In Capo Gecko’s rackets, the excess money after claims and salaries is viewed as “float”, used to invest in legit businesses as he sees fit. Or Treasuries, regardless of how “real” you view those since he holds $100 Billion+ worth.
This capital flow allows the Capo to wield great influence in business and government circles, to the point that they games with the pipeline permits are played for his benefit because he owns the railroad alternative used to transport the oil in some places and makes most of the tanker cars for the other carriers.
The Capo is also getting more directly involved with the all EV future than just providing the insurance, using yet more of his float to buy Pilot/Flying-J, of which he will have complete control next year after cashing out the remaining equity of the founding family.
Insurance companies invest excess premiums in stocks and bonds. Mainly from life insurance premiums, not much from auto insurance. Ask Warren Buffett.
Eric, another benefit to the actual Mafia as opposed to our political and corporate masters is that with the private Mafia, competition and other economic factors limited their greed, thus put real limits on their ability to completely destroy their chosen host; government on the other hand, has no competition, thus no limit.
Basically, we the people are going to be fleeced, and as long as government fleecing was kept to a reasonable level it is better than unregulated fleecing by private organized crime; would rather have regular and predictable theft than not. But the gov has brokend its bounds, believes in its own hubris, and now it looks like the private organized crime family would be an improvement over the current iteration of these public crime families.
Isn’t it so altruistic of state DMVs when THEY cancel your registration due to a lapse or discontinuation of insurance coverage, THEY require YOU to return your marker plates, at YOUR expense, back to THEM. This has happened to me twice with cars that I took off the road. Both times I got that letter saying I had no insurance coverage (MANDATORY here in Connecticut) and that I must send them the plates. What did I do? I gave them the middle finger and ignored their demands! The one unregistered car I still have, a Ford Tempo, still sits in my driveway with the now cancelled plates on it. The other, a Taurus wagon, was sold for parts…but I kept the plates!
The insurance lobby rules the roost in your state Gov as well. The asleep media never covers what they do either. Here in WA they got the regs changed, you get “like kind and quality” replacement parts for collision repairs, unless you pay the difference for the OEM real parts. Good luck with that Chinesium fender, hood, and grill. I pitched a fit when our truck was repaired the Chinese grill didn’t fit worth a damn. They took the truck back and put a genuine GM grill on. Wife’s pal backed into our truck took out the grill and LH fender. Fender has been Ok but if you’re fussy you can see the difference.
I ruined the hood last year and for a 31 year old truck went with Chicom hood. It “fits” and the panel is flat no waves. Subtle things, the front sheet metal wrap left the front corners with slight protrusions. The curve is close but not exact match for the fenders. Lift the hood after it rains you get a face full of water since the front wrapped seam doesn’t drain like the GM original. We tisk tisk at American quality but GM knew how to bend metal back in ‘91.
Insurance companies certainly have taken advantage of the ability to manipulate laws through the purchasing of politicians.
However I think the article is a little harsh on the concept of insurance itself. In the same way the medical industry manipulates legislation to their favor, insurance companies are also able to do it because their service is important and needed.
If the government didn’t force people to have auto insurance then the uninsured, if injured, are left to become a burden on all of us taxpayers for their care, which can be costly.
You could just say, as a good libertarian, too bad for them, leave their broken bodies by the side of the road if they don’t have the foresight to prepare for accidents. However that’s not the world we live in.
Human nature being what it is. For example even the author admits he might ride his one bike without license/insurance as he probably will not be caught. He probably wouldn’t have a catastrophic accident or cause one that would necessitate a lifetime of care. But he might. That’s why it’s legislated.
I beg to differ. I lived in a state where insurance wasn’t mandatory. I didn’t give it a second thought to insure my car anyway, even though I was under 25 and my car was paid off. I decided to try and protect my “investment.”
Now, a few years later they made it mandatory and you had to show proof before registering your vehicle. At the same time I became unemployed. It would have been nice to get some reduced rate or to be able to suspend coverage until I got a job, but no. A little tolerance is not allowed by these fascists. Fortunately, I had savings to cover about four months of this crap, so I was able to land another, albeit lower paying, job.
So, go on, talk about tragedy this and that. It happens all the time and I feel bad for people involved, but there has got to be a different way of working this out.
What is particularly reprehensible about this situation is that frigging insurance company rats its own customers out to the state government as soon as it gets a cancellation. Just like the credit agencies, when you have to lie to get a bad item removed from your credit report, you have to lie to these bastards in order for them to stop harassing you.
They are worthy of nothing but full derision and contempt, as they lobby for things like airbags, 55 mph speed limits, speed cameras, and all sorts of restrictive legislation designed to entrap you into a never ending popcorn machine of fines, penalties through presumption of guilt.
The insurance industry belongs in a landfill.
Why would your insurance rates be less because of your financial situation? The potential damages from an accident don’t change depending on your bank account.
I’m glad you feel bad for people involved in tragic accidents. You also would pay for it if they weren’t insured ( like you wanted to be).
I don’t like the inordinate amount of sway the insurance lobby has over legislation but additional safety options are how they try to reduce their costs. You can’t blame them for it and trying to make the world safer is not evil.
Insurance is an important part of a free society. In fact the freer a society gets the more insurance is needed as there is less government to provide protection and relief from the shit life throws at you.
Cashy,
Forced insurance is anathema to a free society. Not just because of that, either. But also because it enshrines a principle that is anathema to a free society: The notion that it is acceptable to harm people who’ve not caused any – based on assertions that they might. And if they did, then “someone” – never anyone specific – will have to pay. Nevermind the unspoken collectivist notion behind that – i.e., the government will (once again) make people who aren’t responsible for it pay for it.
If I can be forced to buy car insurance then why, in principle, ought I also not be forced buy gun insurance? And dog insurance? Etc. I might hurt someone with my gun. My dog might bite someone. How about life insurance? I might leave my wife without enough money to live if I croak. Do you also think every man with a functional member ought to be forced to buy rape insurance?
Do you see, yet?
Of course, if I did hurt someone – if my dog did bite someone – then, by all means, hold me responsible. But it is the height of effrontery to insist I indemnify you against harms I have not caused, because the possibility exists that I might.
at
Also, there is that controversy that gun insurance means that the feds know who has guns, and who does not. Which also gives the government the gun registration list they have been drooling about for so many years. Screw that, and anyone who thinks I am paranoid is not paying attention, and is out to lunch. And since when did the Feds suddenly have the power to demand citizens (or are we now merely serfs) buy anything at our expense whether we wanted it or not?
>dog insurance
How about child insurance? Your offspring *might* survive, and commit crimes, which would place a burden upon tha peepul for their incarceration, or produce offspring they could not support, which would place a burden on tha peepul for their upkeep.
Where I live, owners of intact canines (M or F) pay a higher tax (“dog license fee”) than those whose pets are neutered, and all pets must be injected with RFID tracking tags. Simple matter to apply the same rules to humans.
First taxes, then insurance. Can’t afford an intact son? No worries. You can own a simulacrum for much less. Looks just like the real thing, down to the “neuticles.” Maybe that’s where all this “gender affirming care” is headed. Who knows?
Well-said, Adi –
I hope Cashy reads – and tries to understand. The principle, once accepted in this case, will inevitably be expanded to encompass a next case. It is why, once the principle of taxing even one cent out of a dollar was allowed, it was accepted in principle that the government had the legitimate authority to take the entire dollar.
I also agree that the point made earlier in re liability is well-said. There are already laws and mechanisms of enforcement if s person injures someone else or damages their property. Ergo, this business of forcing people to buy liability insurance is both superfluous and unjust, in that that the paying precedes the harming – which may never occur at all.
> The principle, once accepted in this case, will inevitably be expanded to encompass a next case.
Hence the well known phrase, “Camel’s nose under the tent.”
Well, for one, if you are unemployed, you aren’t driving as far. So, they could take that into account. They should let you cancel your policy. No questions asked. I don’t believe in mandatory anything. Get it?
Hi Cashy,
I have no problem at all with insurance – as such. My issue is forcing anyone to buy it. The use (or threatened use) of force being the problem, not the insurance.
The only reason the uninsured become a “burden” is because the same government that forces you to buy insurance also forces you to “help” those very same people when they fuck up. Also, forcing responsible people to buy insurance does not result in irresponsible people becoming responsible. It only results in responsible people being made to pay even more – to the insurance mafia and then the government.
The bottom line is this: As a moral matter, it is immoral to burden anyone with a cost for harms he has not caused – because some fear he might. Observe that all the COVID tyranny was premised on exactly that. You might be sick. Therefore you must wear a “mask.” Etc.
The fallacy is that tyranny eliminates risk. In fact, risk is used to magnify tyranny.
It depends on your view of morality. But the requirement for insurance rests not just on making the irresponsible responsible but rather protecting against it.
Others being forced to have insurance is protection for you as well. There are very few people that can afford the life saving care needed for serious injury, why should you carry that burden if it is due to negligence on the part of someone else? Insurance requirements protect you against others negligence that they could not possibly compensate you for.
Say it was legal and you choose to bypass insurance and drive safely, but some drunken fool maims you in an accident. You might never be able to recover from them the rightful damages due to you through their negligence, but if they are insured you can.
The problem is that a large percentage of them are not insured. We actually have to pay an exorbitant amount for “uninsured motorist” in my state. I have read that it’s anywhere between 35-50% that don’t have coverage at some point. We also have the highest rates in the country.
Imagine what it would be if it wasn’t forced by law. At least some people are paying.
Cashy,
Insurance would cost less if people were not forced to buy it precisely for that reason. Just as everything else you aren’t forced to buy costs less than it would if you were forced to buy it. Because the seller must keep his price within the boundaries of your willingness to pay. Otherwise, he goes out of business.
Instead, we have a government-enforced racket that can charge you more – because you can’t say no, thanks. Especially to outrages such as premium “adjustments” based not on your having wrecked or had a claim filed against you but solely because you got a traffic ticket. As if some manufactured “violation” such as “speeding” had anything to do with whether you’d harmed anyone or cost the mafia any money.
Clovers say: But you might! And that “speeding” ticket is an indication of a greater chance that you might. Well, I work out a lot. Does the fact that I might punch someone in the face mean I should have to buy Fist Insurance? Does my having bigger arms than is typical mean the risk is greater – and I ought to be forced to pay more?
I’m curious, by the way: Do you also support forcing people to “contribute” to Social Secirity?
“Does the fact that I might punch someone in the face mean I should have to buy Fist Insurance? Does my having bigger arms than is typical mean the risk is greater – and I ought to be forced to pay more?”
I would say no because I carry a concealed weapon so I am not afraid of big arms
“I’m curious, by the way: Do you also support forcing people to “contribute” to Social Secirity?”
Absolutely not! (although I will take my monthly check when I’m ready thank you)
It’s a dumb idea, it was a dumb idea at the start, and it’s only gotten worse with the crap they have overloaded it with. Obviously a private plan would have been much better and they should transition to that model.
However I will say, it is similar in manner but not justification to requiring auto insurance. Without social security all the careless idiots who didn’t prepare would be an even greater burden on the rest of us. Another problem with human nature, poor future planning skills. Think of all the poor beggars that would be on the street corners without it! Still not worth the price.
Cashy the insurance propagandist first needs to feign his “right wing” bona fides here to soften us up, so he can then go on to promote the insurance cartel.
Yes. I smell a weasel here. I know the smell of a communist.
>careless idiots who didn’t prepare
Careless idiot, here. Mea culpa. I did not engage in sufficient due diligence, and therefore did not realize that many years of “asset appreciation” by “investing in securities” can, and will be, wiped out overnight, whenever Wall Street criminals decide to take it back.
How do I get to be “Too Big to Fail?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnE5zvosplc
Hi Adi
Once you own enough politicians. Then you are too big to fail. Owning even more makes you too big to jail. Own even more and even the obvious in your face corruption of the current regime is ignored.
Cashy,
It does not depend on my view of morality. It hinges on what is moral. Theft is immoral because it is wrong, morally, to take that which does not belong to you. That which you are not owed. I do not owe you or anyone else the thousands of dollars I have been forced to pay in “coverage” over the years. I have not harmed anyone. Yet the money is gone, taken via threats of violent retribution if I refused. How is this moral?
Wearing a “mask” – and being compelled to take the drugs styled “vaccines” was also touted by advocates as “mutual protection,” as you put. I do not wish such protection. So what gives you the right to force it on me?
How does mandatory insurance protect me from people who ignore the mandate? Does it not work as effectively as “gun control,” which I assume you understand only serves to disarm those who are not criminals?
Theft is immoral because it’s wrong? Yeah and being nice is moral cause it’s good. I guess you’re a big Christian, 10 commandments and all.
Anyway theft isn’t the issue here. It’s an issue of regulation of the commons. You choose to use the public space (roads). Built, owned, maintained, and regulated by the people through their representatives. They require a bond (insurance) to protect them against any damages you may cause or incur while on their property.
You could require the same of someone visiting your property. It wouldn’t be theft.
Cashy writes:
“Theft is immoral because it’s wrong?” I did not say that. I said that it is immoral to harm others, as by taking from them that which is not yours. That is theft. And it is wrong.
You say “theft isn’t the issue” – as if your dismissal of the fact is an argument. The right to travel is just that. A right. Saying “the commons” does not obviate the right. Nor make theft morally right.
You then proceed to grade school abuse:
“Yeah and being nice is moral cause it’s good. I guess you’re a big Christian, 10 commandments and all.”
Actually, I am not a professing Christian. And I never said being nice is an enforceable obligation. We are nice because it is nice to be nice.
You then proceed to grade school abuse:
“Yeah and being nice is moral cause it’s good. I guess you’re a big Christian, 10 commandments and all.”
I was just pointing out that your assertion, that theft is wrong, is just an assertion, the morality of it is another issue. While I personally agree with you on that, the morality of it depends on the beliefs of the person.
Cashy,
It is not an assertion. It is a fact. If it’s not yours, then it is not yours – and you have no valid claim to it. If you take it, you are a thief.
This nonsense that “it depends on the beliefs of the person” is why we have men who insist they are women – and insist we pretend it’s true.
HI Eric.
I was waiting for the Christian angle. But that doesn’t mean much to a deist. 🙂
I doubt that someone who has drank as much of the civic religion kool aid as Cashy has can be reached, but its an opportunity to express some of our foundational principles.
Cashy,
“The people” is a florid, emotionally evocative rhetorical device. “The people” do nothing. “The people” have no rights. Individual human beings have rights. And there is no right to violate the rights of others – as by harming them (as by forcing them to hand over money) because you or several of you are worried they might cause harm. It astounds me that conservatives such as yourself cannot seem to comprehend the principle at issue – and that the failure to stand against such, in principle, is precisely why conservatives are losers, politically, who succeed at conserving exactly nothing. Which is inevitable when you have already agreed in principle with everything your opponents present as arguments for their tyranny.
Again: If “Joe” does something that results in harm to someone else, hold him – not “Mike” responsible. The justice of this is self-evident. Just as the injustice of holding “Mike” responsible (sic) for harms he has not caused “Joe” is equally self-evident.
If you value liberty, than you must accept the freedom to accept risk – and to be held accountable for what you do. But the upside is you are free – because you are not chained down by what others do. Or by what others worry you might do – even if you never do it.
No I stand by my argument. Humans are social beings and live in shared spaces. Your examples do not apply to the commons. This is a common mistake in libertarian thinking that all actions are wholly individual in nature. I wish. But that don’t make it so.
It is perfectly legitimate to require a bond or surety on a person who partakes in activities
on one’s property that may lead to damages that will not be recoverable in absence of such a bond.
That’s all auto insurance is, don’t muddy it up with talk of covid laws or gun laws those are different issues. While personal freedom may be your link with them, that is not the case in law or fact.
Cashy,
Harms caused are “wholly individual” in nature – what else could they possibly be?
How would it be different, exactly, for the state to require the gun owner who takes his gun with him into “the commons” to also buy insurance?
Again: This is why conservatives are losers – in terms of politics. They agree with everything the Left demands. Just a bit less. And only in “this case.” For now.
“Again: This is why conservatives are losers – in terms of politics. They agree with everything the Left demands. Just a bit less. And only in “this case.” For now.“
First of I do not consider myself a conservative. I am on the dissident right and have been involved in libertarian politics for 30 years. Secondly, you want to talk losers? What have the libertarians ever run beside their mouths? At least the conservatives pass a bill here and there.
If you have such a trashy view of Libertarians, why in hell are you on this site then, Cashy? Eric clearly has a statement stating, “Your Libertarian Car Guy”. It is perfectly fine to disagree, but damned, go somewhere else if all you are going to do is pick fights and forever disagree with him. Libertarians may run their mouths and nothing else. But so-called Conservatives whom you say “pass a bill now and then”, only do so because they consistently cave to the left, and then congratulate each other and pat each other on the back on how they “worked together”. The “conservatives” stand for nothing when you put the squeeze on them to take a side. In the end, the Communist leftist gave up nothing to pass a bill or piece of legislation and never will, but the so-called “conservative (who are not at all conservative) were willing to bend over to give the illusion of “working together”.
Cashy writes:
“It is perfectly legitimate to require a bond or surety on a person who partakes in activities on one’s property that may lead to damages that will not be recoverable in absence of such a bond”
We are not talking about “one’s property.” That is to say, private property – in which case your statement would be valid. But that is not what we are discussing, is it? The government owns the roads. Having taken the land they are built upon, which was often previously the public right of way.
And, regardless, the substantive issue here is this odious business of harming people a priori – i.e., forcing them to hand over large sums of money to a private, for profit business for “harms” they have no caused.
How about this: If, at the end of each year, I have not caused any harm, I am refunded every cent I was made to pay for “just in case”?
If not, why not?
Well, we’re talking around each other here.
The “government” is in principle the people. The “owners” of the common spaces, in my view not yours apparently. So I feel, as such, the people through their representatives have the right to set the rules as regards these things as set out in law.
This is how it has been understood to work for hundreds of years through English common law up to present day America. The “people” is an entity, as they will say in a court case “The people vs……” thus the people have standing to protect themselves against damages by requiring insurance. Requiring insurance is not unique and required in many cases. Certainly applicable to driving as I have pointed out numerous times.
As for getting your money back at the end of the year, that’s not how insurance works my man. You are asking them to possibly go on the hook for millions in damages in the event something happens. If not, they made out, if so they pay up. It’s the whole frigging point of insurance!
It is not “the people” when elections are gamed, rigged, stolen, all the same. In principle or any other way.
It is a malevolent force that individuals deal with on a daily basis.
Making anyone buy insurance is anathema to a functioning society. It is coercion pure and simple. If someone says you can’t do this unless you do that, it’s coercion.
I’m not buying the idea that you are some kind of libertarian, conservative or whatever kind of saint. I am calling you out as some kind of troll.
Spare the rest of us the polemics.
“In the same way the medical industry manipulates legislation to their favor, insurance companies are also able to do it because their service is important and needed.”
So because their services are “important and needed”, It’s OK for the state to hold a gun to our heads and force us to pay them? You know, what you just stated there is fairly close to how Mussolini defined fascism. Business and the state in collusion.
“He probably wouldn’t have a catastrophic accident or cause one that would necessitate a lifetime of care. But he might. That’s why it’s legislated.”
He also “might” get hit by a meteor while sitting in his recliner. So shall the state mandate we all must live in underground bunkers with at least ten feet of dirt on top of them? Or twenty? Or to be on the safe side, 50?
There’s no bottom to that rabbit hole. Which is why we should make those decisions for our selves, not delegated to some professional grifter.
I wouldn’t want to drive without liability insurance. But if it wasn’t mandated, and the market controlled pricing, I might not have to carry such a high deductible. Of course that’s not a problem for the professional grifter.
I didn’t say it was okay for them to hold a gun to our heads to force us to pay for them, I was just making the point that it’s perceived as a public good and thus easier for them to justify. It would be a harder sell for them to mandate say “diversity” training for all citizens or something else that does not serve what is perceived as a need.
No point in bringing up Mussolini’s fascist state as I can guarantee you the people were freer there then we are now.
Getting hit by a meteor is extremely rare and doesn’t compare in risk to an auto accident, if meteors start crashing down on everyone then you can bet there will be mandated meteor insurance.
I accede to all your points, except the one regarding Mussolini. He simply didn’t have enough time to get there. Fascism has been here for a hundred years or more. After all, both Mussolini and Hitler learned of the concept from us.
I take it back.
After reading your over abundant posts here, it appears you are everything I immediately suspected you were.
As an independent small business owner (now retired), I am a paid up lifetime member of the International Brotherhood of Elves and Trolls (L.U. 1453). “We work while you sleep.” (Otherwise, shit does *not* happen.)
Having searched the online membership directory, I find no member using the name “Cashy.” I therefore conclude that what we have got here is a loathsome *scab* troll. DFTT.
NGL that is funny!
Hi John
Sadly, thats my conclusion as well. I’ve argued with such types for decades. They can never see the fallacies they are entrapped by.
Hi BJ,
I think it may also be they don’t want to see the fallacies they’re entrapped by. Cashy wants “x” – the “thing” that “has o be paid for,” as he says. And so Taxes Necessary. No different than any Leftist.
“It would be a harder sell for them to mandate say “diversity” training for all citizens or something else that does not serve what is perceived as a need.”
I wouldn’t be so smug about that one. Similar to how the mandate to purchase car insurance is only necessary to drive a car, this kind of mandate is already applicable to certain types of employment or participate in certain institutions. This may not to be the point of being equal to the number of drivers, yet, but we saw with the renamed flu scam how certain beliefs, like wearing the holy rag on your face, were necessary to be signaled to enter the food buying place. How do you feel about mandates for experimental gene therapy injections? The ones you were to submit to in order to “protect others”? I didn’t perceive any “need” for either the rags or the shots. Yet, those happened too, you know.
“Getting hit by a meteor is extremely rare and doesn’t compare in risk to an auto accident, if meteors start crashing down on everyone then you can bet there will be mandated meteor insurance.”
Is everyone now involved in an auto accident? Everyone? Is that your standard here? So that’s why we have mandated car insurance? Funny, I haven’t been in anything other than a bent fender and that was in 1994. Gov’t mandates are enforced at the point of a gun. “Public good”, whether easy or hard to justify to doesn’t even come into consideration on that point. Your support of insurance mandates equals your support of that gov’t gun wielder’s activity. Period.
Cashy,
You write: “No point in bringing up Mussolini’s fascist state as I can guarantee you the people were freer there then we are now.”
Indeed. And yet you are defending the use of state power in exactly the way authoritarians such as Mussolini used it. A free society entails acceptance of risk – for the sake of freedom. Without risk there can be no freedom. Of course, that means sometimes bad things will happen. But bad things are institutionalized in unfree societies.
Tyrants have long used the “keeping you safe” – i.e., reducing risk” – line to accrue the power to tyrannize. Tragically, all too many Americans no longer understand this.
Greene is the new Clover. Cashy is the new Greene. Long live Clover.
Cashy, you might try a bit of liberty and economic education. Try these. They’re short, fun to read and absolutely eye-opening (and free on-line):
“The Law” by Frédéric Bastiat
“Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt
Oops. Meant to reply to Cashy.
Indeed,
A quote from Cashy,
“I am on the dissident right and have been involved in libertarian politics for 30 years.”
sounds suspiciously familiar, does it not?
Hi John,
“Dissident right” . . . what does Cashy “dissent” from?
It certainly is not authoritarian collectivism! Like Leftists, Rightists are not opposed to government violence, so long as it is exercised in accordance with their respective views about what people ought to be forced to do – and not do. It is why they are both opposed to (and denounce) libertarians, for the latter stand in opposition to both of the former.
He doesn’t dissent from anything and it’s amusing that some of the worst authoritarians hide as members of the libertarian cult. No insult made to people who espouse freedom and truly free markets.
People who use the term “dissident right” are certainly not what they claim and are leftist disruptors into an automotive website. I bet this “dissident” drives a Tesla or a Prius. It’s as much of a lie that I am an environmentalist. I could give a fuck less. I’m honest about it.
Which I’ve long suspected is why the Libertarian party was created. To create a channel for those who think the system is fine, if only we could get our psychopaths elected.
Indeed, John –
I realized many years ago that the answer is change through politics. It is change of heart – and mind. The politics will then take care of themselves.
Of course, there’s Cashy.
Libertarian thinking people come in different types. What type are you?
1. Taxation is theft! Then how will you fund the govenment? I don’t think about things like that, I just want lower taxes you commie!!
2. Taxation is theft! Then how will you fund the government? I don’t need no stinkin’ government, I’m handy with tools.
3. Taxation is theft! Then how will you fund the government? I don’t care, they can collect returnable cans and bottles for funds or something. But I want the same level of service!
4. Taxation is theft! Then how will you fund the government? Cut it back to what is specified in the Constitution! (that allows taxes) that will make it so cheap we can fund it with spare change we find in our couch.
Hmmm. This is more than just shilling for the insurance mafia. You’re not just Jake from State Farm, you’re a pro-government shill. Nice “dissident right” work Cashy!
Cashy,
I have no interest in funding the government – because I am uninterested in government’s “services.” I hold that it is vicious and evil to compel a man to hand over money for “services” he neither wants nor uses. The fact that you and others desire such services does not give you any more right to compel me to “help” pay for them than I have to compel you to “help” me pay my bills.
As regards the Constitution (in the context of American history until 1913): There was no income tax. Few other taxes. The federal government largely funded via tariffs, which had the virtue of keeping government out of individual Americans’ lives. That era was one of unprecedented freedom and prosperity. What has taxation brought in its place? Ever-increasing tyranny and poverty.
You mock the statement, taxation is theft -because you cannot produce an argument to refute the fact that it is.
I guess you are #2, you should have just said that instead of getting on your high horse about the morality of it. You then pivoted to #4 which is typical when one realizes that #2 is utopian and thus impractical and never going to happen.
Bro if your good with #4 you’re a thief, just less of one.
Now let’s talk about the real world.
Cashy,
If it is “high horse” to oppose theft, then I am guilty as charged. If it is “high horse” to advocate leaving people alone, then ditto.
You say this is “utopian.” And yet, it was real – for many years after the founding of this country. Ordinary people had literally no dealings with the government worth mentioning.
That was the “real world,” once. It was a very different world from the collectivist authoritarian nightmare you espouse, in which people are serially mulcted by the government and are free to do as they are told.
Cashy-the-Shill just can’t help but continuously embarrass himself. It’s both cringy and fun to watch. Keep it up buddy.
“What is it you require of us?” he asked the mountain man holding the shotgun on him. Those who have seen the movie know what happens next. — eric
Deliverance proved prescient with its ‘what happened next’ scene.
Half a century on, we have butt-bonk Bidenism for all, with rainbow flags hanging from the White House and US embassies.
If the rainbow flag had existed back then, ol’ Toothless Man would have stomped and spit on it. Now we all are obliged to squeal like pigs.
I beg your pardon, “Joe” never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little pain sometime
I beg your pardon
— Lynn Anderson, Rose Garden
Apparently barn finds are illegal.
Some here like RG (Sorry RG. I’m attacking your argument, not you), will argue that insurance has to be mandated because if a driver causes her damage, she wants assurance that her losses will be reimbursed. This argument plays right into the insurance mafia propaganda that “coverage” is essential. This is nonsense. Modern life has inherent risks. If you are not comfortable with those inherent risks and you want somebody to indemnify you, you can buy a policy to cover losses caused by others. This would be your choice and would cost significantly less, because, among other things, it would be voluntary and subject to actual market forces.
In my state, you have to buy “uninsured motorist” insurance as well. If insurance is mandatory, why is uninsured motorist a thing?
Exactly the same here Horst, a double “gotcha!” on behalf of the insurance mafia. You also get ratted out to the DMV if your saaaaafety inspection sticker expires, Big Brother watches everything.
>If insurance is mandatory, why is uninsured motorist a thing?
Because Pedro doan’ buy no steenking eensurance, ese.
Exactly, Adi –
Cashy is either an apologist/propagandist or not very bright. Forcing responsible people to buy insurance is like “gun control” in that neither controls the irresponsible – or the criminal.
People who are responsible pay their legitimate bills. They are also aware that they could be sued if they caused harm beyond what they can pay, so most would buy insurance without being compelled to. But the being-compelled-to makes insurance a racket – and rackets are expensive. It is one thing to pay a reasonable say $500 annually to indemnify against the possible but highly unlikely. It is another to be forced to pay $1,500 annually, indefinitely. It is an obnoxious thing. That money goes to finance glitzy TeeVeee and internet commercials, which have nothing whatever to do with “making people whole” and everything to do with making some people rich.
>“gun control”
I am all in favor of gun control.
If you cannot control your weapons you have no business owning them. “Control” means a) prevent unauthorized access, and b) hit your target.
Can’t say I can prevent unauthorized access, but rest assured I will be assuming room temperature nearby before it happens, probably with some unauthorized company.
Likewise can’t say I ALWAYS hit my target, but far more often than not. Sometimes shoot at pretty tiny targets at pretty long ranges.
>But the being-compelled-to makes insurance a racket – and rackets are expensive.
Yeah, and Disease and Death (D&D, erroneously titled “health”) insurance is among the worst of these scams. The crux of the problem, as I see it in that case, is that the beneficiaries are kept blissfully ignorant of the actual costs. So, the “providers” can charge whatever the hell they feel like. Guido the insurance agent gets his vig, and the “players” walk away happy. “Patients” are just the raw material in that industry, and have as much say as a truckload of limestone has in the steel industry.
With automotive property (as well as H.O.) it is a somewhat different situation, but there are still horror stories. I heard one such a few days ago from my youngest brother, who traveled the U.S. as a claims specialist for State Farm (Neil was on State Farm’s National Disaster Team, or as he put it, “have checkbook, will travel”).
For the incident he related, there was no intent to deceive or defraud. It was a case of gross incompetence, not malevolent intent. Sound familiar?
It certainly would not cost less. The larger the pool of insured the less the cost. That is the math behind insurance and it is regulated by law.
And once again humans do not currently live in societies where broken bodies are left on the road side to die because they don’t have the money because “they assumed the risk”. Someone is going to pay. This is by far the best way to do it. Spread the cost over as many people as you can get to pay for the insurance. Yeah it kind of sucks but that is why America is America and places like Somalia are Somalia.
The fucking Somalia argument. Jeezus.
Ahhh yes, Somalia, the universal argument to restrict liberty and freedom. It tends to be used mostly by those who fancy themselves as well-educated, savvy conservatives: “Well, I don’t like it either [taxes, government roads, armed government workers, gun restrictions, etc.], but I don’t want ‘Merica to turn into Somalia.
I’ve never heard it for automobile insurance though. No mandated car insurance = Somalia. That’s rich!
The majority of States didn’t have mandatory car insurance before 1970. Remember all of the war lords and RPG fire in the 50s and 60s? Thank goodness mandated auto insurance put an end to that!
You seem to not understand the point. It is that a system to allow for an amortization of the costs of auto accidents is better spread out, and is in fact BETTER from a freedom standpoint if placed on those taking the risks and causing the damage. In those halcyon days before forced auto insurance nearly ALL of the cost was thrust upon the government (people). With the increase in drivers, accidents, and medical care, over the years, that cost would be astronomical for the government now. And unfair for example to those that don’t drive.
And the fact that there were no war lords was because America was able to find workable if somewhat unpleasant solutions to these problems.
Sheesh! Libertarians, you receive a shit ton of benefits from the state you don’t pay for and when you’re asked to pony up something you bitch!
Cashy,
“Amortization” is not the object of for-profit insurance mandated by the government. Your argument would be stronger on economic if not moral grounds of mandated insurance were not about profit – but rather, amortizing the costs of losses. But this is not the case – and now that I have made you aware of it (I assume you were not) do you wish to alter your argument?
Cashy writes:
“Libertarians, you receive a shit ton of benefits from the state you don’t pay for and when you’re asked to pony up something you bitch!”
How – again – does it benefit me to be forced to pay for harms I have not caused?
Cashy: There are so many incorrect assumptions in your arguments that I just don’t know where to start.
I mean this in good faith, try these:
“The Law” by Frédéric Bastiat
“Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt
“Cashy: There are so many incorrect assumptions in your arguments that I just don’t know where to start.”
Look I’ve read both of those books, good stuff.
Bastiat wrote: the State is a “substitution of a common force for individual forces” Thus: government is simply an extension of natural rights to a collective force. Exactly the point I was making.
“Hazlitt: The difference between good and bad economics lies in the ability to look beyond the immediate effects and consider the longer-term and indirect consequences for all groups.”
Precisely the point of legislated auto insurance.
Cashy,
“natural rights to a collective force”?
And who determines (and enforces) the “rights” of this “collective”? Answer: The individuals who presume to speak for the “collective,” which is (again) a rhetorical device used to justify the tyranization of the individual.
Sorry Cashy. It’s evident you’ve not read these. Your view of them is like a fun-house mirror reflection. I’m gonna make the call here and say you’re arguments are not being made honestly and in good faith. No “dissident right” commenter is this vehement about car insurance, but otherwise strictly against other government coercion. It sure seems like you are a propagandist for the insurance cartels trying to carve out a “libertarian” exception to the forced “coverage.” I’m calling BS on it.
Your.
What in the hell are you talking about? Where I live, all I get in “benefits” is a dammed dumpster site, and band aid pot hole maintenance that goes to hell every year with the perma frost. Stuff your “getting a ton of free benefits” argument, I am the one paying for them. And now, thanks to the millions of illegals pouring across the border in the last three years, I get to fork over more for things I pay for, but never receive. And when I may eventually need need them, I will not get them, because by then, the system will be broke.
Believe it or not, California didn’t require insurance till the 90’s!
Cashy,
Insurance would absolutely cost less if people weren’t forced to buy it. Because when it is possible to force them, then they can be charged more for it.
What do you suppose the cost of a hamburger would be if people had to buy them? Has the cost of health insurance decreased since Obamacare forced them to buy it?
You write: “…And once again humans do not currently live in societies where broken bodies are left on the road side to die.”
This is the same fallacy that says the poor will starve absent the welfare state. Your assumption is that people aren’t charitable – which is false.
“This is by far the best way to do it.”
It is the immoral way to do it, certainly. I owe you nothing unless I have harmed you. And you have no right to harm me because you fear I might harm you. America is becoming something like Soviet Russia was precisely because it is becoming a place where emotive “reasoning” such as you’ve displayed here has become widespread.
In the movie “A Face in the crowd” circa mid-1950s, there is a scene where the Old Right caricature Worthington is talking on TV about how people should be responsible for themselves and their actions, not the gov’t. One of the “everyman” protagonists, played by a young Walter Matthau, is sitting at a bar watching. Aloud, he states in a rebuke to Worthington, “in America, we take care of each other.” By we, of course, he meant the growing power of gov’t, particularly at the federal level since the New Deal era and WWII.
I think this film portrayed the final nail in the coffin in the idea of foundational or “old” America and the total absorption of welfarism and warfarism as the new “meaning” of America to the average American at that time, which resonates with some to the current day as evidenced by the Somalia argument.
Hi Funk,
That’s some evil stuff.
“Taking care of one another”? Certainly! But that is not what Matthau or Cashy mean, is it? They mean forcing people to “take care” of others. There is a big difference there. We do not need to be forced to take care of our family members, friends – even neighbors, when they are in need. We know them and care about them and want to help – in part because we can know the need is legitimate and that our generosity cannot be taken advantage of because, if abused, we can cease to be generous.
This sort of helping others knits communities together, causes people to respect and admire one another. The forced “help” advocated by Cashy, et al, only serves to foster resentment of others, who can (and do) exploit the system to get what they want at the expense of those who are forced to hand it over.
In Pulp Fiction, Vincent says to Jules that Marcellus asked him to “take care” of his wife Mia while he was out of town for a few days. Jules makes the “gun to head” gesture and says “take care of her”? Vincent laughs him off and says something along the lines of no, “watch out for her and stuff.”
Government taking “care” of you tends towards the Jules version. It’s been a process for sure but is especially notable today.
We have no idea what insurance would cost in an open market. It’s heavily regulated by the government. The regulation caps profits based on the pool of insured. It’s virtually guaranteed to be cheaper that way. But maybe not.
Poor people do starve in places without some sort of guaranteed government food. I personally would be for ending all government entitlements.
But There’s no way private charity would feed, house, cloth, entertain, the 10’s of millions of people currently dependent on the government. So until the population stabilized it would be grim.
And it’s not “emotive” reasoning, it’s a basic understanding of human nature which most libertarians are piss poor at understanding. Which is why we get farther and farther from it.
Cashy writes:
“We have no idea what insurance would cost in an open market. ”
Actually, we do. As another poster already mentioned, insurance was not mandatory in most states before the ’70s. The cost was much lower than it is now – as is equally true of health insurance. As is true of new cars, too – before people were forced to buy them equipped with six air bags and so on…
When you cannot say no… what leverage do you have? What is the incentive for the seller to offer a lower price?
I understand human nature very well. In particular, the desire many people have to exercise power over others; to use power to profit themselves, at the expense of those who are forced to finance it.
What you seem to not understand is that we are living in an increasingly unfree society precisely because people are no longer free – because people like yourself defend “collective responsibility” – which always entails tyranny.
We even have “an idea” of what some insurance costs *today* that is not regulated for other purposes. For example, I have voluntarily insured my wife’s engagement ring that we bought in Belgium against theft or damage.
At the current price of the policy, I’d have to pay on it for about 50 years before it cost more than the ring itself at the current price of the ring and the policy. Literally 50 years… almost exactly in fact.
“But There’s no way private charity would feed, house, cloth, entertain, the 10’s of millions of people currently dependent on the government”
Since the state routinely collects about half of what working people take home, at gunpoint, what makes you think that leaving that money in the people’s hands would not encourage a great increase in private charity? Not to mention the expansion of the economy generating more jobs and better pay by keeping trillions of dollars in the economy instead of handing it to the state, which produces NOTHING, at gunpoint.
Cashy,
The insurance mafia is a for-profit private racket. How do you suppose they make the profits they rake in? Is it by reducing the costs they can force you to pay?
Has Obamacare reduced health insurance costs?
Don’t you try to maximize your profit in the auto writing racket 😉
The insurance business is heavily regulated, but it’s also very profitable, which is why there is regulation. Lots of money to go around. Like medicine. If it’s important people will pay, that creates profits, and the government will move in on it. Agreed (emphasis on greed).
Cashy,
“Don’t you try to maximize your profit in the auto writing racket”
Come again? Every cent I earn is just that. Earned. I take nothing from anyone. Unlike the insurance mafia. You are free to come here, post here – and I do not demand money from you in exchange. You are free to support the site if you wish to.
Do you really not understand the difference between that and a racket?
What do you do for a living? I hope it is something that involves your providing a service or product that people are free to purchase. If so, you are an honorable man. If not . . .
Again, your argument in defense of forcing people to buy coverage would be stronger were it merely a shared risk pool without any profit involved. The fact that these legalized mafias take in vast profits proves that it is about using the power of government to line pockets. They charge as much as they can (and fuck you as hard as they can if you ever file a claim) because it is about money. Not charity.
So – please – stop the prattle about “the commons” and the implication that these thugs are anything other than just that.
Thugs.
Let me comment on a couple of things I didn’t get to earlier. I don’t understand your irrational anger at insurance companies. They don’t write the laws, it’s the government you should be angry with. Insurance companies are just businesses. They’re not “thugs” or a “mafia”. They have no ability to wreak violence on anyone. That’s all the government. Sure they lobby and whatever else to get laws in their favor but that happens with all large businesses. Insurance companies aren’t unusual in that respect. They do provide a service that most people have availed themselves of at some point. Yeah sure they are all large rich companies but anger at successful capitalist’s isn’t typical of libertarian thinking.
Here’s the post that reveals who Cashy works for. Good grief! The insurance racket is crony “capitalism” with the added benefit that they have every police department in the US to act as their unpaid sales force. Those guns and badges do a great job of selling the product, huh. Beat it, Cashy!
You’re awful cranky for a libertarian. I thought you guys were all peace and love and do your own thing. Aren’t you initiating force against me?
Hey, Cashy the Dumbass, yeah, you.
Far out, man!
Shut the hell up.
Looks like you’re looking for a fight, doesn’t it?
You wanna fight? I’ll fight ‘cha, win lose or draw, nobody wins.
Regardless, you are fomenting discord.
Might want to raise your tolerances, re-assess priorities.
Stop with the El Torah Poo Poo!
Ain’t nobody gettin’ out of here alive, the facts don’t budge.
Cool it, knock it off.
Thank you for your worthless contributions, the message is there in black and white.
Not that any of it matters, carry on.
Name calling, always a winning strategy.
Cashy,
Disagreeing with you isn’t using or threatening to initiate force. But threatening to use force against people because they have not obeyed an edict to buy a service they do not want is exactly that.
Cashy writes:
“I don’t understand your irrational anger at insurance companies.”
Do you have reading comprehension issues? I do not have any issue with insurance companies. I have issues with being forced to hand over money to any company. How many times must I explain the distinction? There is nothing “irrational” about resenting being forced to hand over money for a service I do not want, on the basis of “harms” I might cause but haven’t. I also resent being made to hand over money for ignoring a sign that says No Turn on Red.
No, the insurance mafia does not “write the laws.” They buy the politicians who do – just the same as the pharma/health cartels, which now emulate the tactics of the insurance mafia.
Providing a “service” you are forced to buy is precisely what the mafia does. It is a cliche. “Nice place you got here. Would be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Do you work for one of the Five Families? I’ve already asked about this. You have not answered, which says a lot.
“I don’t understand your irrational anger at insurance companies.”
Well, it could be that they are largely responsible for getting the state to force us to buy their product, and on top of that own most of the State insurance regulating agencies. Just like Pharma owns the CDC/FDA.
Who are the five families?
It’s a metaphor for the “bundled coverage” racket you shill for.
It’s a mafia reference, Cashy –
As in, “the five families” of New York. Gambino, Luchese, etc.
Like Geico and Progressive.
There are numerous problems with that theory. The easiest to address is how is it moral in the slightest to collectivize the payment of damage liability if/when the liable party *can* pay for it themselves? They have a house, they have a car, they have a job, they have a 401K, etc.
That by itself is incentive to be careless about causing damage and incurring liability when, wth, it’s everybody else’s problem to cover!
And how is it justified in the slightest to put that in place on the cover story of “to cover the people that can’t pay.” There are already legal remedies and consequences for that case. And, in that case, how is the “cost to society” greater in the “can’t pay” cases than collectivizing all damage liability?
That laying on the side of the road is some hyperbolic shit. That is NOT what liability insurance has even been for. Never ever. State Farm doesn’t pay the salaries of ambulance, police, EMS, or paramedics!
WE taxpayers ALREADY pay that via taxes.
Talk about histrionics! What a load of crap!
Your only argument that — outside of morality — is even close to rational is that it makes the cost to individuals ***that inflict damage and incur liability*** less than it would without insurance due to have everyone foot the bill.
And if that doesn’t sound unjust, immoral, and irrational to you, I don’t think we’re playing from the same deck of cards.
I think you are vastly underestimating the costs of many accidents. Some require intensive care, often for the remainder of ones life. Nobody’s house, car or 401K is going to finance that, if the guilty party has any of that. Requiring insurance is the only way for that to be covered, or loading it on the government (us).
Auto Insurance will cover ambulance and EMS, and what is not covered is then covered by you and me. You should prefer that as little as possible is dumped on the taxpayer.
I guess you missed the point that I made that auto insurance is a guarantee of coverage required for using the roads which are a common area whose rules are made by our elected representatives.
I understand you don’t like the rules they make. That’s unfortunately how it works in a republic.
Cashy the insurance propagandist is laying it on real thick here too.
Cashy,
You assert hypotheticals to justify actuals – just the same as the weaponized hypochondriacs did during the “pandemic.” You might be sick! You might get others sick! You must be locked down – for the sake of the commons! Wear a “mask”! Take the drugs we say you must!
Just the same, the “accident” you posit has not occurred. It is an asserted hypothetical you insist be considered a certainty – and that “certainty” becomes your justification for imposing harms on people who’ve not caused any.
Yet you advocate forcing people to pay for these asserted, hypothetical harms in advance. Plus a hefty profit margin that goes into the pockets of the for-profit private company that uses the government to force people to pay it. This is fascism, by the way. So much for your blather about us having a “republic.” (Do you really believe the men who wrote the Constitution meant to endow the government with power to force people to buy insurance?)
If you believe it is legitimate to force people to pay for harms not caused – that might occur – in “case a” then how do you argue against the same logic when applied to, well, almost anything else that statists assert is a matter of “the commons”? As for example life insurance. Or gun insurance. One could easily and very logically make the same arguments made to justify forcing people to buy car insurance to justify forcing them to buy life and gun insurance. Do you think it is coincidental that people are now obliged to buy health insurance?
The answer is you cannot – without being arbitrary and subjective. You like/endorse this particular form of authoritarianism but object to that one. It is intellectually incoherent as well as dishonest. You cannot be against theft in this case but for it in another – and be opposed to theft.
Americans were generally free to drive without having to buy a service they did not want – or use – from the dawn of the automobile age into the 1970s.Just as Americans were not obliged to buy horse insurance, either.
>gun insurance
They are working on that. Let us hope they do not succeed.
See if you can grok this Cashy.
Every government is founded upon its assumption of authority to kill you if you disobey. This does not attract sane people, who have no desire for such power. It does however attract socio/psychopaths, since it is a perfect environment for them.
And you think we should leave our own personal wellbeing in their hands?
Just curious: Why do you think medical services are so obscenely expensive?
Being a libertarian, I’m sure you understand that this is a classic case of one government intervention causing problems that are then used to justify more interventions.
If government involvement in medicine had remained where it was in 1910, one wouldn’t have to worry about being destroyed financially by the actions of a bad driver who also happens to be a deadbeat.
> State Farm doesn’t pay the salaries of ambulance, police, EMS, or paramedics!
>WE taxpayers ALREADY pay that via taxes.
I hate to tell you, but if you wreck your car, the Body Snatchers WILL show up, summoned by die Polizei, and if you are unconscious, they WILL transport you to the Place of No Return (a.k.a. “Hospital”), and you WILL be billed for their services. I have no current experience, but in Riverside CA in 2014 the rate was ~$600/mi.
Th fun part starts (for them) when you enter the Place of No Return. Again I, fortunately, have no current experience, but in Riverside CA in 2014, the charge to roll you through the Gates of Hell was $34,000. That is called “activating the trauma team,” and it is only the beginning. The “trauma” is to your bank account, and, believe me, it is severe. Once the “money catheter” is inserted, your bank account will drain at ~$98/minute (2014 technology – I expect the money pumps are higher capacity these days. “Progress,” you know.). The cash meter will spin too rapidly for you to read the numbers, as the life drains from your financial corpus.
($98/min.)(60 min./hr.)(24 hr./day) = $141,120/day
IOW, they will extract $100,000 every 17 hours, approximately.
And, they will lie their asses off regarding the “justification” for doing so, such as multiple CT scans @ $10,000 each, writing down “[different part of body] pain” as justification for the various scans, when the attending physician’s notes read “patient has no complaints, and no visible injuries.”
Why can they do this with impunity? Simple. Hospital Corporation of America owns their own senator, and they are filthy rich. A $2 billion fine for defrauding Medicare is just an ordinary business expense for these crooks. They rewarded their then CEO with a $300 million going away present when that happened. His name is Rick Scott, and he went on to become Governor of Florida.
My opinion? Rick Scott should rot in federal prison for stealing from us taxpayers, and every “Hospital” should be required, by law, to display the famous quote from Dante above their entrance, namely, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” But nobody asked my opinion.
Adi: Well, I don’t like it either, but just image how much worse it would be without mandated car insurance. That’s just the way a constitutional republic works though. Ok, let’s move on to the benefit of bundling your coverage. -Cashy-the-Shill
Cashy’s the new Flo.
Not only does “Flo’s” “vag” stink, the rest of the Progressive insurance fags have to go too.
Progressive insurance commercials are repulsive.
Since auto insurance companies have a “captive audience” (which requires the “captive audience” to purchase a product from a private company under penalty of law) why do they even have to advertise? Cut out the fancy advertising, let “FLO” go home and clean herself, and mandate a reduction in insurance rates. Since the states control insurance companies, this should be easy to do.
Here in Michigan, the “health care industry” charges TRIPLE to auto insurance companies. If a person uses his normal “health insurance” to cover a procedure, the insurance company will pay the “usual and customary” charge.
If the procedure is required because of an auto accident where the claimant’s auto insurance pays the bill, the “health care facility” charges TRIPLE the amount or even more. Auto insurance companies have been complaining about this for years.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, ML. RG was minding her own business, keeping her thoughts to herself. I have not dived into this thread.
I never stated insurance should be mandated. I stated either have insurance to pay for the damage that one causes, have the money to pay for repair (without insurance), have the mechanical capability of fixing the repair yourself (if one has no money), or allow others to take a baseball bat to the culprit’s assets (or knees). I am just not an advocate that one gets to walk away from the crime that one commits without some restitution. I have never mandated insurance, just personal responsibility.
Amen, RG!
The whole issue boils down to holding people responsible for the harms they cause. Fully and entirely – whatever it takes. I am as hard-assed about this as it can get. Just as I am with regard to people who use guns to commit crimes. I favor brutal consequences for that. But the flip side of that is – stop holding people “responsible” for harms they have not caused.
The duality of this is elegant. The justice of it inarguable. If I blow through a red light and wreck your car, then I owe you full compensation. Only a sociopath would disagree with that. On the other hand, if I make a right turn on red – the way is clear, I can see that it is and I make a safe turn and cause no harm – then forcing me to pay money for the “violation” is unjust.
The reason I and many others resent cops – and the system cops enforce – is precisely because it is unjust. I don’t give a flip what “the law” says. I do give a flip about what my conscience says. And if I damage someone’s property or hurt them, you won’t have to fight me to get me to pay. I pay what I owe, without being made to.
The only mandated insurance is liability. It protects you (whether you want it or not), but more importantly, it protects others from you. Hmm, this sounds strangely familiar.
Yup, and it’s always about those hypothetical harms that you may cause.
Hi ML
Its all about the “commons” and “The people”. Collectivists of what ever type have all too typical mind sets. This “collective” of theirs is an abstract. It doesn’t exist. All that exists is individual people. Who have rights and responsibilities. What is wrong for one person to do or delegate is wrong for ten people or three hundred million people to do. A group of people have no more rights than an individual. But they usually have more power. Which is the foundation of all coercive government.
What I have never been able to come to terms with is the theory of forcing insurance in case of liability somehow being superior to just liability under the existing laws when damage does occur… by any stretch of the imagination.
For example, party x damages party y’s property. They are liable. Either they can pay it or they can’t. If they can’t then bankruptcy — which is no cakewalk for an individual anyway — is the theoretical “cost to society”. If they can pay then they do pay.
Forcing everyone to pay for all damage collectively is immoral on its face but doesn’t answer the theories that insist it’s the only way to make sure liable parties don’t get out of it.
So everyone must pay for all damages because some people might not be able to pay for actual damages. Just in case.
What a crock of shit.
I’ve also seen paper showing that Capo Gecko is trying to use his float to extend his rackets into AI through various subsidiaries, particularly in specialty chemicals.
At least the traditional Mafia invests in the community.
“Failure to comply,” the threat letter continues, ” will require DMV to suspend your driver’s license and vehicle license plates.” — eric
In some northern states, where it’s uncomfortably cold to ride in winter, the insurance mafia offers seasonal motorcycle coverage with the blessing of the apparat — no need to deactivate the plate, much less surrender one’s drivers license.
License cancellation as a punishment for non-driving infractions is odious. Just a few years after I obtained a professional engineering license, the Peoples State of New York added a questionnaire on the renewal form, requiring the applicant to affirm under penalty of perjury that he/she is not delinquent on child support payments.
This cranked my rage meter to 11. How would yanking the professional and driving licenses of a delinquent parent, for non-pertinent reasons, help to service that obligation?
It wouldn’t, of course. Such ill-fitting punishments are merely the impotent scream of the nanny state, raking its lacquered fingernails across one’s face solely to leave ugly welts.
Since I didn’t need that PE license, I stopped paying the vig and let it lapse. I kept only the framed diploma, bizarrely headlined “The University of the State of New York, Education Department.” Like the Electoral College, USNY has no actual students. But by wearing the T-shirt (“USNY Athletic Department”), one can bask in its ersatz glow of erudition, while attracting lascivious stares from nubile coeds. 😉
I agree with everything said against the forced buying of insurance.
But I suggest that the notions of “honest” or noble mafia has been taught to us by the real mafia — jewry — who made the tv shows and movies that taught us — mis-taught us. Look up the famous mob names, Lansky, Siegel, etc, etc, and find that they were jews pretending to be Whites, pretending to be Italians. As an infamous jew said, widely quoted among the Truth movement: There are no Italian jews, no American jews, etc., but jews who live in Italy and America, etc.
There is a correct aspect, though, in saying the “insurance mafia.” Insurance is a jew-owned racket, and the jews infesting government forced it upon us.
Learn more by clicking on my name. Or peruse WorldTruthVideos.website which is the best of all video platforms out there.
It gets worse…
In some states, in order to do business or gain a contract with the state government, one must sign a contract with a statement promising not to support any BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement against israel.
When did israel become a part of the USA?
Florida governor DeSantis signed two bills affecting Florida residents while in israel. One bill makes “anti-semitism” a crime punishable by fines and incarceration. Goodbye “free speech”. The second bill mandates the attendance of school-age children at “holocaust museums” (actually Hollywood-style “jewish freak shows”) which violates the separation of church and state, “holocaustianity” being the new “state religion”.
AS a Florida citizen I find what DeSantis did was despicable,,, also traitorous to the US Constitution and the Florida Constitution,,, especially signing the unconstitutional laws in Tel Aviv apparently our new capitol. BUT, that was then,,, this is now according to most.
He became a hero by not enforcing the nazis covid protocols of the masks etc,,, although he signed legislation extending the hospitals killing for money using CDCs Remdesiver and ventilating covid protocol that has killed Tens/hundreds of thousands across the nation. In Florida each killed rakes in 2 to 300,000 fed bucks for the killers in lab coats. Most of the prey walk in and get wheeled out with free toe tags.
Most of the NPC bauble heads pretend to not notice and/or don’t care agreeing to any tyrannical ruling by the autocrats.
Good of Gov. deSantis to let us Nichtjuden know we are unerwünscht in der Freistaat Florida, now that der Ashke-Nazis are running the show.
A word to the wise…
Eric, are you saying that they are threatening to suspend your drivers license just by owning a registered vehicle that has no insurance coverage? If so that is insane. In the half communist State of Washington we are supposed to register any vehicle that we purchase within 15 days I believe. We are now ‘required’ to insure motorcycles which is absurd. So that would mean that once insured this vehicle would be required to maintain coverage just to keep ones so called ‘driving privilege’?
It sure would be a shame if we all just took off our plates, and behaved as free humans. If too many took that approach the people would not beholden to so much of the government’s illegitimate monopoly on violence and opression. How would they ensure that only those who have been granted the ‘privilege’ were actually free to go about their lives? Danger!
Antifa and other scumbag criminals steal rental cars and pull the plates with little if any reprecussion, and they use the cars to commit all sorts of crimes. The cops rarely catch the humans, but do find the cars often. This was a daily occurence during our 2020 ‘summer of love’ that got so many killed, raped and trafficked in Seattle.
If 1 in 3 cars were ‘illegal’ it would be really hard to stop. That sure would be a shame.
Hi Mtm,
Yup. The DMV will suspend/revoke your “privilege” to drive if you don’t buy the “coverage” it says you must. The only other option is to turn in the plates/deactivate the registration. I have done the latter as it really doesn’t matter (to me) since this bike is rarely ridden anyhow. But that’s just the point, isn’t it? I have several old bikes that get ridden a few hundred miles a year – of that. They are not ridden at all in the winter (roughly, from early December through April) yet I am “required” to “cover them all year long.
I agree with you that mass disobedience is the only realistic way to end this and similar. It renders whatever it is unenforceable and (more important) illegitimate. Prior examples include widespread contempt for Prohibition and (later) the 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit.
I experienced that same thing, Eric. I have an old 75 corvette that’s been parked at my sons in northern Virginia for at least 10 or 12 years now. Kept it registered and insured for most of that time since I drove it once in a while when I went up there. Couple years ago the fuel pump went bad, and along with the dry rotted tires, I decided to not drive it anymore til I figured out what I wanted to do with it. Canceled the insurance and registration. Few months later I got a letter from the county telling me I can’t have an unregistered/uninsured vehicle on the property. It’s in a garage by the way. If I don’t comply, or prove that I’ve disposed of the vehicle, they’d notify the DMV and I wouldn’t be able to renew my DL. Jokes on them, I have a Florida drivers license that expires in 2028, so I don’t really give a shit what Fairfax county does. What kind of free country do we live in when you can’t have a car, in a garage, on your own property, that never gets driven, without paying the state and the insurance mafia?
Texas allows you to store a car without putting insurance on it. Same with Oklahoma. Both states allow you to suspend your insurance as long as it is not being driven on a public street. I’m not sure that you can do that in Florida. As I remember, I had to keep the cars insured whether I was driving them or not.
Virginia sucks.
Hey, Eric,
Don’t know if you can do this in Virginia, but here in California it is possible to register a vehicle as “Planned No Operation” (PNOP) by checking a box on the registration form. You get to keep the plates, but obviously do not get a current year sticker. AFAIK, PNOP vehicles in CA do not require insurance.
The insurance mob is rife with fraud, corruption, and theft. Primarily because of State insurance regulation. Which is why you can’t buy health insurance across State lines. Which is why you have to buy liability insurance on each and every vehicle you own, as if you, the liable party, could drive all of them at once. They are the fundamental driver of each and every restriction of what you must buy instead of what you desire to.
“Here’s your policy”
“But I don’t want coverage for pregnancy, since I’m a 60 year old man”
“Sorry, it’s the law. Here’s the bill”
Capo Gecko is trying to extend his rackets into the Texas energy markets using the cash float from the insurance extortion.
The plan encountered a setback recently, when the Texas Legislature adjourned without passing the Gecko’s subsidized “backup” gas generator scheme, but the point man on the effort is the Lt. Governor. And the already-hot Summer is just getting started with a special Legislative session already assumed to be happening in the near future.
That little snitch.
Eric, I bet you’d like to do this to that little snitch at his little snitch office:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvDpiUD3lJs
Indeed, Hans –
Only Newman ought to have used the chainsaw on the guy behind the desk…
The insurance mafia also seems to want people to install smart meter like devices in any OBD ports their vehicles have under guise of “Saving money”. I got something in the mail recently from an insurance company that I don’t even do business with, and it said that I could save money on car insurance by subscribing to “pay per mile”. It didn’t say anything about putting a little device in my vehicle, but I surmised that I would be doing just that if I actually went with this insurance company. No thanks.
It’s bad enough that the state of Oregon, through its Public Utility Commission, effectively SHOVED electrical smart meters down everyone’s throats just a few years ago. Will the insurance mafia one day lobby to have states FORCE drivers to install smart meter like devices in their vehicles?
I thought Capo Flo had to settle a lawsuit over their OBD-II dongles bursting into flames on several occasions.
That port was never designed to have a device attached 24/7.
New Ford vehicles have a system developed with … Prudential? Any affiliated insurance company calls Ford and makes arrangements for telemetry if you opt in. Voluntary … for now.
Hi Roscoe,
This was a different insurance company that sent me that thing in the mail, but yes, even Progressive sends me stuff in the mail for insurance on occasion, and I don’t do business with “Flo” either. I didn’t know that their devices bursted into flames. It reminds me of those stories of electrical smart meters that spontaneously burst into flames, destroying homes, and yet, government and some electric companies continued to foist them on the public.
Tell the bastards you sold it. They lie, so why can’t we?
I agree, Mike –
There is nothing immoral about lying to evil people seeking to do you harm. Only an idiot would be honest with a mugger.
I would cancel your insurance company. They are awful.
Hi Swamp,
Yeah – but what’s the point? As they are all the same. Truthfully, if it weren’t for needing to maintain my driving “privileges” in good standing, so as to be able to test drive/write about new vehicles, I would just say me gusta! – like the hordes of “refugees” flooding the country – and go without (and fuck the state). If they catch me, I go to jail for a few hours, maybe. A point comes when who cares? –
Right?
Its soon becoming like that. You’re right. They could all be like that. I cancelled the policy on my non working MDX. I am waiting to hear from Oklahoma on that one.
Here’s a good one for ya. Don’t know about other states, but in FL, if you drive on a suspended license, that’s a felony and you’ll get jail time. If you never had a license in the first place, that’s a misdemeanor. You’ll get a ticket and be sent on your way. Wish I knew that 55 years ago, I probably never would’ve gotten one.
“There is nothing immoral about lying to evil people seeking to do you harm. Only an idiot would be honest with a mugger.”
Most states require a written, signed Transfer of Ownership form. To verbally lie is one thing……to submit a fraudulent document to a government entity is far more risky. Who do you think you are….Hunter Biden?
Hi Mike,
I saw a meme the other day that went “If we lie to the government, it’s a felony. If they lie to us, it’s politics.” How true is that?
Or that it identifies as a 49cc Moped.
Sorry to hear that, Eric. Did you pay them?
Hi Roland,
No. I “deactivated” the plates. I hardly ride this bike and figure there’s next to no risk riding it around the neighborhood, without “coverage.”
Right on, Eric – that’s what I would have done.
Many years ago, a very similar thing happened to me. I was having a dispute with USAA over a house fire claim and had learned that immediately when I made the dreaded phone call that they already “anticipated litigation.” That was two years after the incident, found during discovery. They ended up finally settling with me and my attorneys with whome I paid 1/3 of the settlement. This is the background.
I dropped USAA and began auto insurance with “Progressive.” I disclosed my entire driving record over the phone and they quoted me a reasonable $120 a month. I insured two vehicles with them at that time. When I got my first bill, it was $340.00, which I assumed had to be for two months. Well, I got another bill a month later for the same amount. I callled them and they told me that they ran my mvr and told me that I had two tickets that I had not disclosed. That was bullshit. I disclosed them.
After the call, I got onthe phone with All state, disclosed everything and got a policy from them. After getting the new policy, I cancelled Progressive and went on my way.
A month later, I got a letter from the DMV that my plates would be suspended unless I could prove I had insurance coverage since Progressive notified the DMV of my cancellation.
I had to trot over to the DMV and prove that I had coverage. As a result, I will never insure with Progressive again. Progressive is the prototypical insurance mafia company that doesn’t even care to pretend that they are doing anything altruistic. They are despicable.
In Texas, they will let you deactvate your insurance for up to 6 months at a time if you are not driving the car on a public street. Just don’t get caught. License plate readers are everywhere.
I had the same experience with Progressive, swamprat. Got an email from them telling me what fantastic savings I could get by switching to them. I spent about 3 hours online filling out the application. Wife’s drivers license number, VIN’s for all the vehicles, exact dates we bought the vehicles, dates that we took drivers ed (almost 60 years ago!) and on and on. Get to the end, and the quote was gonna save me about 800 bucks a year. Hoo boy! I’ll take it! Called the wife all excited, told her we’re gonna switch, called GEICO to tell them to cancel, etc. Next day, I get an email from Progressive saying they “reevaluated” my application, and the new premium was going to be $600 MORE than I was currently paying GEICO, not 800 less. Bastards, took me another 3 hours to undo the whole thing and get GEICO back. I will never do business with Progressive, under any circumstances.
Damn Floriduh, that sucks! Quite the bait and switch, which would get an ordinary business in trouble but seems like standard practice for the insurance mafia.
Long after I read the Valachi Papers (and a few similar non-fiction books in the library), I later read Puzo’s Godfather series. The books are, no surprise, closer to what is known about the workings of Cosa Nostra, etc.
The thing that I still can’t get over is how the Valachi papers were disappeared/absorbed into the federal “justice” apparatus. I always thought it would be a good idea for someone to do a comprehensive FOIA request on it — someone that knows all the FOIA tricks anyway, because they will stonewall and lie.
In any case, in my view (for quite some time now, having grown up in SOCAL), is that the AGWs are more akin to the local/regional gangs, i.e., overtly violent, angry, assholes, that perpetrate and get away with egregious violent shit routinely.
And IMO… that’s precisely how the government wants it to be. A message.
Then, having read about all the (especially but not limited to) Italian organized crime, the federal apparatus is more like various incarnations of what people call “the mob” (Black Hand, Cosa Nostra, Beati Paoli, etc, etc.).
Dressed up, hushed up, nothing overtly “messy” like the AGW-level street gangs. That’s beneath them. But, they outdo the most violent street gangs and spread fear on a level that street gangs could never do. People “just know” who’s who and who not to look at the wrong way and how to act around them.
THAT is the federal level IMO. And that’s precisely how the government wants it.
Like the “5 Families” of New York, the Insurance and now the Medical establishment, are almost-peer organizations. But they still bow and follow the Capo di tutti capi and “his” organization and allow the big boss to do the “hard work” of enforcement.
The parallels are undeniable outside of diligent work to avoid facing it. Or perhaps, people “just know” that they need to go along with it. We all know just how far they will go. The examples they make are frequent and brutal.
Hi X,
What I admire about the mafia is they’re honest. The Don does not say he is “keeping you safe.” He says: “Give me your money or I will have you killed.” The government mafia says the same thing – without actually saying it.
They also pretty much leave you alone, as long as you pay up. As opposed to continually inventing reasons for further harassment.
They also know what to do with snitches. Trade favors. Spend money at businesses that participate in the protection racket. And pretty well provide protection from others.
Reminds me of that saying about no worse tyranny than that done for your own good. And, it also reminds me that, on the local street gang level, you actually *can* reason with and (at least somewhat) have rational interactions with the gang members. Not so with the AGWs. That’s why they are the most dangerous gang IMO. There is no reasoning with them. They have nothing to lose ever, so no reason to work with their victims (unlike actual street gangs where you might live down the block from their members).
And again, at the higher level, there’s a similar situation. You mentioned it in this article. The actual mob, they do stand a chance of facing consequences. They must consider their actions carefully — part of why they have the strict code.
The Federal Mafia (to give Irwin Schiff credit), they have no such worries. Hence we have outrageous, in your face actions of psychotic ideologues with zero reason to restrain themselves one iota.
IMO, the stolen election and the corona hoax were the final in-our-face “we will do whatever the fuck we want and there ain’t jack shit you can do about it” moments for the lunatics that run the open-air asylum in which we now live.
June in Haiti is National Kill Anybody Month.
Free machetes for everyone!
I would rather the Feds (insurance company, what have you) just be upfront and honest like the Mafia. Do not tell me that you are screwing me over for “the greater good” which sounds a lot like Communism. Just flat-out tell me you are bending me over and screwing me six ways from Sunday, that I have no choice in the matter, and that if I complain, you-the Mafia don wanna-be’s-will give me more of the same. I can respect that a helluva lot more than your trying to decorate sh- with flowers you are giving me, and then trying to convince me how beautiful it is when it stinks to high heaven.
Despicable. Yet another example of the evils of gub’mint and its fascistic little brothers. They should be held in the utmost contempt.