Unlike Rob over at To the People, I think this is great:

PALMDALE, Calif. — Schoolteacher Shana Richey misses the playroom she decorated with Glamour Girl decals for her daughters. Fireman Jay Fernandez misses the custom putting green he installed in his backyard.

But ever since they quit paying their mortgages and walked away from their homes, they’ve discovered that giving up on the American dream has its benefits.

Both now live on the 3100 block of Club Rancho Drive in Palmdale, where a terrible housing market lets them rent luxurious homes — one with a pool for the kids, the other with a golf-course view — for a fraction of their former monthly payments.

Rob hates them for exploiting the situation.

But let us look at this from a practical angle. What does failure teach us? Not to fuck up again, hopefully. A single failure might not deture a person, and will certainly not deture millions of people. What it takes to teach millions of people a lesson by forcing them to suffer through a hopeless, downward spiral together and force them to realize it while its happening. Horror makes you scream and fight back. Terror paralyzes you and the mind reels in horror while the body is unable to move.

And what better way to teach people that government subsidies, welfare and bailouts are bad policy? There isn’t. That’s why the best solution is to encourage it. We should all suck on the teat as hard as we can, bleed it dry, watch it turn to dust and cheer on the collapse of a flawed system.

Then social selection can resume its role of culling the herd. Policies that prevent failure fosters a culture that believes, deep down believes, that everyone can be a winner. Hell, its part of the reason for the horrible status of the American education system. And it will only get worse. The bailouts that essentially resulted in millions of US bonds simply evaporating is another example.

The simple truth is that not everyone can be a winner in a world where resources are finite. Attempting to break this rule through clever market regulation can only result in an even more catastrophic failure than could naturally take place.

Some are leaving behind their homes and mortgages right away, while others are simply halting payments until the bank kicks them out. That’s freeing up cash to use in other ways.

Ms. Richey’s family of five used some of the money to buy season tickets to Disneyland, and plans to take a Carnival cruise to Mexico in March. Mr. Fernandez takes his girlfriend out to dinner more frequently. “We’re saving lots of money,” Ms. Richey says.

Who is the chump? The guy accepting the free shit other people are willing to give him and and not thinking twice about it, or the guy who is handing it over?  Both are.  They’ve been duped by a shitty system.  Both groups will most likely suffer greatly for it.  One, immediately because he’s being forced to give and the other because he’s becoming complacent.  Self-sufficiency and independence will never lead to these ends.

I’m not a gun-toting TDTSHTF (The Day The Shit Hits The Fan) survivalist guy and I don’t expect the collapse to happen any time soon. But I’d like it to. Then again, I have very little to lose under such circumstances, and much to gain.  I am a poorly paid non-profit worker, after all.

And with that, I’ve been inspired to write a zany short story. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get high and eat 39 cent macaroni and cheese because I’m crawling my way out of a pile of debt I got myself before I had even heard the terms ‘free market’ or ‘libertarianism.’  Tootles!

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1. Human Nature and the BFF
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3. Psychotropic Drugs and the Nature of Reality
4. Aural Attak: Apocalypse Hoboken – Date Rape Nation/Jerk Lessons
5. Arby’s makes me sad-faced