The secular religion of Libertarianism (it's a religion because it's based on beliefs that can't be empirically proven) provides a handy cover for corporatists and racists to operate under.
Corporatists because crippling government's ability to regulate polluters and corporate con artists (look up Enron) is a prime goal for these people, but standing up for the big guy doesn't play well in court of public opinion, so blathering about "freedom" in the "strip you naked of any defenses against powerful people running roughshod over you" sense is the way to go.
Racists because to unreconstructed Southern whites the federal government is still considered to be an enemy occupying power without which the South could restore the paradise of the Antebellum South. So here again crippling the federal government is the real desire as being instrumental to putting blacks and other non-Anglos back "in their place."
The rest is wordsmithing.
And Libertarian propaganda itself provides a fine example of how unprotected people who aren't highly intelligent and educated need protection from demagoguery.
One thing Libertarianism features is nothing on behalf of the half of the country with an IQ of 100 or less. Corporatists want these people undefended so they'll buy junk food and nostrums and predatory loans and fall for the appeals of demagogues. Libertarians provide an ostensibly noble-sounding excuse for leaving people not born with college-level smarts unprotected for the smart people who are also ruthless to prey on them.
Showing posts with label libertarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label libertarian. Show all posts
Monday, June 10, 2013
Who wears the cloak of Libertarianism, and why?
Yesterday the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote a column critiquing Libertarianism. Here's my two cents' worth:
Einstein said explanations should be as simple as possible--but no simpler.
That's the essence of the problem with Libertarianism: it's simpler than messy reality, like all shining ideological visions, and thus breaks down in the real world. Like small business accounting software that has no provision for bounced checks.
Government needs to be big enough to let a nation function effectively on the world stage, and to protect the little guy from the relentless drive of the rich and powerful to become ever richer and ever more powerful by making the rest of us ever poorer and weaker.
In 1790, with a nation of 4 million--90% farmers--with no foreign trade to speak of, and the medicine of the day unable to cure diseases, and old age care comprising your children, and communications traveled at the speed of a walking horse, the kind of government we needed was infinitely closer to the Libertarian ideal. Now it's impossible.
And even then it was impossible. Libertarians conveniently forget America's decade or so under the Articles of Confederation. That WAS a Libertarian government, and even with the limited needs for government that we had then it failed utterly. Jefferson was dead wrong. Madison and Hamilton were right. That's why we got our Constitution--the document that the Teahadis claim to worship when in fact they want to kill it and resurrect the Articles of Confederation.
The only reason the Libertarian dream still staggers around like a zombie on steroids is that it's being propped up by corporatists and Confederacy revanchists. Corporatists want a government too weak to regulate them and easy to capture (courtesy of the Citizens United decision). Aging undereducated Southern whites who still call the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression" want their antebellum South back, where blacks knew "their place" and the federal gummint was unable to protect them.
These special interests talk Libertarianism to cloak what they really are...and want.
Einstein said explanations should be as simple as possible--but no simpler.
That's the essence of the problem with Libertarianism: it's simpler than messy reality, like all shining ideological visions, and thus breaks down in the real world. Like small business accounting software that has no provision for bounced checks.
Government needs to be big enough to let a nation function effectively on the world stage, and to protect the little guy from the relentless drive of the rich and powerful to become ever richer and ever more powerful by making the rest of us ever poorer and weaker.
In 1790, with a nation of 4 million--90% farmers--with no foreign trade to speak of, and the medicine of the day unable to cure diseases, and old age care comprising your children, and communications traveled at the speed of a walking horse, the kind of government we needed was infinitely closer to the Libertarian ideal. Now it's impossible.
And even then it was impossible. Libertarians conveniently forget America's decade or so under the Articles of Confederation. That WAS a Libertarian government, and even with the limited needs for government that we had then it failed utterly. Jefferson was dead wrong. Madison and Hamilton were right. That's why we got our Constitution--the document that the Teahadis claim to worship when in fact they want to kill it and resurrect the Articles of Confederation.
The only reason the Libertarian dream still staggers around like a zombie on steroids is that it's being propped up by corporatists and Confederacy revanchists. Corporatists want a government too weak to regulate them and easy to capture (courtesy of the Citizens United decision). Aging undereducated Southern whites who still call the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression" want their antebellum South back, where blacks knew "their place" and the federal gummint was unable to protect them.
These special interests talk Libertarianism to cloak what they really are...and want.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Now Libertarian Republicans know where they stand with the GOP
By the GOP's own rules for running primaries, Libertarian Republican candidate Ron Paul should have walked onto the floor of the GOP conventions first night as the second nominee.
Instead he was denied a chance to speak because he refused to agree to make it a full-throated endorsement of you-know-who.
He was denied a chance to be in the vote because the GOP's leadership conspired with certain state-level leaderships to prevent Paul from getting the minimum number of votes required to appear on last night's ballot.
Some of his delegates were denied places on the floor through more chicanery.
And the delegates he did have in any numbers found their states relegates to the nosebleed section of the hall, while less important states--but ones which were 100% in lockstep with the GOP's poo-bahs--got the places in the front (especially ones with anything but middle-aged white men, unlike 90%+ of the people there).
Then, to add insult to injury, the Mitt got the rule change he wanted--the right for the national leadership to override the states and choose which delegates got to come to the national convention in the future.
So much for states' rights. So much for the GOP's big tent. As far as Libertarians are concerned, you now have your marching orders: your job is to fall in line, shut up, salute whoever the national leadership anoints, and vote for him.
As for the idea that you might have even the slightest say in the party platform (have you read the party platform?), the slightest voice at the national convention, the slightest influence on the party's priorities--you have exactly the same chance at these as you'd have with the Democrats. Except they would have given you a voice.
Now you know how it feels to be a suitor for a lady who only keeps you around for your credit card.
You also know just how authoritarian is the party you've given your allegiance to.
And you should also know that the instant it regains power, the "smaller government, smaller deficit" commitment will fly out the window, just as it did the last time the GOP gained power, from 2000 through 2008.
Not that the GOP is keeping this a secret. Its commitment to a bigger military establishment than that of the next 17 nations, vastly in excess of anything we actually need, is crystal clear. And while you surely applaud the tax cuts of the Romney/Ryan plan, equally surely you can't applaud the fact that they won't say just how they'll shrink government to pay for those tax cuts, which will otherwise add trillions to the national debt.
If you follow national politics, you'll know what happens to vague promises. They aren't kept. Instead what you are guaranteed is four to eight more years of the GOP's real nature: borrow and spend. They won't spend on the same things as the Democrats would, but they'd spend just as much or more--as 2000-2008 proved. You can also be certain the Romney would sign every bill a Republican Congress sent him, because the second he's sworn in his first priority will be to do whatever it takes to get re-elected. Which means never opposing a Republican Congress, as it hands out the huge government contracts and tax breaks and subsidies to its friends.
Obama is not your ideological friend. But Romney isn't either, and you know it.
So as I said earlier, if you want to put the brakes on big federal government, given that Congress will continue to be Republican--and remembering that it's Congress, not the American President, that determines the budget and domestic policy for the most part--the least worst alternative for you is to vote for Obama.
If Libertarians do that in sufficient numbers maybe next time around the GOP leadership won't treat you like mushrooms. Again.
Instead he was denied a chance to speak because he refused to agree to make it a full-throated endorsement of you-know-who.
He was denied a chance to be in the vote because the GOP's leadership conspired with certain state-level leaderships to prevent Paul from getting the minimum number of votes required to appear on last night's ballot.
Some of his delegates were denied places on the floor through more chicanery.
And the delegates he did have in any numbers found their states relegates to the nosebleed section of the hall, while less important states--but ones which were 100% in lockstep with the GOP's poo-bahs--got the places in the front (especially ones with anything but middle-aged white men, unlike 90%+ of the people there).
Then, to add insult to injury, the Mitt got the rule change he wanted--the right for the national leadership to override the states and choose which delegates got to come to the national convention in the future.
So much for states' rights. So much for the GOP's big tent. As far as Libertarians are concerned, you now have your marching orders: your job is to fall in line, shut up, salute whoever the national leadership anoints, and vote for him.
As for the idea that you might have even the slightest say in the party platform (have you read the party platform?), the slightest voice at the national convention, the slightest influence on the party's priorities--you have exactly the same chance at these as you'd have with the Democrats. Except they would have given you a voice.
Now you know how it feels to be a suitor for a lady who only keeps you around for your credit card.
You also know just how authoritarian is the party you've given your allegiance to.
And you should also know that the instant it regains power, the "smaller government, smaller deficit" commitment will fly out the window, just as it did the last time the GOP gained power, from 2000 through 2008.
Not that the GOP is keeping this a secret. Its commitment to a bigger military establishment than that of the next 17 nations, vastly in excess of anything we actually need, is crystal clear. And while you surely applaud the tax cuts of the Romney/Ryan plan, equally surely you can't applaud the fact that they won't say just how they'll shrink government to pay for those tax cuts, which will otherwise add trillions to the national debt.
If you follow national politics, you'll know what happens to vague promises. They aren't kept. Instead what you are guaranteed is four to eight more years of the GOP's real nature: borrow and spend. They won't spend on the same things as the Democrats would, but they'd spend just as much or more--as 2000-2008 proved. You can also be certain the Romney would sign every bill a Republican Congress sent him, because the second he's sworn in his first priority will be to do whatever it takes to get re-elected. Which means never opposing a Republican Congress, as it hands out the huge government contracts and tax breaks and subsidies to its friends.
Obama is not your ideological friend. But Romney isn't either, and you know it.
So as I said earlier, if you want to put the brakes on big federal government, given that Congress will continue to be Republican--and remembering that it's Congress, not the American President, that determines the budget and domestic policy for the most part--the least worst alternative for you is to vote for Obama.
If Libertarians do that in sufficient numbers maybe next time around the GOP leadership won't treat you like mushrooms. Again.
Monday, August 27, 2012
And the Libertarian pick for president is....Barack Obama. Seriously.
That's right. Good Libertarians should vote for Barack Obama this November.
Get your jaw off the floor and I'll explain why.
Libertarians favor personal freedom & limited government, right?
Well--the best way to not get those two items is to let either major party gain control of all three branches of government. Because both parties agree on one thing at least: "to the victor belong the spoils." And by "victor" I don't mean you if your side wins. I mean your party's patrons--the individuals and groups whose political donations make it possible for your party's politicians to win.
This is why independents--including Libertarians--frequently vote for the governor or president of the other party from the one controlling the legislature--especially if the party controlling the legislature also controls the judiciary.
Both major parties have demonstrated that they cannot govern themselves--and that they are far more beholden to the individuals and special interests who are their patrons rather than their rank and file voters.
So a good Libertarian realizes that neither party runs by Libertarian principles. The Republican Party talks a more Libertarian game than the Democratic Party does, but it doesn't walk the walk. The GOP from 2000 through 2008, eight long years during which it enjoyed effective control of all three branches of government, increased government size enormously and the deficit enormously. That wasn't George Bush II's fault. In America the Chief Executive can't pass laws, though he can veto them. It was the Republican leadership's fault, most of which is still in place, since both parties have jiggered the laws to greatly favor the incumbents.
George Romney is closer to a Libertarian than Barack Obama. So what? Obama's domestic policies don't matter if Congress is GOP-controlled, and Romney's policies don't matter much either--just his right hand, needed to sign bills sent him. Does anyone doubt that he'll sign anything the GOP Congress sends him--as Bush II did for nearly his entire time in office?
If you think a Romney victory wouldn't lead to a massive expansion in government and a reduction in personal freedoms, you're dreaming.
I'm not making a prediction. I'm just pointing to what the Republican Party did from 2000 through 2010 federally and what it's done in the states it gained full control over in 2010. First order of business in the states, after running on a jobs, jobs, jobs theme? Pass anti-abortion laws and fire state employees.
Federally, Congressman Ryan alone has introduced dozens of anti-abortion bills to Congress and has consistently endorsed banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest--reflected in the fact that the Republican Party's official platform--that you can read yourself--says the same thing: banning all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. Congressman Akins' mistake was in saying to the general public what the GOP actually believes but only wants its fervent evangelical base to hear.
Fiscally, the Ryan-Romney budget inflates the deficit enormously. Neither Ryan nor Romney are willing to specify exactly which loopholes they'd cut, even after persistent questioning by reporters. Given past actions by the GOP, you have no reason to believe they won't say which because they won't cut any loopholes that benefit any Republicans. And that's pretty much all of them--all that might alter the deficit at least.
No responsible, nonpartisan economist says we can close the deficit without raising taxes on the rich and the middle class as well as reducing government expenditures. It is Libertarian to pay as you go. Not to tax and spend. Not to borrow and spend. Congress won't spend less unless Obama's there to veto Congress's borrow and spend mania. The Tea Party congressmen promise they'll fix this. They won't. That's already happened with the Ryan budget, enthusiastically endorsed by the Tea Party Congressmen.
Voting for Obama is the less of two evils in November for Libertarians.
Here's FactCheck.org's current article on how Romney can't keep his tax promises.
Get your jaw off the floor and I'll explain why.
Libertarians favor personal freedom & limited government, right?
Well--the best way to not get those two items is to let either major party gain control of all three branches of government. Because both parties agree on one thing at least: "to the victor belong the spoils." And by "victor" I don't mean you if your side wins. I mean your party's patrons--the individuals and groups whose political donations make it possible for your party's politicians to win.
This is why independents--including Libertarians--frequently vote for the governor or president of the other party from the one controlling the legislature--especially if the party controlling the legislature also controls the judiciary.
Both major parties have demonstrated that they cannot govern themselves--and that they are far more beholden to the individuals and special interests who are their patrons rather than their rank and file voters.
So a good Libertarian realizes that neither party runs by Libertarian principles. The Republican Party talks a more Libertarian game than the Democratic Party does, but it doesn't walk the walk. The GOP from 2000 through 2008, eight long years during which it enjoyed effective control of all three branches of government, increased government size enormously and the deficit enormously. That wasn't George Bush II's fault. In America the Chief Executive can't pass laws, though he can veto them. It was the Republican leadership's fault, most of which is still in place, since both parties have jiggered the laws to greatly favor the incumbents.
George Romney is closer to a Libertarian than Barack Obama. So what? Obama's domestic policies don't matter if Congress is GOP-controlled, and Romney's policies don't matter much either--just his right hand, needed to sign bills sent him. Does anyone doubt that he'll sign anything the GOP Congress sends him--as Bush II did for nearly his entire time in office?
If you think a Romney victory wouldn't lead to a massive expansion in government and a reduction in personal freedoms, you're dreaming.
I'm not making a prediction. I'm just pointing to what the Republican Party did from 2000 through 2010 federally and what it's done in the states it gained full control over in 2010. First order of business in the states, after running on a jobs, jobs, jobs theme? Pass anti-abortion laws and fire state employees.
Federally, Congressman Ryan alone has introduced dozens of anti-abortion bills to Congress and has consistently endorsed banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest--reflected in the fact that the Republican Party's official platform--that you can read yourself--says the same thing: banning all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. Congressman Akins' mistake was in saying to the general public what the GOP actually believes but only wants its fervent evangelical base to hear.
Fiscally, the Ryan-Romney budget inflates the deficit enormously. Neither Ryan nor Romney are willing to specify exactly which loopholes they'd cut, even after persistent questioning by reporters. Given past actions by the GOP, you have no reason to believe they won't say which because they won't cut any loopholes that benefit any Republicans. And that's pretty much all of them--all that might alter the deficit at least.
No responsible, nonpartisan economist says we can close the deficit without raising taxes on the rich and the middle class as well as reducing government expenditures. It is Libertarian to pay as you go. Not to tax and spend. Not to borrow and spend. Congress won't spend less unless Obama's there to veto Congress's borrow and spend mania. The Tea Party congressmen promise they'll fix this. They won't. That's already happened with the Ryan budget, enthusiastically endorsed by the Tea Party Congressmen.
Voting for Obama is the less of two evils in November for Libertarians.
Here's FactCheck.org's current article on how Romney can't keep his tax promises.
Friday, June 11, 2010
The problem is big government! Really?
A commentor on a NYTimes forum said:
Government creates nothing, produces nothing. Controlling deficits ought to start with a radical reduction in government programs and government workers. The government (federal and state in particular) is full of redundancy, inefficienct [sic] and waste. Worse yet, government oftens [sic] creates dependence on government - the opposite of self-reliance and innovation. Government makes us poorer and weaker.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the libertarian mantra.
So let's start by firing the Minerals Management bureaucracy, which oversees oil rig safety. After all, the oil companies have told us they'll self-regulate, because it's not in their own interest to have massive oil rig failures that will pollute the shorelines and fisheries of half a dozen states for generations, because that would mean they're short-sighted and mindlessly greedy. Which is just Communist propaganda. Everyone knows that Fortune 500 boardrooms are bastions of Chri$tianity. Er, I mean Christianity.
Now you might say Well, that particular bureaucracy was incompetent, weren't they? After all, they didn't prevent the most massive oil rig failure in American history.
To which I'd say we're looking at the consequences of the most thorough deregulatory pogram since the Robber Baron era. Bush II gutted the regulatory bureaucracy, starving them of funds, staffing them with cronies, having the industries write their own regulations, and removing the government's internal controls--you know, the ones designed to prevent regulators from being bribed or otherwise suborned by the industries they're tasked with regulating.
And it's not like President Obama can fire all those Republican cronies. For one thing, it's not easy to fire federal employees other than direct political appointees. The supposed nonpartisan, permanent jobs Bush filled with people whose qualifications were rock-ribbed Republican credentials such as opposition to abortion--you can't just fire those people.
And it's a lot easier and quicker to kick over a castle made of wooden blocks than to rebuild it.
Now let's go back to our libertarian's opening salvo: "Government creates nothing, produces nothing."
You could say the same of Wall Street. Once created to provide a source of capital for manufacturers, it now exists for the profit of the Masters of the Universe through manipulating money, while companies large and small desperately seek funding sources once supplied by Wall Street.
And the companies themselves, absent regulation, have used the quickest road to profits: fire the American workers and move the manufacturing to China and elsewhere. They're still manufacturers, but they aren't American manufacturers. They're foreign manufacturers with American headquarters. Such companies "create nothing, produce nothing" that benefits Americans.
Sure, you pay less for goods you buy by buying Chinese ones at Walmart...out of your unemployment check.
Woo hoo.
The libertarians can't face the fact that business not controlled by government (that is, us) comes to control government (witness the Bush II years). Whoever gains the upper hand in a competitive environment uses that upper hand to destroy his competitors. The natural outcome of all unregulated business environments is monopoly, followed by ruthless exploitation of ordinary citizens.
Now it's equally true that unchecked government becomes the monopoly, turning to self-dealing and a singular focus on preservation of incumbency.
The only hope the little guy has is government strong enough to keep business in check, and business strong enough to keep government in check, with transparency enough to let us keep both in check.
You can't abolish power. There is always power. The only question is who has it. Taking power away from government, by itself, just hands it over to anything-but-free enterprise.
That is, the real enemy of capitalism isn't communism--it's crony capitalism. Pickpockets work in teams, with a distractor and a lifter. Communist governments and crony capitalist "governments" each acts as each other's distractor, while the lifter--be it the crony capitalist or the communist--rummages around in citzens' wallets while we stare in horror at the proffered boogeyman. Soviet-era Russians were just as horrified about the Capitalist Menace as we were by the Red Menace.
I can't believe I have to say all this after the Bush II reign and its disastrous consequences, but the Billionaire's Club's propaganda machine has convinced at least a third of the voters that up is down, black is white, and the only problem with the Bush II era is that they didn't completely destroy government instead of just crippling it.
Government creates nothing, produces nothing. Controlling deficits ought to start with a radical reduction in government programs and government workers. The government (federal and state in particular) is full of redundancy, inefficienct [sic] and waste. Worse yet, government oftens [sic] creates dependence on government - the opposite of self-reliance and innovation. Government makes us poorer and weaker.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the libertarian mantra.
So let's start by firing the Minerals Management bureaucracy, which oversees oil rig safety. After all, the oil companies have told us they'll self-regulate, because it's not in their own interest to have massive oil rig failures that will pollute the shorelines and fisheries of half a dozen states for generations, because that would mean they're short-sighted and mindlessly greedy. Which is just Communist propaganda. Everyone knows that Fortune 500 boardrooms are bastions of Chri$tianity. Er, I mean Christianity.
Now you might say Well, that particular bureaucracy was incompetent, weren't they? After all, they didn't prevent the most massive oil rig failure in American history.
To which I'd say we're looking at the consequences of the most thorough deregulatory pogram since the Robber Baron era. Bush II gutted the regulatory bureaucracy, starving them of funds, staffing them with cronies, having the industries write their own regulations, and removing the government's internal controls--you know, the ones designed to prevent regulators from being bribed or otherwise suborned by the industries they're tasked with regulating.
And it's not like President Obama can fire all those Republican cronies. For one thing, it's not easy to fire federal employees other than direct political appointees. The supposed nonpartisan, permanent jobs Bush filled with people whose qualifications were rock-ribbed Republican credentials such as opposition to abortion--you can't just fire those people.
And it's a lot easier and quicker to kick over a castle made of wooden blocks than to rebuild it.
Now let's go back to our libertarian's opening salvo: "Government creates nothing, produces nothing."
You could say the same of Wall Street. Once created to provide a source of capital for manufacturers, it now exists for the profit of the Masters of the Universe through manipulating money, while companies large and small desperately seek funding sources once supplied by Wall Street.
And the companies themselves, absent regulation, have used the quickest road to profits: fire the American workers and move the manufacturing to China and elsewhere. They're still manufacturers, but they aren't American manufacturers. They're foreign manufacturers with American headquarters. Such companies "create nothing, produce nothing" that benefits Americans.
Sure, you pay less for goods you buy by buying Chinese ones at Walmart...out of your unemployment check.
Woo hoo.
The libertarians can't face the fact that business not controlled by government (that is, us) comes to control government (witness the Bush II years). Whoever gains the upper hand in a competitive environment uses that upper hand to destroy his competitors. The natural outcome of all unregulated business environments is monopoly, followed by ruthless exploitation of ordinary citizens.
Now it's equally true that unchecked government becomes the monopoly, turning to self-dealing and a singular focus on preservation of incumbency.
The only hope the little guy has is government strong enough to keep business in check, and business strong enough to keep government in check, with transparency enough to let us keep both in check.
You can't abolish power. There is always power. The only question is who has it. Taking power away from government, by itself, just hands it over to anything-but-free enterprise.
That is, the real enemy of capitalism isn't communism--it's crony capitalism. Pickpockets work in teams, with a distractor and a lifter. Communist governments and crony capitalist "governments" each acts as each other's distractor, while the lifter--be it the crony capitalist or the communist--rummages around in citzens' wallets while we stare in horror at the proffered boogeyman. Soviet-era Russians were just as horrified about the Capitalist Menace as we were by the Red Menace.
I can't believe I have to say all this after the Bush II reign and its disastrous consequences, but the Billionaire's Club's propaganda machine has convinced at least a third of the voters that up is down, black is white, and the only problem with the Bush II era is that they didn't completely destroy government instead of just crippling it.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tagging the libertarians
There were a lot of libertarian comments on Dana Milbanks' latest Washington Post blog entry, about the unwisdom of Republicans pinning their next campaign on repealing healthcare reform. It garnered hundreds of very snarky comments (right wingers appear to be in an unusually bad mood today), so I entered the following (and got a little snarky myself):
So our social safety net--now amped up slightly by this healthcare reform act--is an American tragedy, huh?
Meaning that since our safety net (even with the latest bill passing) is the skimpiest of any developed country..and since, apparently, the skimpier the safety net the more virile and successful a country is, ours must be doing the best, and a place like Germany or Sweden the worst.
Hmmm. I bet a lot of Germans and Swedes (including conservative ones) would find that pretty laughable.
But if you really believe that, I encourage you to move to a truly free enterprise capitalist country with no emasculating social safety net, where you can let your overwhelming manliness take wings and soar above the crowd.
I suggest the Philippines. I've been there a couple of times. Pure capitalism--and it's got a lot of American influence. So you all should feel right at home.
Go, now. Shoo!
Still here? You should have the courage of your convictions.
But as long as you insist on sticking around, explain me this:
How are you all such geniuses that you know better about the healthcare reform bill than The Economist?
You know, The Economist--the world's leading periodical devoted to free enterprise capitalism since 1843?
This week's issue endorsed voting for this healthcare reform act. Honestly, it's not their ideal way to do it. But all things considered, at this time, in this place, they recommended voting for it.
What do your towering intellects have to say to the editors of The Economist?
I can't wait.
So our social safety net--now amped up slightly by this healthcare reform act--is an American tragedy, huh?
Meaning that since our safety net (even with the latest bill passing) is the skimpiest of any developed country..and since, apparently, the skimpier the safety net the more virile and successful a country is, ours must be doing the best, and a place like Germany or Sweden the worst.
Hmmm. I bet a lot of Germans and Swedes (including conservative ones) would find that pretty laughable.
But if you really believe that, I encourage you to move to a truly free enterprise capitalist country with no emasculating social safety net, where you can let your overwhelming manliness take wings and soar above the crowd.
I suggest the Philippines. I've been there a couple of times. Pure capitalism--and it's got a lot of American influence. So you all should feel right at home.
Go, now. Shoo!
Still here? You should have the courage of your convictions.
But as long as you insist on sticking around, explain me this:
How are you all such geniuses that you know better about the healthcare reform bill than The Economist?
You know, The Economist--the world's leading periodical devoted to free enterprise capitalism since 1843?
This week's issue endorsed voting for this healthcare reform act. Honestly, it's not their ideal way to do it. But all things considered, at this time, in this place, they recommended voting for it.
What do your towering intellects have to say to the editors of The Economist?
I can't wait.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)