Steve Horwitz on ObamaCare:
I continue to be amazed at my friends on the left who think this bill is some sort of victory for the little guy. This will be a feast of lobbying and rent-seeking as it will be tinkered with for years if it passes. Who wins at that game? Not you and me, but Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and Big Corporations in general, who can absorb the costs and engage in the lobbying. It will kill small businesses and it will impoverish and worsen the medical care of the middle class, as well as the poor.
For all the talk on the left of being opposed to corporate power, they just don't seem to get that expanding the state's role is exactly what gives corporations REAL power through lobbying, rent-seeking and the all the rest.
I'll disagree with Steve on one thing; the left definitely gets it. From the minimum wage to agricultural subsidies to mandated benefits to this garbage, the left's economic philosophy (and recently much of the right's) is combining the redistribution of wealth with corporate back scratching, resulting in a duplicitous system that hides behind a veil of populist rhetoric and propaganda, yet ultimately ends up only benefiting the rich and powerful.
Corporate-statism is the greatest threat to liberty, democracy and capitalism, and this bill is a massive step toward that end.
Showing posts with label Leftism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leftism. Show all posts
Leftism and Arrogance
One of the most repulsive characteristics of the modern Left movement is the level of arrogance it consistently employs. Leftism is inherently arrogant due to its central philosophical tenet: central planning. Yet there are times when this arrogance permeates into aspects of our lives that should never be touched.
Jimmy Carter's, Maureen Dowd's, and Eugene Robinson's comments over the past couple of weeks reminded me of a passage in Clarence Thomas' memoir My Grandfather's Son concerning Thomas' ardous journey of being appointed to the Court of Appeals:
As I reflected on the long, unpleasant process that had led up to this brief public performance, I was struck by how easy it had become for sanctimonious whites to accuse a black man of not caring about civil rights. It was as ludicrous as a well-fed man lecturing a starving person about his insensitivity to world hunger (p. 202).
Carter claims to know what the millions of Americans are truly thinking when they oppose Obama's anti-liberty policies. A significant number of them are without a doubt racists. Dowd asserts Rep. Joe Wilson, a man whom she has never met or most likely never heard of, knows who Joe Wilson is based on his idiotic screaming at the president. And Robinson, a black man, knows what's best for all black people. What that is he never really says, but he still knows.
Who do they think they are that they can exclaim such ridiculous notions? How is this arrogant, condescending excuse for a way of thinking appealing to anyone besides the most pompous and disillusioned of individuals?
Jimmy Carter's, Maureen Dowd's, and Eugene Robinson's comments over the past couple of weeks reminded me of a passage in Clarence Thomas' memoir My Grandfather's Son concerning Thomas' ardous journey of being appointed to the Court of Appeals:
As I reflected on the long, unpleasant process that had led up to this brief public performance, I was struck by how easy it had become for sanctimonious whites to accuse a black man of not caring about civil rights. It was as ludicrous as a well-fed man lecturing a starving person about his insensitivity to world hunger (p. 202).
Carter claims to know what the millions of Americans are truly thinking when they oppose Obama's anti-liberty policies. A significant number of them are without a doubt racists. Dowd asserts Rep. Joe Wilson, a man whom she has never met or most likely never heard of, knows who Joe Wilson is based on his idiotic screaming at the president. And Robinson, a black man, knows what's best for all black people. What that is he never really says, but he still knows.
Who do they think they are that they can exclaim such ridiculous notions? How is this arrogant, condescending excuse for a way of thinking appealing to anyone besides the most pompous and disillusioned of individuals?
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