Here we go with the Pie
Posted by TFG on April 9th, 2008
“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”
I recently got a very gentle push-back when I said Barack NMI Obama was just to the right of Karl Marx. Well, if that ain’t “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”, I’ll eat my fucking 10-gallon 10x silverbelly right damn now. Someone go on and explain how it’s not.
These elitists just never, ever, ever get that it’s possible to grow that damn pie. I detest them for their stupidity and the influence they have. All you have to do is look at history. Look at it. We’re not still living in caves = bigger damn pies. Why do people think that that’s all the pie we could ever possibly bake? Worse, that the pies we can bake are going to start getting smaller.
I feature it as megalomania of sorts. Know-it-alls. My mama had it right 40 years ago.
P.S. Just how long are we going to accept the feds throwing Hefty bags full of $100 bills at schools for an education system?
April 10th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Well, under your rules it’s fair to say that GWB resides just a smidgen left of Genghis Khan because he declared war and invaded a country once. Obama’s health insurance plan does attempt to harness and enhance current market efficiencies, which probably builds into a less Karl Marx version than his current opponent’s plan does.
The whole “Obama is teh mostest librul guy evar!!!1!” construct isn’t as true as the right would like it to be, nor are all of his policies as palatable to progressives as they’d like him to be. I’m just saying that there are a lot of politicians far to the left of Obama, and although he’s not pandering to some imaginary “center” that’s really a right-of-center constituency, that doesn’t leave him as the most liberal guy in Congress.
We have Dennis Kucinich for that.
April 10th, 2008 at 6:27 am
How about you try addressing the point I’m making, which is that Obama and his wife either a) don’t understand how markets work, or b) don’t care to see them grow any larger, or c) are basic re-distributionists, or d) all of the above?
Then, later, we can cuss and discuss GWB and Khan, wars, the right, the progressives, Clinton’s health plan, goofy l33t speak constructions, and Kucinich. Since none of those subjects were in this particular post.
April 10th, 2008 at 6:47 am
I did address your point. You said Obama is just to the right of Karl Marx, and held up one policy to prove your point. I agree that Karl Marx said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” but to hold up one policy and state that the liberal is now teetering on the edge of socialism is a false equivalence. Obama’s plan, in my opinion, minces around the edges of the dramatic commie doom scenario you’re insinuating with this comparison, because it doesn’t kick insurance/drug companies (and the perceived free market efficiencies they’ve created) out of the room completely.
(Let’s not take that last sentence and assume you can assign me an opinion on national health care. That’s a conversation for another day, and you’d probably assume my position to be something other than what it is.)
It is a plan that people farther to the left of Obama criticize for that fact (among others, I’m sure), yet these hippies aren’t suggesting that by virtue of letting the government run the health care system (and, you know, workers of the world uniting and all that) that we’re going to reach the Marx/Engels utopia history has proved to be impossible.
I would agree that Obama is way to the left of Milton Friedman, but I’m going to disagree that he’s only separated from Karl Marx by thin slivers of ideology. One policy - especially that policy of his - does not a socialist state make.
So yes, I addressed your point. I said that Obama’s national health care plan, were you to read the specifics, doesn’t go far enough to be considered socialism. It is clearly more of a redistribution of burden system than what we have now, but it is not a hair’s breadth (hare’s breath?) from Marxian glory.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Marxists, prepare for glory!
Sorry, I had to do that. Disregarding how many eggs he’ll need to break to make his pies, it is always assumed that redistribution is moral and ethical. Alas, it isn’t, though I have neither the time nor inclination to address that here and now.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Hey, GET YOUR OWN FUCKING PIE! I’ve been working for 30 years to make my pie, and I’m already giving almost half of it to Uncle Sam. Why not teach some of these Welfare scrounges how to bake?
April 10th, 2008 at 11:18 am
We do a lot of things for each other as a society already. Were this the very first instance where the “free market” was facing hyper-regulation and government intervention, the hyperbole would be warranted.
It’s certainly valid to oppose sharing the burden of health care costs as a society. It’s another thing to assign full-throated Marxist philosophical notions to the advocates of such a thing. You can clearly deliver some things through shared burden, while allowing the market to do other things.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I knew it would be a full day before I got back to you, so here goes:
1) You said Obama is just to the right of Karl Marx, and held up one policy to prove your point.
Call it what you wish, but I held up a policy, not in hopes of proving anything.
2)Obama’s plan, in my opinion,
That can be your opinion till the cows come home, but the facts argue against your opinion.
3) Let’s not take that last sentence and assume you can assign
Let’s not assume that I will assume to assign you any position whatsoever. You can assign yourself your position through your arguments. Not my job, in other words.
4) I would agree that Obama is way to the left of Milton Friedman, but I’m going to disagree that he’s only separated from Karl Marx by thin slivers of ideology
Disagree all you want, hoss — here’s his wife, saying the opposite. Find a way to deconstruct her statements to mean something besides what I equaed them to.
5) One policy - especially that policy
So, you believe that one policy is the outlier, the exception, the anomaly. How many more do I need to find to satisfy you that Obama is a Marxist? Personally, for me, one is enough. YMMV.
6) I said that Obama’s national health care plan, were you to read the specifics, doesn’t go far enough to be considered socialism.
Now we get to something — what, precisely, would be considered socialism to you? Redistribution of wealth is clearly not enough. What else does it take?
7) We do a lot of things for each other as a society already.
My point, which you ignore, is that we shouldn’t be forced by the government to do aught for each other. We had a War of Independence to establish that fact. Just because we, as a country, have entered this phase where we you, one dude and a bunch of others, say we should be expected to doesn’t make it so. It’s that simple.
I think this is the crux of the biscuit — it might seem like hyperbole to you, but to me, any movement towards Marxist economics is a bad thing for this country to me. We dinosaurs are exceeedingly aware that there was a time when it would have been unconscienable for the federal government to ask for my money to take care of you. You, on the other hand, have never even witnessed those times. Therefore, I don’t think you can possibly know the joy of being your own man. So, it’s natural that you think someone else, and most especially the feds, should handle your doctoring.
The bottom line is that you agree with me that this particular enunciated policy by Mrs. Obama is socialist, or Marxist, to the core. We’re quibbling over what I consider to be the quality, morality, and ethics of that policy. And it’s only one…I’ll go get more, if you need them, but I think you don’t. However, I will endeavour to do so, if you promise to accept them, and your complicity in them.
Let me give you a small simple example: you’re very good at betting the horses. I’m not. Would you then assign me a portion of your profits from your horse betting, simply because I suck at it? If the answer is yes, then you can paypal me at scott -at- thefatguy -dot- com with my winnings for your lifetime.
If, on the other hand, the answer is no — well, why not? I want my horseracing pie to be bigger. You’re going to have to give some up. Can you possibly see the equivalence between horseracing and health-care? Please say yes.