Tuesday, August 28, 2012
You Didn't Build That, The People You Hired Did
According to the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of Human Nature, our brains were designed by Evolution to seek out "leaders." This was necessary because we needed leaders to coordinate the actions of the tribe. These leaders were chosen by criteria that have evolved over our history but have always needed to satisfy our sense of "fairness." We granted these leaders not only the power and authority to make the major decisions but, for reasons that will be explained at another time, we also rewarded them with fabulous riches and privileges. One of the main reasons we did this was to decide how to distribute resources.
Today we choose our leaders through a political system where politicians campaign for our votes and the right to represent our interests in the decision making process. We don't reward these politician/leaders with the same level of riches and privileges as we used to because as we evolved from primitive tribal societies to capital driven "free market" societies, the rules of the tribal society have been replaced by the rules of free market capitalism. Thus, the free market now decides how to distribute wealth/resources/privileges.
The free market model is unquestionably much better and fairer than those older models, but just how close to perfect is that model, is a question of fierce debate between liberals and conservatives.
Conservatives and libertarians think that model is as close to perfect as we can possibly get. The more extreme among them think that the free market has a God-like perfection to it.
Liberals, on the other hand, see inequities in the market model and seek to use government to balance things out a bit.
What about the more extreme among them?
For various reasons it would be difficult for me to describe that person. But one thing that would be easy for me to say is that there is practically no one around today in this country that is even nearly equivalent to the free market fanatics among us.
Unlike myself, those free market fanatics would have no trouble at all describing anyone with even a hint of a "pro-active government intervention in the market" sensibility as an extremist.
Anyone with even a hint more than just a hint of such a sensibility would be described as a freedom-hating Marxist anti-American liberty-robber who's goal in life is to take everything from the productive in order to give to the non-productive so that we can all be equally miserable.
Of course this characterization is absurd on its face but many conservatives are completely serious when they say these things. And I'm not just talking about irresponsible talk show hosts who are paid millions of dollars to spew this horseshit. We've even heard "respected" Republiconservatives in important and prominent positions say things like this about the moderate/centrist Obama. (What's that Rush? Obama is a radical leftist ideologue? Just look at his record, stupid.)
Just how absurd this characterization is can best be illustrated by this fact: The closest we've ever come to "taking away from the rich so that we are all equally poor" is to tax billionaires to a point where they are still fucking billionaires and then redistribute a small portion of that money so that someone who works a 40 hour week at a minimum wage job (quite possibly at a company that makes the billionaire a billionaire) can have $140 a month in food stamps, for crying out loud!
See how equal everyone is?
The minimum wage worker buys his food with stamps while the billionaire has someone who's on food stamps buy his food for him, take it home, cook it for him, serve it to him on expensive china then clean everything up after him.
But is everyone really equal in this situation? After all, the billionaire just created the servant's job for her, just like he's fucking God or something. She owes him everything. At least she owes it to buy his oxycodone for him.
You see, when it comes to job creation the relationship between the person performing the job and the person who "created" it is like a one-way street. All the benefit flows from the "Creator" who makes, to the luckily fortunate job performer, who takes.
Look at it this way. If, say, in order to spite the ungrateful "taker", the billionaire "maker" refused to create the job of doing his chores for him, what would the taker do? Starve to death?
On the other hand, if the maker did do that he'd have to do his own chores, which would make being a billionaire kind of pointless, wouldn't it?
Never mind that, he's a job creator!
What does all this blather have to do with the subject title of this post, which is the theme of the Republicon Convention tonight? Hopefully, I can tie things together in my upcoming posts.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Paul Ryan: The Worst of All Worlds
There's been a lot of silly talk about Paul Ryan, the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for Vice President of the most exceptional country that God ever gave to man on this green earth, which He created expressly for mankind to exploit as they see fit. For those liberals out there, I'm talking about the United States of America.
Some have mocked Mr. Ryan for his amazing resemblance to Eddie Munster, the werewolf boy of TV sitcom fame.
Others have gushed about his six-pack abs, those dreamy pale-blue bedroom eyes and his luxurious widow's peak.
But I haven't heard anyone asking the important questions, like, did that hair on his head come with a chin strap?
To be fair, there has been a lot of scrutiny of Ryan's political/philosophical/religious views and the fascinating contradictions among those views themselves and between those views and his voting record.
Mr Ryan is the worst of all worlds: An ultra-conservative, ultra-religious, ultra libertarian.
It is laughable how conservatives can vilify Obama for being a follower of Saul Alinsky, who they love to portray as some sinister anti-American Mao Tse-tung like commie, while they proudly and enthusiastically cheer Ryan, an admitted devotee of Ayn Rand, who they love to portray as the best-est and most supreme moral philosopher that the 20th century has to offer.
As usual, today's recent incarnation of conservatism has things exactly backwards.
Mr Alinsky not only disavowed communism but can fairly be described as a great American patriot in the mold of Thomas Paine.
http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2012/01/who-hell-is-saul-alinsky.html
Ms Rand, on the other hand, can fairly be described as a truly sinister character who holds some deeply disturbing views. Though she never advocated genocide, condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, many of her other views remind me alot of Adolph Hitler's. Very ironic, considering she was a European born Jew who lived through the Nazi era .
Alinsky was concerned about the poor, so his writing and organizing skills were focused on improving the living conditions of poor communities.
Rand considered the poor to be unworthy of concern. Her writing and rhetorical skills were focused on improving the living conditions of the rich and powerful who she cast as the oppressed.
The Dems are pleased as punch about the Ryan pick. From the Dem point of view, the Re-cons couldn't have picked a better candidate.
From his plan to insert a profit-grabbing private insurance company between patients and their doctors by turning Medicare into a voucher system and then ration coverage further with debilitating spending cuts, to his severely radical views and jaw dropping contradictions and hypocrisies, the Dems see Ryan as an easy target to attack.
However, over the past two decades, the Republicons have repeatedly handed the Dems golden opportunities on a silver platter and the Dems have failed to take advantage every single time.
From the Re-cons' point of view, they are equally confident that Ryan is a great pick. Except they see Ryan as a very able articulator of their ultra-conservative values and can't wait to get Ryan into a debate with Biden about Medicare, Social Security and the "welfare state."
Unfortunately, I see the advantage going to the Re-cons for several reasons.
First of all, most American voters stupidly accept hypocrisies and contradictions with a "They all do it, it's just politics as usual, what are you going to do?" attitude. For example, if there is anyone who can surpass Ryan in his lying, double-talking bullshit, it's Mitt Romney. And Romney not only won the Republicon nomination but he's in a dead heat with Obama in the Presidential race.
Yes, as a co-conspirator in the Republicon strategy of "Starve the Beast"economics,
(http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2011/07/starve-beast.html) Ryan voted for every single deficit-causing tax cut he could lay his hands on. And as long as George W was in office, he voted for every single Republicon spending increase. These actions resulted in exactly what the Re-cons intended: they produced the massive deficits and debt that they are now using as the excuse to get rid of all the government programs that the vast majority of Americans want and the Re-cons pretended that they supported and would never do anything to undermine.
But now, because of the deficit/debt and all the "over-spending" on "entitlement programs," we have no choice but to end those programs by privatizing them even if that results in you paying even more for less.
Even if the Dems pound on those facts with the same relentless effort that the Re-cons pound on their lies, the fact remains that Obama and the Dems (except for the Democratic Progressive Caucus) have not offered any alternative to balancing the budget that does not include severe cuts to those programs. Ryan and company know that, which is why they are so confident. And if the voters are led to believe that there is no other alternative, Ryan's plan will seem fair, sensible and unavoidable.
But of course there is an alternative budget plan that would be much better for 98 percent of Americans. And that would be the Democratic Progressive Caucus' budget plan. That plan balances the budget sooner than either Ryan's or Obama's and does so in a way that, poll after poll says, the American people want.
It cuts the wasteful and counter-productive military, lets the deficit-causing Bush tax cuts expire like they were supposed to last year and reintroduces the public option. Check it out:
http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf
The Dems are too cowardly to get behind this because they fear the 24 hour-a-day attacks that would be launched by Fox News and the rest of the Right Wing Propaganda Machine. Also, the Dems are too inept to defend those positions even though, in a fair debate, those positions would win, hands down.
Some have mocked Mr. Ryan for his amazing resemblance to Eddie Munster, the werewolf boy of TV sitcom fame.
Others have gushed about his six-pack abs, those dreamy pale-blue bedroom eyes and his luxurious widow's peak.
But I haven't heard anyone asking the important questions, like, did that hair on his head come with a chin strap?
To be fair, there has been a lot of scrutiny of Ryan's political/philosophical/religious views and the fascinating contradictions among those views themselves and between those views and his voting record.
Mr Ryan is the worst of all worlds: An ultra-conservative, ultra-religious, ultra libertarian.
It is laughable how conservatives can vilify Obama for being a follower of Saul Alinsky, who they love to portray as some sinister anti-American Mao Tse-tung like commie, while they proudly and enthusiastically cheer Ryan, an admitted devotee of Ayn Rand, who they love to portray as the best-est and most supreme moral philosopher that the 20th century has to offer.
As usual, today's recent incarnation of conservatism has things exactly backwards.
Mr Alinsky not only disavowed communism but can fairly be described as a great American patriot in the mold of Thomas Paine.
http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2012/01/who-hell-is-saul-alinsky.html
Ms Rand, on the other hand, can fairly be described as a truly sinister character who holds some deeply disturbing views. Though she never advocated genocide, condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, many of her other views remind me alot of Adolph Hitler's. Very ironic, considering she was a European born Jew who lived through the Nazi era .
Alinsky was concerned about the poor, so his writing and organizing skills were focused on improving the living conditions of poor communities.
Rand considered the poor to be unworthy of concern. Her writing and rhetorical skills were focused on improving the living conditions of the rich and powerful who she cast as the oppressed.
The Dems are pleased as punch about the Ryan pick. From the Dem point of view, the Re-cons couldn't have picked a better candidate.
From his plan to insert a profit-grabbing private insurance company between patients and their doctors by turning Medicare into a voucher system and then ration coverage further with debilitating spending cuts, to his severely radical views and jaw dropping contradictions and hypocrisies, the Dems see Ryan as an easy target to attack.
However, over the past two decades, the Republicons have repeatedly handed the Dems golden opportunities on a silver platter and the Dems have failed to take advantage every single time.
From the Re-cons' point of view, they are equally confident that Ryan is a great pick. Except they see Ryan as a very able articulator of their ultra-conservative values and can't wait to get Ryan into a debate with Biden about Medicare, Social Security and the "welfare state."
Unfortunately, I see the advantage going to the Re-cons for several reasons.
First of all, most American voters stupidly accept hypocrisies and contradictions with a "They all do it, it's just politics as usual, what are you going to do?" attitude. For example, if there is anyone who can surpass Ryan in his lying, double-talking bullshit, it's Mitt Romney. And Romney not only won the Republicon nomination but he's in a dead heat with Obama in the Presidential race.
Yes, as a co-conspirator in the Republicon strategy of "Starve the Beast"economics,
(http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2011/07/starve-beast.html) Ryan voted for every single deficit-causing tax cut he could lay his hands on. And as long as George W was in office, he voted for every single Republicon spending increase. These actions resulted in exactly what the Re-cons intended: they produced the massive deficits and debt that they are now using as the excuse to get rid of all the government programs that the vast majority of Americans want and the Re-cons pretended that they supported and would never do anything to undermine.
But now, because of the deficit/debt and all the "over-spending" on "entitlement programs," we have no choice but to end those programs by privatizing them even if that results in you paying even more for less.
Even if the Dems pound on those facts with the same relentless effort that the Re-cons pound on their lies, the fact remains that Obama and the Dems (except for the Democratic Progressive Caucus) have not offered any alternative to balancing the budget that does not include severe cuts to those programs. Ryan and company know that, which is why they are so confident. And if the voters are led to believe that there is no other alternative, Ryan's plan will seem fair, sensible and unavoidable.
But of course there is an alternative budget plan that would be much better for 98 percent of Americans. And that would be the Democratic Progressive Caucus' budget plan. That plan balances the budget sooner than either Ryan's or Obama's and does so in a way that, poll after poll says, the American people want.
It cuts the wasteful and counter-productive military, lets the deficit-causing Bush tax cuts expire like they were supposed to last year and reintroduces the public option. Check it out:
http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf
The Dems are too cowardly to get behind this because they fear the 24 hour-a-day attacks that would be launched by Fox News and the rest of the Right Wing Propaganda Machine. Also, the Dems are too inept to defend those positions even though, in a fair debate, those positions would win, hands down.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)