R.,
The full story as told by Obama was that the leader asked Obama why Americans compared him to Hitler when all Obama wanted to do was give them health care. If you've been to Europe, where health care is considered a human right by conservatives and liberals alike, then you understand this leader's mystification.
I'm not jealous of rich people. (OK, maybe I am a little bit; but I don't want more of their money for myself courtesy of the federal gov't., which is what matters in our discussion.) Nor do I think gov't can make them un-rich. I'm not that naive: the super-rich aren't gonna let that happen.
I do object to huge disparities in wealth, where the U.S., the richest country on Earth, is in the same league with Mexico, Turkey, Russia, and Brazil, not its G-7 partners like the UK, France, Germany, and Japan: from 1993-2007, the top 1% of U.S. income earners captured half of all economic growth; in the period of expansion from 2002-2007, the top 1% captured two-thirds of all economic growth. And as of 2007 (the latest data) the top 0.1% of Americans controlled 6% of the country's wealth, and the top 10% took home half of all wages. Meanwhile, the poorest 10% of Americans had an average income that was 20% lower than the average bottom decile among all 30 OECD countries. You have to go back before 1920 to find a such a large disparity in U.S. incomes.
In other words, America is going backwards.
So we do need to redistribute wealth a little. I don't have a philosophical objection to redistribution. I think it's the price a successful or lucky person should pay to live in the greatest country on Earth, which guarantees his rights and civil liberties, protects his life and property with police and courts, provides him with a well educated and civilized work force, not to mention first-rate infrastructure, and ensures him access to overseas markets with its diplomats and, yes, its armed forces. People like to credit themselves with their successes and blame their failures on everybody else, and rich people are no different. Most of America's wealthy would not be so if they lived in another country. That is why they should not be so greedy and give up something in taxes to make sure those on the bottom can meet their family's basic needs.
Also, persistent and growing income inequality -- and stagnant wages for the middle class -- is a recipe for civil disaster. Just you watch. Maybe it will be a socialist on the left, or a fascist populist on the right, but somebody's going to try to exploit all of this building frustration and resentment for bad ends. (You'll say that guy is Obama, but come on, bailing out Wall Street should have erased all doubts that Obama is a typical Republicrat). Or we'll just have riots, increased crime, and mayhem. I don't know. Redistribution is like opening the pressure-release valve, politically speaking. Deep down, both parties know it.
Anyway, about Dubya and Hitler... Here's where the comparison is most apt: building a war state. Dubya started two wars in 4 years, and would have started a third if Cheney, Bolton, and others in his Administration had got their way. One war was arguably justified; the other was clearly not. Everything in his Administration became subordinated to the war effort (including Americans' civil liberties), which, by 2006, was already clearly a failure and should have been ended on both fronts, and yet he was rattling our saber to start a third war.
However, I am all for declaring a moratorium on Hitler/Nazi analogies and metaphors in U.S. politics. Shake on it? Hitler has been compared to so many people for doing so many different things that the poor guy can't burn in hell in peace. "Es gibt nur ein Hitler, not that schwarzer!" I bet he screams at FOXNews (which you know they get on satellite TV in hell) every day.
---------------------------------------------------------------
On September 30, 2009, R. wrote:
J,
I call complete BS on your assertion that I care about lazy people getting money. If that were the case, I would have a problem with lottery winners. No sir. My problem is that to give someone money, you generally have to take it away from someone else. THAT is what I have a problem with. The left is the side that cares about how much money individual people have, not the right. But, your comment highlights the way your side thinks about things. It is all about jealousy. Lots of people on the left are a lot more concerned with making sure that no one can accumulate wealth, as opposed to making sure there aren't any poor people. This explains why there is no outrage from your side about the horrible circumstances people live in in shitholes like Vietnam and Honduras (of course, the chasm in those countries between rich and poor are really huge, but never mind that), but there is ample criticism for a country that allows an executive to make $1M while sucking at his job, while a "poor" person in that same country dies because they ate too much. Pretty amazing. Man, unlike communism, capitalism sure does screw people. My criticism isn't that the gov't doesn't do as good of a job as it should, my criticism is that gov't takes on too much. Philosophical difference, no reason to waste more time on it. Also, it seems very odd to me that a foreign leader would ask Obama why such images would exist. Why is it odd? Because there are stupid people in every country (and despite the steroetype that Americans are stupid and bigoted, I have found that in the 12 countries I have visited, they have a much higher % idiots and people that are bigoted and narrow-minded - afterall, Hitler wasn't from the U.S.), so it should come as no surprise to a person who is a world leader, that a select few members of a country would claim that their leader is an evil maniac. Not to mention, GWB has been accused by a LARGE number of people all around the world on the left of being Hitler, a terrorist, a murderer that enjoys bloodshed, a liar, the Antichrist and everything else. |
No comments:
Post a Comment