Posted on 05/08/2012 2:09:04 PM PDT by Art in Idaho
Between things like Anita Dunn’s professed love for Mao Tse-Tung and the not-controversy surrounding the president’s new campaign slogan (“Forward!”), we suspect White House staffers are getting awfully tired of responding to questions about whether the Obama administration employs at least a few communist-sympathizing officials.
Rick Bookstaber, who currently serves on President Obama’s Financial Stability Oversight Council, may have just kicked off another round of these questions.
Writing on his personal blog Monday, Boosktaber posted a refutation of conservative author Tucker Carlson’s claim that, by repeatedly singling out the “wealthy,” Democrats are waging “class warfare.”
“There is little that matches the artfulness of the rich in waving off criticism of the widening income gap as ‘class warfare,’” Bookstaber writes. “And there is little that matches the gullibility of the rest in following along.”
“I am not picking sides in this war,” he added, “but I believe such a war is justifiable, and indeed ultimately inevitable.”
Bookstaber continued:
During the industrial revolution class warfare centered on the length of the working day. A tightly defined working day only appeared with the advent of the industrial revolution. Before then laborers worked when they needed money, and then quit for a time once they fulfilled their needs. But regimentation and a dependable workforce became necessary once there was machinery to run and capital invested, and so with industrialization came the an enforced workday. So it is not surprising that Marx stated the central battle of class warfare at the time in terms of the working day:
The capitalist maintains his rights as a purchaser when he tries to make the working-day as long as possible, and to make, whenever possible, two working-days out of one. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consumption by the purchaser, and the laborer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working-day to one of definite normal duration. There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class. – Marx, Das Kapital
Karl Marx, of course, is most famously known as the father of communism. His political philosophy was adopted and implemented by infamous dictators — including Vladimir Lenin, Mao Tse-Tung, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Min, Fidel Castro, and Che Gueverra — whose search for the perfect collectivist society led to the deaths of approximately 100 million people, according to the historian Stéphane Courtois.
Anybody (and I mean anybody) who enables the traitorous bastard, whether through action or inaction, is the same.
My bro just told me the same sentence! They're getting more confrontive every day. .
“The only way your vote can make any difference is if Obama squeaks by in a close one”
The only way my vote can make a difference is if both: A) Romney wins Minnesota by a single vote, and B) Minnesota’s vote make the difference in the electoral college. In other words, when pigs fly.
“Just ask FL Ralph Nader voters.”
Notice the all-important “s” after “voter.” I hate how people are always trying to convince me that my vote is important and that I must vote for one of the two parties based on the fact that collections of votes matter. Well, duh, but mine doesn’t.
There’s no reason, anyway, that I need to make the “unpleasant choice” just because only a Republican or Democrat can win. So what? Why do I have to vote for someone who has the potential to win? That’s like saying I should have voted for Obama in 2008 because he was going to win. Why does my tally have to go on the winning side? What’s the point?
Voting, so far as I can tell, is an empty ritual for the individual, who except in the remotest of cases cannot possibly make a difference. It matters only for large chunks of people, who you may have noticed are not individuals. I go through it for the heck of it. Don’t try to tell me I have to vote any which way in pursuit of any which outcome. That’s stupid.
Rights do often conflict, but that’s just a matter of speaking. What actually happens when rights confront eachother is that one loses and one wins. When my fist hits your nose my right to swing my arms does not confront your right to not be punched. What actually happens is that there is your right not to be punched and my nothing. There is no right to swing where your nose is, and therefore no right on my end.
No such thing as equal and opposite rights exists. What Marx needed to understand, though it’s too late to teach him, is that there was no right to a shorter work day. There were property rights, association rights, contract rights, etc. and nothing else. There is no right to enter another man’s property and be paid for as long as you want to stay there regardless of how long the employer wants you there.
Oh yeah, right, Romney has no chance to win. He’s ahead in national polls, in swing state polls. He leads independent likely voters 48% to 32%, and the indecideds almost never break for an incumbent. Obama’s personal favorability has dropped below 50% for the first time, and his fundraising is down. Romney will raise more money than Zero, and hss proven he can put together a well run national campaign. Add high gas prices, unemployment and a million new forclusures this year. Truth is the most likely result is a Romney landslide. So your ineffectual third party protest vote probably won’t matter to anyone but you, unless as I said, Obama squeaks though in a close one that includes winning your state.
“Unlike civil rights – the rights which our society regards as inalienable”
Only natural rights are inalienable. Civil rights are those which are provided to you only in civil society, and as such can be taken away from you. For instance, if you leave civil society, if you are perceived to sufficiently transgress against it, or if civil society breaks down and nature takes over again.
That's a great point. Why vote ever?
“That’s a great point. Why vote ever?”
Like I said, for the heck of it. That’s why I do it.
I realize you’re being facetious, but seriously think about it. Why do we vote? Not because our votes count, as clearly when the election is decided by a margin larger than one vote—whihc is evewry election—it doesn’t. So why do people vote? To be part of blocks. Collectively, votes do count, and people like to be part of groups.
So that’s why. Just don’t pretend like it matters how I vote individually. I hate that.
“it’s quite possible that the margin of victory could be less than the fraction of one percent the fringe party candidate will get”
Possible, okay, but that’s still a collection of votes. I get why you’d wanna convince people that their vote makes a difference based on how groups of votes make a difference and groups are made up of individuals. But don’t do it by pretending individuals make a difference, because they don’t, not even in that example.
It's also funny that he was designing derivatives before the bust. He's probably much more of a "1%er" than anybody.
Then keep your smug self-satisfaction to yourself, go off in a corner and pat yourself on the back.
All that you are doing here is sowing discord.
Either you are for Obama and what he is trying to do to America, or you are against him.
There are very few ways to stop him. The least painful will be at the ballot box in November.
Think seriously about what you are doing AND advocating.
N.B. I do not like Romney. My preferences were Palin, Cain, Gingrich, in that order. If Romney had a lick of sense, he’d pick Rep Allen West as his V.P. Unfortunately, neither Romney nor the GOP seems to.
The Socialists Despise Mankind
According to these writers, it is indeed fortunate that Heaven has bestowed upon certain men — governors and legislators — the exact opposite inclinations, not only for their own sake but also for the sake of the rest of the world! While mankind tends toward evil, the legislators yearn for good; while mankind advances toward darkness, the legislators aspire for enlightenment; while mankind is drawn toward vice, the legislators are attracted toward virtue. Since they have decided that this is the true state of affairs, they then demand the use of force in order to substitute their own inclinations for those of the human race.
Open at random any book on philosophy, politics, or history, and you will probably see how deeply rooted in our country is this idea — the child of classical studies, the mother of socialism. In all of them, you will probably find this idea that mankind is merely inert matter, receiving life, organization, morality, and prosperity from the power of the state. And even worse, it will be stated that mankind tends toward degeneration, and is stopped from this downward course only by the mysterious hand of the legislator. Conventional classical thought everywhere says that behind passive society there is a concealed power called law or legislator (or called by some other terminology that designates some unnamed person or persons of undisputed influence and authority) which moves, controls, benefits, and improves mankind.
Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850 (he had their number before the communist manifesto was published...and given the recent election in France...he must be spinning in his grave...again)
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G038
Property rights. "Captialist" A has a right to his property, his investment. "Laborer" B (I don't even like premising these comments in Marxist terms, its icky) has a right to work, or not. His self-possession, if you will. The two enter into contract, and then at the end of the term, the work performed or the widget manufactured is the property of Capitalist A, and the $$ or barter exchanged for the labor is the property of Laborer B, per the terms of the contract. And everyone's rights are intact.
Is that difficult, or am I missing something?
This is Obama’s governing principle. If you need something the government will provide it to you. If you have more than you need it is the government’s purpose to take it from you and give it to the people who do need it. Obama’s philosophy is stated in the opening seven words of Marx’ quote.
The inherent paradox in this statement and subsequent lack of incentive should have been blatantly obvious to 'the intellectual' Marx. Did he ever hold a job? Also, who decides who has ability and who needs what. I've always thought it was such a big government statement fraught with ultimate chaos and failure.
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