Posted on 05/15/2014 12:59:04 PM PDT by econjack
In early January 2014, Bob Lonsberry, a Rochester talk radio personality on WHAM 1180 AM, said this in response to Obama's "income inequality speech":
Two Americas The Democrats are right, there are two Americas . The America that works, and the America that doesn’t. There America that contributes, and the America that doesn’t. It’s not the haves and the have nots, it’s the dos and the don’ts. Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to society, and others don’t. That’s the divide in America . It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility. It’s about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office. It’s about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. That’s not invective, that’s truth, and it’s about time someone said it. The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President Obama pledged the rest of his term to fighting “income inequality.” He noted that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says that’s not just. That is the rationale of thievery. The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you. Vote Democrat. That is the philosophy that produced Detroit . It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America . It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense because it ends up not benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal. The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope. The president’s premise – that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful – seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices. Because, by and large, income variations in society is a result of different choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. Success and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income. You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college – and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education. You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course; you have them within a marriage and life is apt to take another course. Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take. My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome, but, our lives also have had an in equality of effort. While my doctor went to college and then devoted his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant. He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes. His outcome pays a lot better than mine. Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it means we are both free men in a free society where free choices lead to different outcomes. It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away, it is freedom. The freedom to succeed, and the freedom to fail. There is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure. The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy. Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing. Even if the other guy made a lifetime’s worth of asinine and shortsighted decisions. Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of effort. The simple Law of the Harvest – as ye sow, so shall ye reap – is sometimes applied as, “The harder you work, the more you get." Obama would turn that upside down. Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society. Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American society if Barack Obama gets his way. He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive to foster equality through mediocrity. He and his party speak of two Americas , and their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other. America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is divided by the differences in our efforts. It is a false philosophy to say one man’s success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man’s victimization. What Obama offered was not a solution, but a separatism. He fomented division and strife, pitted one set of Americans against another for his own political benefit. That’s what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow. Two Americas , coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln ’s maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Talking about income inequality is almost like talking about height inequality.
Unless we are installing communism, of course experts, managers, scientists, professionals, CEO’s etc are going to make “more” because their services are valued higher.
Even discussing this is discussing communism pure and simple. Obama is a Marxist. As is almost all of the democrat party.
And their revolution to destroy America, fragment society and install communism is reaching the tipping point. Free Speech is just about gone, Freedom of Religion, etc.
Paragraphs are you friend.
We really need to talk about paragraph break inequality.
Collectivist/egalitarianism is the ultimate mischief maker in human society over recent centuries. (See The Greatest Mischief Ever Wrought.) It is a common mistake to consider it to be idealistic. It is anything but.
William Flax
In this example, all sentences are equal. None get the favored place at the start of a paragraph due to privilege or heredity or whatever. None are consigned to the “back of the bus (paragraph)”. What could be more equal.
Two biggest typos I’m subject to -
leaving the “r” off of “your”
and the “y” off of “they”
good anal ysis
What Obama is offering is pure Communism,
Not at all, “pure communism” is, according to it’s inventor is Stateless and seems to be pure drug induced folly.
Socialism has a State and the State owns the means of production. This seems not to be El-Presidente’s goal.
Rather his goal seems to be private “semi” ownership of the means of production with the State awarding ownership and controlling the production. This is also known as either crony capitalism or fascism.
And the kicker is that the “wards of society” will never, EVER, move past being wards of society.
The Democratic Party has a vested interest in the poor. The poor tend to vote for the Democratic Party, so that party has no interest in helping the poor move into the middle class.
A comment I read right here on FreeRepublic sums it up, “Obama loves the poor, look at how many he’s created since taking office.”
Well stated, plus it doesn’t work.
That isn't quite correct. Even under communism inequality is inevitable due to Pareto's Law. Over any appreciable amount of time, wealth will arrange itself in accordance with the 80/20 power rule. The same is true for about anything that can be said about any biological systems. 20% of the pea pods in your garden will produce 80% of the peas. That's it. This is a corollary to the laws of thermodynamics. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can be done about stark inequality.
We conservatives have to get this point. Whatever else can be said about the progressive agenda, trying to achieve equality of income or wealth distribution is truly tilting at windmills. They might as well try to repeal the Law of Gravity by legislative decree. It ain't gonna work.
And we conservatives fall into this trap that progressives set for us over and over and over again because - well, I don't really know. Why is it that conservatives don't know or maybe don't care about Pareto's Law?
Good things don’t come to those who wait with their hand held out; Good things come to those who work their butts off, make reasonably good choices and never quit.
The dems demand equality in outcome - the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality. Offering “Equality in Opportunity” is viscerally insulting to those societal leeches.
There’s the America that uses paragraphs and the America that doesn’t.
Well, you can only buy votes with equality in outcome. Offering equality in opportunity is a visceral insult to your standard issue politislut or societal leech.
Good piece of writing. Too bad it will only bounce off the impenetrable shield of “gimme” that clouds the good common sense of half the voters out there.
Thanks for this excellent post.
I enjoyed your clever analogy, jim. You brought it home.
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communism is a subjective moral system. the whims of men determine right and wrong, what too much or too little is, what a need is, what a want is, what you should have, what you shouldn’t, where you live, what job you have, what medical treatment you can or can’t have.
i go for objective moral systems. we may have to interpret them in certain fringe situations but the golden rule pretty much is easy enough for everyone to understand.
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