TheAgitator.com
One More Thing on the Drew Carey Video
Monday, February 4th, 2008Some of you seem to think the message of the video was for people to quit complaining about high taxes and government intrusion, because we’re all doing pretty good.
Carey’s a hardcore libertarian. The message was the other way around. The message is that the free market is serving us very well, and we don’t need government limiting trade or redistributing wealth. I’ve little doubt that Carey would support a massive cut in middle class income taxes. The argument, I believe, is that if we had smaller government, fewer taxes, and less regulation, we’d be moving along at an even better clip than we are. No one is saying you should be happy that the government is taking a third of your income away from you.
Relax. It’s not like libertarians suddenly washed their hands of Drew and disavowed him.
You know, like some libertarians responded to Ron Paul.
Forget the video, it only ran for me for less than 3 minutes anyway.
Face it we need a REAL congress, and one that is a renewable resource. The only way to get that is with term limits!
Term limits provide both a bunch of good and some bad as well.
The bad, we will have to throw out a few that really are good people and working for the citizens.
Lobbyists will have to forge new ties frequently, such will of course cost them some additional ball game tickets. :) Not to mention the challenge of some one that could give a shit less about them or their cause. (Dinner and a movie)?
The good:
We prevent entrenchment, which will prevent many lobbying activities as they know not what they may be offering and to whom.
Ted Kennedy might have to go to work or jail.
Fresh blood into the process! I can’t think of any larger benefit than such, fresh blood! Probably a bit arrogant blood, and not so willing to bend to the wishes or threats of some that have been around for 50 phuking years!
High probability that the newbies would have actually read the constitution and have a grasp of what it actually meant!
But such is the stuff of dreams.
If a heard of cattle were to run though DC, more balls would be displayed than exist in the entire city!
Just read a few comments on the flick thread, I’ll do better tomorrow, BUT…
“Children are a choice. And when you make the choice to have kids,”
Well, in a well adjusted marriage environment I would tend to agree. But face it, how many kids are born to the unwed/uncommitted by the whims of only the female in the equation? It’s a bunch! and once this offspring is out it’s an all out lynch mob mentality toward the father/sperm doaner, willing or not.
The burden of raising that child falls upon society as a whole, and our current policies support single parent households, (meaning bearing children out of wedlock), situations. Even those that might have been started if forced wedded bliss and divorced. There is no difference.
Since when does having a child make anybody “complete”!? Such only demonstrates the ability to breed. Visit a cattle ranch and determine the importance of such. It takes but a single bull per 100 cows to perform the task.
Out of wedlock creation is nothing new for humans, but the ability retain such is rather recent. Shotgun weddings, ending in divorce is also not very new. Shot gun weddings that lasted for a long time as well is nothing new.
But stats are against such today. Yet the men still have no real choice when she says, “I’m pregnant”! Do they?
Spawning is only a choice of the one carrying the child and the sperm doner can and is excluded totally. Sans the piggy bank effect for 18 yrs.
That aside, the art of spending more than we have is reinforced by our government. What difference does it make, who cares? We are but fooled into thinking that a middle class exists, there are those that work and those that don’t, some make enough, and increasingly, those that don’t.
Hmmm….so I wrote a post still critical of this video, and of its content. It showed up on the site, and was there for awhile, and now is magically gone.
I find it hard to believe you are censoring contrary opinions – but I’m not sure how else to take its sudden disappearance.
I deleted it because it was unnecessarily nasty.
You’ve made your point. But I’m not going to be insulted or have my colleagues insulted on my own website.
Criticism and disagreement are fine. But I’m taking a firmer line on personal attacks. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere.
No one is saying you should be happy that the government is taking a third of your income away from you.
Oh, somebody’s saying it, just not anyone with whom you or I choose to associate :)
Well, it’s your blog, and you certainly have the right to allow or disallow whatever comments you wish. (I wouldn’t be much of a libertarian to say otherwise).
However, given the tone of many of the comments I read regularly on this blog you seem woefully inconsistent on this point. If I offended you, I apologize, no personal attack was meant – and after re-reading what I posted I am afraid I still don’t understand where such a vehement reaction is coming from.
Er….nevermind. When I reread it I missed a key line in the first paragraph that was over the top. I’m sorry about that. I will repost in the hopes that it is more along the lines for civil discussion. :-)
The message is that the free market is serving us very well, and we don’t need government limiting trade or redistributing wealth.
This is not the message I got from this video, and I honestly don’t understand how anyone else was supposed to either. When I watch this video I hear: “Hey middle class, you’ve never had it so good, so quit complaining. The media is just trying to scare you with all this talk about problems in our economy and you’re buying into it!”
That’s the message of the video I watched, and from what other people have said I think I’m not the only one. It was very offensive to those of us who are trying to be fiscally responsible and yet are still struggling due to rampant inflation in areas that happen to hit us particularly hard.
If that was truly the intent (and frankly I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, given both your history and Drew’s other work) I would suggest that you should redo the video to make that point clear.
About the clips in that video — what’s with the propensity to cast all problems in terms of “War” these days? We have the “War” on Drugs, Obesity, Middle Class, etc. Is it because a declaration of war is one of the few legitimate powers granted to government in the Constitution, and so framing the issue in terms of “War” somehow legitimizes government involvement? I’m getting War fatigue. In fact so much so, that I’m beginning to feel that anything we are at war against is absolutely perfect, fine, and hunky dory.
1/3, try 1/2 of my income taken by the wonderful govt. Fed income, SS, Medicare, State income, Local income, Property, Sales, Gas, “Sin”, Embedded corp, Transportation, Fees of all sort……. No wonder the middle class is feeling crushed, welcome to the USSA The United Socialist States of America. Wait until the grand govt. does health care.