Posted on 09/25/2011 7:23:09 AM PDT by Paladins Prayer
Former TARP chairman and Senate hopeful from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren gave a shot in the arm to “progressives” everywhere this past Wednesday, with a rousing (or is it rabble-rousing?) extemporaneous speech on the virtues of taxing the rich. Her commentary quickly made the rounds on the Web and radio talk shows — and for good reason. Whatever this law professor said, she said it pretty darn well. Hey, If President Downgrade could articulate himself like that, he wouldn’t be in a bigamous relationship with a Teleprompter.
Unfortunately, though, style doesn’t connote substance. And Warren’s words, while rousing, were also reality-bending. Here is what she said:
"I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.
You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you, uh, were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
I guess Warren defines “class warfare” differently than everyone else does, but she is a master of it. Let’s analyze her comments.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
Massachusetts seems to be quite adept at producing glittering jewels of colossal ignorance.
They also create some pretty good felon senators and representatives.
Their institutions of “higher” education have obviously deleted any standards (save, perhaps, for MIT’s science departments). Harvard has become an open joke.
So, what exactly is the reason that we do not use that forsaken state for a bombing range?
What state do you live in?
“Trucking firms contribute $12.1 billion of the total dollars going into the federal Highway Trust Fund, or about 30.6 percent of the total $39.5 billion.”
In a conversation with a relative, I was told about a certain client who is a long-haul trucker. He paid $3,500 for fuel in April of this year for that month alone.
Great article, thanks for posting it.
It is true that no one has ever gotten rich without help from others.
It is a more operative truth, in our system, that no one in the private sector has ever gotten rich without enriching others.
Only in government can one become rich without enriching others.
I agree. I believe Warren said something like “all of us have skin in the game”.
Not true!! Almost 50% of Americans pay no federal income tax - as the article pointed out.
So her rant falls as a house of cards based upon this fact alone - although there are other points to be made to refute this absurd Marxist position as well.
The privatization of water in Bolivia—
from a San Francisco corporation, Bechtel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw5Fon_EjGw
Using the Tragedy of the commons to justify higher taxes on the wealthy has always been standard liberal fare. I am surprised we haven't heard Obama use this justification.
equally poor!
The so-called "humanities" and "liberal arts" educations offered at most universities these days are cesspools of leftist thought and indoctrination. Don't forget that even at MIT and Princeton, which have some of the highest scientific standards, you still have professors like Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer, who as a "professor of bioethics" has nothing remotely related to what most people would consider "ethics" in his personal philosophy.
Unfortunately, most undergraduates in the science programs are still required to take a dip in those cesspools.
Mark
As far as "not paying their fair share," here are simple facts:
Granted the Internet breeds tough-talking boobs who say things they`d never say to their targets face to face, but as a Massachusetts resident with numerous military in my family past and present—Including one serving Iraq right now—and who could name countless conservative neighbors and even nonn-conservatives who demonstrate more intelligence in their worst moments than you`ve demonstrated bashing world-famous schools you don`t have the brains to attend, I cast my nomination for Idiot Post of the Decade just beginning for yours.
Granted the Internet breeds tough-talking boobs who say things they`d never say to their targets face to face, but as a Massachusetts resident with numerous military in my family past and present—Including one serving Iraq right now—and who could name countless conservative neighbors and even nonn-conservatives who demonstrate more intelligence in their worst moments than you`ve demonstrated bashing world-famous schools you don`t have the brains to attend, I cast my nomination for Idiot Post of the Decade just beginning for yours.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.”
It’s a strawman argument. Capitalists don’t believe that there is anyone who got rich on their own. The entire capitalist system is based on the notion of competition, which in itself acknowledges the existence of more than one person and the interaction between them.
She’s trying to come up with a fairness argument that says something like, “You did not make this wealth without the assistance of others, and therefore I can take it away from you.”
It doesn’t follow. If I use public roads to take my product to market, that does not entitle as a matter of fairness the government to simply seize my product, as she argues. Of course, if they announced that rule before hand, it might be different, but then I would not use their roads.
Our government is run by the people, and the people don’t want that rule. There is no such rule. If Elizabeth Warren comes in as an afterthought and says “You use our roads, we get to take your product,” there is no fairness in that. Also no efficiency. In fact, if she does that, then she is violating the social contract because part of the concept of public roads is that the public gets to use them.
Dark, relax, you’re taking the guy’s comment too seriously. It was just a joke, the kind you might make about New York, Ca., San Francisco or any other liberal place. I’m sure he knows that their are plenty of good people in your state. Unfortunately, you’re outnumbered by the libs. That was his point.
Thanks for the link to the definition of social contract theory. So, essentially, it is the underpinnings of our constitutions. Why can’t the liberals then say we are a land of laws deriving from our constitutions? We don’t live under “social contracts” - they were replaced by written laws. It strikes me that “social contract” today is used by the liberal weasels to avoid saying we are governed by federal and state constitutions. It is their attempt to ignore reality and play on the emotions of the uneducated and ignorant.
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