Many members of the liberal intelligentsia, that herd of independent minds, agree that other Americans comprise a malleable, hence vulnerable, herd whose “false consciousness” is imposed by corporate America. Therefore the herd needs kindly, paternal supervision by a cohort of protective herders. This means subordination of the bovine many to a regulatory government staffed by people drawn from the clever minority not manipulated into false consciousness.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/elizabeth-warren-and-liberalism-twisting-the-social-contract/2011/10/04/gIQAXi5VOL_story.html
Will is usually good but is in rare form in this piece.
Ms. Warren, not thinking of herself as one of the fools she pities, thinks she can be trusted to decide how much of who's money should be confiscated and directed to the intended ends of the state she hopes to run. I hope I will be forgiven for having no such confidence in her.
In the response to Will's post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-conservative-response-to-elizabeth-warren/2011/10/06/gIQAjLIoQL_blog.html, the author writes:
What Warren actually said celebrated individual achievement, property and autonomy, while making the completely uncontroversial argument that those things are made possible by a functioning society enabled by a healthy social contract.
Why do liberals continue to use the language of Rousseau as regards a supposed "contract"? It is utter nonsense - did you inspect and/or sign such? I have not. Therefore, no contract exists, and certainly not one which permits those, who think they are so enlightened as to attempt these things, to determine how much of my labor they may extract and spend on their own dubious purposes. Looking at the messy, near freakish, method by which government spends what it extracts from us at gun point, no one should be upset that we don't hold the process in high esteem.
Here's another gem:
The argument Warren is making is over how much each of us should sacrifice in order to keep that functioning society healthy. We’re running a deficit; someone has to pay to close it. Warren is simply asking the wealthy to sacrifice a bit more in that direction, because if they don’t, a disporprotionately heavy burden for fixing it will fall on the rest of us.
So, no matter how foolishly or how fast politicians spend the money they extract via gun point AND THEN SPEND MORE, it is their perogative decide "how much the wealthy should sacrifice" to "solve" the "problem". Self evidently, the "problem" is we have a political system which empower politicians to spend boatloads of other people's money!! What evidence is there that allowing Warren or any other would be politician to decide how much anyone should sacrifice would result in a reduction in the budget deficit? What sane person thinks that the solution to the budgetary problem is related to raising taxes? Ms. Warren we're stupid, sure, but not THAT stupid.
Politicians are going to spend every penny they can, because that is what politicians do - spend other people's money and claim it's for "our own good" and use the well intended legislative effort to burnish their legacy. In short, it has nothing to do with what anyone has to sacrifice, and everything to do with sorting out how to establish a government that is structurally restrained from spending unlimited amounts of money. Until limits are established, no one should pretend there's any virtue in the "sacrifice" of the wealthy or the not so wealthy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/elizabeth-warren-and-liberalism-twisting-the-social-contract/2011/10/04/gIQAXi5VOL_story.html
Will is usually good but is in rare form in this piece.
Ms. Warren, not thinking of herself as one of the fools she pities, thinks she can be trusted to decide how much of who's money should be confiscated and directed to the intended ends of the state she hopes to run. I hope I will be forgiven for having no such confidence in her.
In the response to Will's post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-conservative-response-to-elizabeth-warren/2011/10/06/gIQAjLIoQL_blog.html, the author writes:
What Warren actually said celebrated individual achievement, property and autonomy, while making the completely uncontroversial argument that those things are made possible by a functioning society enabled by a healthy social contract.
Why do liberals continue to use the language of Rousseau as regards a supposed "contract"? It is utter nonsense - did you inspect and/or sign such? I have not. Therefore, no contract exists, and certainly not one which permits those, who think they are so enlightened as to attempt these things, to determine how much of my labor they may extract and spend on their own dubious purposes. Looking at the messy, near freakish, method by which government spends what it extracts from us at gun point, no one should be upset that we don't hold the process in high esteem.
Here's another gem:
The argument Warren is making is over how much each of us should sacrifice in order to keep that functioning society healthy. We’re running a deficit; someone has to pay to close it. Warren is simply asking the wealthy to sacrifice a bit more in that direction, because if they don’t, a disporprotionately heavy burden for fixing it will fall on the rest of us.
So, no matter how foolishly or how fast politicians spend the money they extract via gun point AND THEN SPEND MORE, it is their perogative decide "how much the wealthy should sacrifice" to "solve" the "problem". Self evidently, the "problem" is we have a political system which empower politicians to spend boatloads of other people's money!! What evidence is there that allowing Warren or any other would be politician to decide how much anyone should sacrifice would result in a reduction in the budget deficit? What sane person thinks that the solution to the budgetary problem is related to raising taxes? Ms. Warren we're stupid, sure, but not THAT stupid.
Politicians are going to spend every penny they can, because that is what politicians do - spend other people's money and claim it's for "our own good" and use the well intended legislative effort to burnish their legacy. In short, it has nothing to do with what anyone has to sacrifice, and everything to do with sorting out how to establish a government that is structurally restrained from spending unlimited amounts of money. Until limits are established, no one should pretend there's any virtue in the "sacrifice" of the wealthy or the not so wealthy.
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