The Right as a 5th Column for Socialism
This line ============= begins a section suitable for printing on one page and distribution in 10.5 type
Are you a conservative fifth column socialist?
What is a fifth column socialist (fcs)? Well a socialist believes the government can be your mother and
that almost everything comes from the state, including rights. A fifth column socialist claims to
believe in freedom, but also believes in an all powerful state. A state that regulates what you can do,
and who you can do it with. A state that acts in the name of god enforcing gods rules. Also, an fcs
believes the rich are special and should pay less in taxes than the average salaried employee, that the
very wealthy are not bound by common sense rules of justice, so that it is OK to make money by poisoning
people as long as it is in the name of the free market. They believe in "freedom but". Like the
socialist, an fcs believes most laws for controlling human behavior are "for the good of the children".
They differ in wanting government to not regulate bad behavior in the name of a "free market"
You are a fifth column socialist if
1. You think that payroll taxes are not taxes.
2. You think that the taxes on the very wealthy (less than 18% on average for the top 400, and
probably also for the top 1 to 5%) are to high and should be lowered, even though the average
wage earner pays at least 20 to 30% of their income in taxes.
3. You believe that the government knows more about medicine and medical care than most
doctors, and should be able to override the decisions of doctors and patients
4. You believe that the great majority of citizens (obviously including yourself) are dumber
than dirt and that juries can't be trusted to make reasonable decisions if given all of the facts
5. A fifth column socialist believes that people or companies that damage others should not be held
accountable unless such damages are as obvious as a sunrise, and amount to several tens of thousands
of dollars.
6. You believe that some people are more equal than others. That as long as they are making a
profit, it is OK to destroy the environment as long as such destruction is not completely obvious.
7. A fifth column socialist believes that their interpretation of god and morality is the one true
interpretation, and that the power of the state should be brought to bear on all those who disagree
8. You believe in the infallibility of the state.
EXAMPLES
3. You think that pain control should be regulated by the state, and that marijuana, probably
one of the most harmless substances around since it has no known lethal level, is dangerous
4. You think that juries can not sort out the facts of medical malpractice or corporate
misconduct. You think that doctors, who do not wash their hands half the time before examining
patients (resulting in the deaths of at a least 50,000 patients a year in hospitals) practice
defensive medicine and do not otherwise make mistakes.
6. In order that you can have "cheap" energy, it is OK for companies to dump mercury and other
toxins into the air, destroy the ground water, eliminate entire streams, poison wells, and
contaminate the land making entire areas unfit for human habitation.
7. Despite teachings to the contrary in the bible (life begins at birth or with 'breath', and
the death of a foetus is a property crime for which the husband of the woman should be
compensated) a fifth column socialist knows what god wants, when life begins, and wants the state
to enforce their opinion.
8. Since the state is infallible, capital punishment is OK. Those same juries that can not be
trusted to adjudicate monetary damages for someone injured by a doctor or a corporation, can be
trusted to always get it right in a capital criminal case.
Because of this incoherent, inconsistent set of beliefs, then if the stock market is, as seems likely,
above 10,500, thus having restored most of the lost 401K retirement funds of the core of the
republican party and employment is going up, not down by next summer, it is highly likely that the
democrats will improve their margins in both the house and senate.
factotum666.livejournal.com
This is the end of the one page printable version. =======================
I joined the libertarian party in 1978. I voted for Ron Paul the First time that he ran for president. In thirty years I have watched as our country became less free and taxes rose. Now I watch in dismay as those who call themselves conservatives and republicans act in such a way as to make it more and more likely that our country will become a socialist paradise. It is almost like the right is really a 5th column for the left.
Prepare to think that you are being insulted. To not feel that way, think of the writing below as a variation of Mathew 7. I want to shrink the state. I want more freedom and autonomy. But what we are doing is not working, so I am attempting to encourage some self examination.
Consider:
The oathkeepers rail against homeland security and associated police and military activities never once mentioning that it was George Bush and "freedom loving republicans" who created this obamanation. In fact Stewart Rhodes, the founder of oathkeepers, has stated in interviews that the problem did not begin with Obama, but with Abraham Lincoln. Certainly his plans for oathkeepers go back to the end of the Bush administration.
The right scream about the size of government at the same time promoting a growing prison industrial complex and use the same rational as the "liberals" "It is to protect the children." And what are we protecting them from? Not the tens of thousands of prescription drugs that fill peoples medicine cabinets like so many bottles of candy and kill 100,000 people a year. No; we are protecting them from marijuana. Something that can not kill you and that no peer reviewed study has shown to be any more harmful than alcohol, and not harmful at all if taken in moderation. Probably less harmful than soda.
The right, who constantly wails about government intrusion in their lives claims that somehow they can not instill family values and common sense into their own children, but needs the state to keep their kids from killing themselves. Oh, yea, and if granny is using marijuana for her medical problem, well use a no knock warrant and shoot her so that we can protect the children. Am I the only one who sees a problem here?
The only real result of this government intrusion in our lives with prohibition is more low level people in jail, and an expanded BATF. So we have the right and the left, both in their own ways, promoting the disarming of Americans. And when I say more low level people in prison, I mean that we have more people in prison per capita than any country in the world. Two or three times as many as most of Europe. Yet, contrary to right wing blowhards they have a lower crime rate. So much so, that they are closing prisons.
The left promotes socialism by saying --- we are the government, we are here to help you. We will take care of you and make things ok. The right promotes it by being pathological liars and / or schizophrenic on almost all important issues. Like health care. If you do not think that the government should be involved in the family and in health care then do not attempt to re-write the bible by claiming that a fertilized egg is a human. Do not try and get the state to interfere in family and medical decisions about pain control, and end of life decisions. A limited government is LIMITED. It does not regulate behavior that you do not like or that you think may be harmful to someone, or to some mythological thing like "society". It does not limit behavior that is stupid. It only regulates behavior that Clearly directly harms others. Limited government is not in the doctors office or the bedroom except to prevent violence or fraud or breach of contract.
Here is one of my favorite examples of republican right schizophrenia. Do any of them who are in favor of government led school prayers have even a passing familiarity with what Jesus said about praying? If you are curious then go and read Matthew 6. Government led school prayers are directly contrary to what Jesus teaches.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that corporations are creatures of the state. They were created so that people could take risk and limit their losses. Not a bad idea, but as creatures of the state, the state gets to set the rules. To someone with more brains then my dog, you can not admit the idea of state created corporations and then run around claiming that the state should not interfere in business without appearing as either a fool or a liar.
The state, through its support of agribusiness (greatly enhanced under that socialist Nixon by his Dept of Ag secretary Earl Butz) and its support of megabanks (the first bailout was under Bush was it not??) is driving the family farm to extinction while paying subsidies to dead people and basketball stars. More to the point, it encourages the growing of cheap mass produced gruel that passes for food and along with the policies of subsidizing the private automobile and encouraging urban sprawl via "free" highways, subsidized oil, the theft of land and a host of other "capitalist?? / big business-republican" practices, has turned this country into the unhealthiest on the planet. Our obesity rates are three times what they are in Europe. No wonder that health care costs 50% more per person.
Oh... and we already have death panels. They are called insurance companies, and are really, for the most part, government protected monopolies designed, with government help, to be harmful to individuals and small businesses.
Think how our lifestyles would be different if customers had to pay for the true cost of oil and energy. If all the external costs could not be just dumped into rivers the air, and very leaky land fills, and if producers had to pay for the damage that they did to farms, wells, streams and ranches and downstream communities our energy costs would be higher. Our lifestyles would be different. Why would this be bad? More important, we would have a more honest society.
But Noooo.... In the name of capitalism people claiming to be free market conservatives imagine that there are no negative costs to burning coal or take the tops off of mountains and despoiling the landscape. They pretend that energy is cheap so that we can spread out our housing, pollute the air, soil and water, and give our children and their children the bill. We also grow fat and sick with diabetes, high bp, heart disease, cancer and other chronic illnesses. And we run a health care system that protects incompetency and outright theft. All in the name of the free market for the benefit of government subsidized businesses. Then we wonder why the free market gets a bad name and people look to Europe as a model.
I would venture that if people calling themselves pro business and free market want to have anything greater than a snowballs chance in hell of being successful, that they stop being the blind obedient lackeys of government supported large businesses, and actual walk the talk of responsibility and free markets. That means that people must be held accountable for their actions and external costs must be priced into the cost of things that we make, not ignored. Also almost everything should be open. Let me give an example.
Tort reform. Another phrase for allowing gross incompetency to go unpunished. It assumes that jurors (that would be you) are stupid, and that corporate lawyers are incompetent. Ohhh... but look at the cost you say. Doctors have to practice so much 'defensive medicine' Yea... that will be believable when not just half of them wash their hands before laying them on a patient. Yes, 1/2 of all doctors forced to practice "defensive medicine" do not wash their hands before examining a patient. If you believe that they practice defensive medicine then I have a mortgage backed security for you to invest in.
When a company makes a product that causes harm, or goes bankrupt, the major stockholders and managers should be held personally liable UNLESS they can show that their actions were transparent and honest. The victims should not have to ferret out misbehavior. Responsibility is a conservative free market position.
One final word. Defense. Would anybody care to guess who is second in the world in "defense" expenditures? Here is a hint. It is the same entity that is second in the number of aircraft carrier battle groups. The answer is
The entire rest of the world combined. By what rationale is it necessary for us to spend more money on "defense" than the rest of the world combined? Do they all hate us? Are we about to be invaded by everybody else? Or are all these redneck yahoos yelling about democrats being soft on defense just pandering psychopaths? I suspect the later, since they will be first in line to vote for unnecessary weapons projects for their state/district, while underfunding basics like apc's to protect our troops that they have put into harms way.
Now, can anybody turn this into a bumper sticker?
A footnote as to why there are so few blacks in the republican party. I suspect that most blacks think that this line from Earl Butz sums up the view of most republicans "When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. The Secretary responded with a line so obscene and insulting to blacks that it forced him out of the Cabinet last week and jolted the whole Ford campaign. Butz said that "the only thing the coloreds are looking for in life are tight p - - - - , loose shoes and a warm place to s - - -."
Are you a conservative fifth column socialist?
What is a fifth column socialist (fcs)? Well a socialist believes the government can be your mother and
that almost everything comes from the state, including rights. A fifth column socialist claims to
believe in freedom, but also believes in an all powerful state. A state that regulates what you can do,
and who you can do it with. A state that acts in the name of god enforcing gods rules. Also, an fcs
believes the rich are special and should pay less in taxes than the average salaried employee, that the
very wealthy are not bound by common sense rules of justice, so that it is OK to make money by poisoning
people as long as it is in the name of the free market. They believe in "freedom but". Like the
socialist, an fcs believes most laws for controlling human behavior are "for the good of the children".
They differ in wanting government to not regulate bad behavior in the name of a "free market"
You are a fifth column socialist if
1. You think that payroll taxes are not taxes.
2. You think that the taxes on the very wealthy (less than 18% on average for the top 400, and
probably also for the top 1 to 5%) are to high and should be lowered, even though the average
wage earner pays at least 20 to 30% of their income in taxes.
3. You believe that the government knows more about medicine and medical care than most
doctors, and should be able to override the decisions of doctors and patients
4. You believe that the great majority of citizens (obviously including yourself) are dumber
than dirt and that juries can't be trusted to make reasonable decisions if given all of the facts
5. A fifth column socialist believes that people or companies that damage others should not be held
accountable unless such damages are as obvious as a sunrise, and amount to several tens of thousands
of dollars.
6. You believe that some people are more equal than others. That as long as they are making a
profit, it is OK to destroy the environment as long as such destruction is not completely obvious.
7. A fifth column socialist believes that their interpretation of god and morality is the one true
interpretation, and that the power of the state should be brought to bear on all those who disagree
8. You believe in the infallibility of the state.
EXAMPLES
3. You think that pain control should be regulated by the state, and that marijuana, probably
one of the most harmless substances around since it has no known lethal level, is dangerous
4. You think that juries can not sort out the facts of medical malpractice or corporate
misconduct. You think that doctors, who do not wash their hands half the time before examining
patients (resulting in the deaths of at a least 50,000 patients a year in hospitals) practice
defensive medicine and do not otherwise make mistakes.
6. In order that you can have "cheap" energy, it is OK for companies to dump mercury and other
toxins into the air, destroy the ground water, eliminate entire streams, poison wells, and
contaminate the land making entire areas unfit for human habitation.
7. Despite teachings to the contrary in the bible (life begins at birth or with 'breath', and
the death of a foetus is a property crime for which the husband of the woman should be
compensated) a fifth column socialist knows what god wants, when life begins, and wants the state
to enforce their opinion.
8. Since the state is infallible, capital punishment is OK. Those same juries that can not be
trusted to adjudicate monetary damages for someone injured by a doctor or a corporation, can be
trusted to always get it right in a capital criminal case.
Because of this incoherent, inconsistent set of beliefs, then if the stock market is, as seems likely,
above 10,500, thus having restored most of the lost 401K retirement funds of the core of the
republican party and employment is going up, not down by next summer, it is highly likely that the
democrats will improve their margins in both the house and senate.
factotum666.livejournal.com
This is the end of the one page printable version. =======================
I joined the libertarian party in 1978. I voted for Ron Paul the First time that he ran for president. In thirty years I have watched as our country became less free and taxes rose. Now I watch in dismay as those who call themselves conservatives and republicans act in such a way as to make it more and more likely that our country will become a socialist paradise. It is almost like the right is really a 5th column for the left.
Prepare to think that you are being insulted. To not feel that way, think of the writing below as a variation of Mathew 7. I want to shrink the state. I want more freedom and autonomy. But what we are doing is not working, so I am attempting to encourage some self examination.
Consider:
The oathkeepers rail against homeland security and associated police and military activities never once mentioning that it was George Bush and "freedom loving republicans" who created this obamanation. In fact Stewart Rhodes, the founder of oathkeepers, has stated in interviews that the problem did not begin with Obama, but with Abraham Lincoln. Certainly his plans for oathkeepers go back to the end of the Bush administration.
The right scream about the size of government at the same time promoting a growing prison industrial complex and use the same rational as the "liberals" "It is to protect the children." And what are we protecting them from? Not the tens of thousands of prescription drugs that fill peoples medicine cabinets like so many bottles of candy and kill 100,000 people a year. No; we are protecting them from marijuana. Something that can not kill you and that no peer reviewed study has shown to be any more harmful than alcohol, and not harmful at all if taken in moderation. Probably less harmful than soda.
The right, who constantly wails about government intrusion in their lives claims that somehow they can not instill family values and common sense into their own children, but needs the state to keep their kids from killing themselves. Oh, yea, and if granny is using marijuana for her medical problem, well use a no knock warrant and shoot her so that we can protect the children. Am I the only one who sees a problem here?
The only real result of this government intrusion in our lives with prohibition is more low level people in jail, and an expanded BATF. So we have the right and the left, both in their own ways, promoting the disarming of Americans. And when I say more low level people in prison, I mean that we have more people in prison per capita than any country in the world. Two or three times as many as most of Europe. Yet, contrary to right wing blowhards they have a lower crime rate. So much so, that they are closing prisons.
The left promotes socialism by saying --- we are the government, we are here to help you. We will take care of you and make things ok. The right promotes it by being pathological liars and / or schizophrenic on almost all important issues. Like health care. If you do not think that the government should be involved in the family and in health care then do not attempt to re-write the bible by claiming that a fertilized egg is a human. Do not try and get the state to interfere in family and medical decisions about pain control, and end of life decisions. A limited government is LIMITED. It does not regulate behavior that you do not like or that you think may be harmful to someone, or to some mythological thing like "society". It does not limit behavior that is stupid. It only regulates behavior that Clearly directly harms others. Limited government is not in the doctors office or the bedroom except to prevent violence or fraud or breach of contract.
Here is one of my favorite examples of republican right schizophrenia. Do any of them who are in favor of government led school prayers have even a passing familiarity with what Jesus said about praying? If you are curious then go and read Matthew 6. Government led school prayers are directly contrary to what Jesus teaches.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that corporations are creatures of the state. They were created so that people could take risk and limit their losses. Not a bad idea, but as creatures of the state, the state gets to set the rules. To someone with more brains then my dog, you can not admit the idea of state created corporations and then run around claiming that the state should not interfere in business without appearing as either a fool or a liar.
The state, through its support of agribusiness (greatly enhanced under that socialist Nixon by his Dept of Ag secretary Earl Butz) and its support of megabanks (the first bailout was under Bush was it not??) is driving the family farm to extinction while paying subsidies to dead people and basketball stars. More to the point, it encourages the growing of cheap mass produced gruel that passes for food and along with the policies of subsidizing the private automobile and encouraging urban sprawl via "free" highways, subsidized oil, the theft of land and a host of other "capitalist?? / big business-republican" practices, has turned this country into the unhealthiest on the planet. Our obesity rates are three times what they are in Europe. No wonder that health care costs 50% more per person.
Oh... and we already have death panels. They are called insurance companies, and are really, for the most part, government protected monopolies designed, with government help, to be harmful to individuals and small businesses.
Think how our lifestyles would be different if customers had to pay for the true cost of oil and energy. If all the external costs could not be just dumped into rivers the air, and very leaky land fills, and if producers had to pay for the damage that they did to farms, wells, streams and ranches and downstream communities our energy costs would be higher. Our lifestyles would be different. Why would this be bad? More important, we would have a more honest society.
But Noooo.... In the name of capitalism people claiming to be free market conservatives imagine that there are no negative costs to burning coal or take the tops off of mountains and despoiling the landscape. They pretend that energy is cheap so that we can spread out our housing, pollute the air, soil and water, and give our children and their children the bill. We also grow fat and sick with diabetes, high bp, heart disease, cancer and other chronic illnesses. And we run a health care system that protects incompetency and outright theft. All in the name of the free market for the benefit of government subsidized businesses. Then we wonder why the free market gets a bad name and people look to Europe as a model.
I would venture that if people calling themselves pro business and free market want to have anything greater than a snowballs chance in hell of being successful, that they stop being the blind obedient lackeys of government supported large businesses, and actual walk the talk of responsibility and free markets. That means that people must be held accountable for their actions and external costs must be priced into the cost of things that we make, not ignored. Also almost everything should be open. Let me give an example.
Tort reform. Another phrase for allowing gross incompetency to go unpunished. It assumes that jurors (that would be you) are stupid, and that corporate lawyers are incompetent. Ohhh... but look at the cost you say. Doctors have to practice so much 'defensive medicine' Yea... that will be believable when not just half of them wash their hands before laying them on a patient. Yes, 1/2 of all doctors forced to practice "defensive medicine" do not wash their hands before examining a patient. If you believe that they practice defensive medicine then I have a mortgage backed security for you to invest in.
When a company makes a product that causes harm, or goes bankrupt, the major stockholders and managers should be held personally liable UNLESS they can show that their actions were transparent and honest. The victims should not have to ferret out misbehavior. Responsibility is a conservative free market position.
One final word. Defense. Would anybody care to guess who is second in the world in "defense" expenditures? Here is a hint. It is the same entity that is second in the number of aircraft carrier battle groups. The answer is
The entire rest of the world combined. By what rationale is it necessary for us to spend more money on "defense" than the rest of the world combined? Do they all hate us? Are we about to be invaded by everybody else? Or are all these redneck yahoos yelling about democrats being soft on defense just pandering psychopaths? I suspect the later, since they will be first in line to vote for unnecessary weapons projects for their state/district, while underfunding basics like apc's to protect our troops that they have put into harms way.
Now, can anybody turn this into a bumper sticker?
A footnote as to why there are so few blacks in the republican party. I suspect that most blacks think that this line from Earl Butz sums up the view of most republicans "When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. The Secretary responded with a line so obscene and insulting to blacks that it forced him out of the Cabinet last week and jolted the whole Ford campaign. Butz said that "the only thing the coloreds are looking for in life are tight p - - - - , loose shoes and a warm place to s - - -."