A few weeks ago while lunching with some of my geezer bike buddies I engaged one of the few “liberal” ones relative to the multitude of impending health care bills. He owns several restaurants so one could easily assume his political viewpoint would be “conservative” in nature. Not so. After much heated (but friendly) discussion, I could only conclude that his logic was so inconsistent on this particular issue as to be completely incomprehensible. In a nut shell, he wanted government run health care because of his (genuine) concern for the uninsured, while simultaneously complaining about his current tax load.
Earlier today an exchange took place with a person holding what I now believe to be a similarly illogical set of operating principles. During my walk-about shortly afterwards, the single remaining brain cell I retain cogitated (hence the appellation “codger”) on that exchange and I felt compelled to put thought to paper upon my return home.
In as much as I know very few “liberal” people I’m not sure if it’s a problem with my own logic or I just came across two illogically liberal people by accident.
The flow went like this. I stated that if worldwide wealth was evenly distributed everyone would have a little less than $9000 in net worth. Furthermore, any “spread the wealth around” liberal retaining more personal wealth than this is clearly a hypocrite. To this came a response that this person was certainly not impoverished (more than $9k?) and should be voting Republican (is this joined at the hip with “conservative”?) which I took as indicative of having a LOT more than $9k.
I suggested a perfect Marxian exchange between the two of us. He should send me his money down to the “fair” $9k level because I have a need for it, and he has the wherewithal to pay it. No joy. He proclaimed to be a liberal but not a socialist. In today’s political climate, I find little to distinguish the two. As further proof of capitolistic non-socialism his stated goal was to pay a million a year in taxes. This immediately poses several questions in the logic train.
First, if he’s so eager to send a million into the black hole of government, why not send it to a deserving person (me) instead? That would be the compassionate thing to do in helping his fellow man (me) and I’d make much better use of it than Barney or Nancy would. It truely would be stimulating to my economy!
Second, unlike NOT paying the Benevolent Borgovernment Collective …there’s no law keeping him from making his goal in flying colors this very instant by immediately sending everything he owns into that black hole. I’ve yet to hear about a Goon Squad threatening to kneecap anyone for overpaying extortion money.
Third, no matter how magnanimous the liberal, at some confiscation level (we’re at least 70% for many people now) even he will begin to squawk. You can be sure “fair” will begin to pop up with increasing frequency in his conversations as the “take” moves closer to 100%. And yet, we conservatives are characterized as cold and uncaring for objecting to the present levels of extraction.
Is there any logic here? Previous to were I now live, I spent over nine years fighting city and county agencies relative to a huge environmental insult they forced onto my neighborhood. Hundreds of hours in the county law library and countless meetings with government employees taught me not to expect much from “government group think” I too often detect in so many liberal positions, but perhaps someone can convince me otherwise.
