Typically Liberal

I was confronted by a liberal with this meme the other day. I found that I agree with most of it, at least within the limits of how they are stated. (Yes, I know what you’re thinking conservatives, we’ll get to that!) It would be good practice to spend some time thinking about these so you can have the counter arguments ready when they are needed. Let’s go through them item by item.

1) “People working 40 hours a week should not live in poverty.”

True. In an ideal world nobody should live in poverty.

Here’s the thing—and you’ll see this pattern often—this is likely cover for something else that they can’t overtly say. This is typical liberal doublespeak; and personally, I can’t stand it when someone says one thing but really means something else.

What the typical liberal is thinking is that they should be able to take money from people who have more of it, unearned, and give it to people in poverty, again unearned.

I can’t even begin to list the problems that come up with that line of policy, and that’s not the purpose of this post. All I’ll say is that there is a reason why any civilized society has laws against theft. The results of such policy are in the society all around us.

The other variant of this is to force employers to pay more money. Again this leads to all sorts of other problems and unintended consequences. On the more philosophical side of the equation I have to wonder, is it any more ethical to use force to make someone give their money to someone else directly than it is to steal it outright and give it to someone else? Either way someone else controls what you earn while you don’t control what you earn.

2) “Everyone should have access to higher education.”

As stated, I agree. I suspect the typical liberal sub context is that someone else with money should pay for it and the benefactor of these funds should do nothing to earn it. They also want more pay for teachers, so they know someone somewhere has to pay for it. Buildings aren’t free. Staff isn’t free. Books and study materials aren’t free. The property that all of it goes on isn’t free.

So we are back to issue #1. Take money from someone unearned and give it to someone else unearned; by force if not by willing compliance.

3) “Healthcare should be given to all, not be a luxury for rich people.”

Here we have something that is again typical liberal. “Given.” So are we to assume that hospitals cost nothing? Staff costs nothing? Utilities cost nothing? Supplies cost nothing? Doctors, nurses and other healthcare specialist should work for nothing?

Where does the money come from to cover it?

And again issues #1 and #2. Take it from someone else. Give it unearned.

4) “No one, especially veterans, should be homeless.

As a veteran I’d agree with this too. The question here, again, is how to pay for it. Here we can go to the Constitution. I direct your attention to Article One, Section Eight:

Clause 1, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;”

Clause 12, “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;”

Clause 13, “To provide and maintain a Navy;

Clause 18, “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers,”

This is the first of two things on the whole list that has any constitutional support within the federal government. I would say there should be some qualifiers. “Why is the veteran homeless?” would be the intelligent question. Just because a veteran served his country does not excuse him from the consequences of his own bad decision making. I’m willing to pay for a veteran who served honorably, got out, is positively trying to do his best, and is momentarily down on his luck. I’m not willing to pay for the guy who served dishonorably, got out, knocked of the liquor store to get drunk, pay for hookers and crack.

Nobody, regardless of prior service or status, should be rewarded for their lack of ethics in present time. Ever.

Additionally this one surprises me. The usual action of liberals regarding veterans is to spit on them and add them to their own terrorist watch lists. They hate the military.

5) “No child should ever have to worry about being shot at school.”

True. Unequivocally and without doubt or reservation.

That’s not a good justification for confiscating the property from someone who is not doing the shooting. I will add as a footnote to this that school shootings are a new thing. Guns are a very old thing. The problem isn’t the guns. It drugs. Particularly psychiatric drugs. That’s the new thing. That’s also the thing that aligns with the data points regarding the increase in school shootings and mass shootings in general.

But I digress.

6) “Politicians should not dictate medical decisions for women.”

True. Within that statement, without further context, I agree with it.

In typical liberal fashion I don’t think this says what they are really thinking of. I very strongly suspect that there is some subtext to it. In typical liberal fashion it doesn’t say exactly what it means but is a positive statement covering for something that is totally indefensible. I would think that politicians should not dictate medical decisions for men either, or children.

My best guess is that it is in defense of murdering unborn human beings. Politicians should definitely make the decisions regarding murder, especially when it comes to the defense of the lives of innocent people. That’s one of the very few valid reasons for a government; to help the people defend their physical lives.

7) “Companies should not be permitted to trash the Earth for profit.”

Okay. I agree. I don’t know of any company that is asking of its customers, “Hey, how much would you give me for polluting the Earth,” so I’m certain that this one is again, typical liberal, misstated. See, nobody is trashing “the Earth for profit.” What they are doing is providing goods that people want and need to better their lives. Yes, they should be as clean about it as they can. To state it as “trash the Earth for profit” is misleading at best, an overt lie at worst.

8) “Lobbyists should not be allowed to bribe our representatives.”

Here’s the one that as stated I’d disagree with.

Hold your emotion maker on a leash until you finish the next couple of paragraphs. Okay?

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Donating to someone’s campaign for doing something you want is freedom of speech. Lobbyist groups are formed when people petition the government for a redress of grievances. They are an integral part of freedom in the United States. Whether your lobbyist group is to “preserve a woman’s right to choose” or “preserve the 2^nd Amendment” you have a right to approach your representatives and donate to them in their bid for office. That is not bribery.

It only becomes an issue, bribery, when the representative accepts the money in support of something that is in violation of the Constitution, and his oath to defend it, or is offered the money under the table to put into his own pocket. The crime, and I would call it either contempt, perjury or treason, is the violation of the Constitution.

9) “CEOs should not receive 3000 times the pay of their workers.”

10) “Equal rights and equal pay should be the benchmark for all Americans.”

I’m going to handle #9 and #10 together, because really, they are the same subject.

I believe all people should be paid equally to the value that they provide for the company. If any person can provide 3000 times the value to the company as, say, a line worker putting a nut on a bolt or a janitor sweeping the floor, then they should be paid accordingly. If you can bring in 3000 times the profit for the company then you should be paid equally to the profit you make for the company. If you get paid one three thousandth of what the CEO gets paid, and you are resentful or envious of it, and want to make 3000 times what you do, then the solution is simple. Just make 3000 times the profit for the company as you currently do and you will rightfully have earned it.

If done any other way we then run into the last paragraph of issue #1. Either you control your money or someone else does. If there is a law that says “CEOs can’t make this much money,” and “companies have to pay their employees that much money,” then it is the government that controls the money, not the employees or the company that they work for. It’s either a value for value, free and willing exchange, or it isn’t. There is no middle ground on this.

11) “Wall Street gangsters should go to prison when they steal.”

Everybody who steals, defined as taking money from someone unearned, or through fraud, or threat of force, should go to prison.

As a footnote to this I would say that government gangsters should go to prison too. What is a government gangster? Someone who uses the government to take money from someone to give to someone else. Especially in exchange for political power.

12) “There should not be subsidies for profitable corporations.”

I agree completely. There should also be no subsidies for unprofitable corporations. There should also be no subsidies for anybody for anything at any time for any reason. It’s not the government’s job to take anybody’s money, unearned, from anybody and give it to anybody else. As in #11 above, government gangsters should also go to prison when they steal. This is basic 10th Amendment type stuff and as such is the second of two things on the list that have constitutional support.

Now there is one other thing that applies to most of these globally. I could have said it for each of the items that it applies to, over and over and over again. It’s much better to say it only once here at the end.

In #1 the government controls people and their working and pay. In #2 the government controls education and all aspects of it. In #3 the government controls all heath care, decisions, benefits, policies and decisions regarding your body because they are paying for it. In #4 the government controls veterans, their lives and where they live. In #5 the government controls all of the guns and schools, again. In #6, if the government controls medical decisions through funding of #3, then that means politicians would dictate medical decisions for women. So they would control that too. In #7 the government takes control of private companies. In #8 the government controls free speech and who you can support for office as well as how you can support them. In #9 the government takes control of private companies and all of their employees and what they can and can’t be paid. In #10, ditto. In #11 the government takes control of how all money is invested.

So with numbers one through eleven, what isn’t under government control? What isn’t subject to the whims and dictates of an out of control congress or president or court? Whoever the authority is in the federal government at the time, whether Biden, Trump or any other raging tyrant who achieves power is arguably in charge of every aspect of your life. Or at least all of the important ones.

You could decide which movie you want to see but because of the fact that movies are made by corporations and the government controls them through their money you can’t control how much you pay for it, or even if you can afford to go, because the government controls how much you can make. So even that is out of your control.

That’s not freedom.

And that leaves us with #12 as the only exception. ( Number 4 is already under government control constitutionally.) Surprisingly enough it is the only reduction of the government in the entire meme, assuming that the same rule applies equally to unprofitable corporations. I suspect that there is more to it though. Liberals do not like people who make profit—unless it is themselves at the expense of someone else.

And as most of these show, the liberals have either no knowledge of, or outright disdain for the Constitution. In fact the person who posted it was saying how obsolete the Constitution is immediately before posting this meme.

Hmmm…, typical.