I have given the left credit many times for clever humor, even when their satiric efforts target libertarians.
- A video portraying Somalia as a libertarian paradise.
- Two cartoons, one on libertarian ice fishing and the other showing libertarian lifeguards.
- A montage showing 24 types of libertarians.
- Six different perceptions of libertarians.
Well, it’s time to give the left credit again. I don’t know whether to call this satire, humor, or if I should just lump it in the catch-all category of social commentary, but it is effective. It’s visually powerful and leaves a clear message.
Even the small touches are clever, including Bush and the Pope on the TV, as well as the IMF sticker on the IV pole (though I’m surprised, given the bureaucracy’s statist track record, that the left thinks the IMF is the enemy).
But I’m not sharing this image out of pure appreciation for effective imagery. I also think it reveals two themes of left-wing thought, one foolish and the other legitimate.
1. The foolish theme is that rich nations are rich because poor nations are poor. This is the same mentality that you find among leftists such as Obama, who assume that rich people in America are rich because they somehow deprived the poor.
2. The accurate theme is that bigwigs sometimes use the coercive power of government to obtain unearned wealth. And in some cases, that unearned wealth comes from corrupt deals with politicians from third-world governments.
I address both of these points in this interview, pointing out that true capitalism generates an expanding economy so that the rich and poor both benefit, but that cronyism enables the politically well-connected to rip off taxpayers and/or consumers.
If we want to promote liberty, it would help to enlist the help of those leftists who legitimately want to make the world a better place (as opposed to the union thugs, political hacks, grievance mongers, and others who use statism as a racket to achieve wealth and power).
We need to educate the honest left about why they’re wrong about the first theme and why we’re on their side regarding the second theme.
The challenge is to teach them that good intentions sometimes don’t lead to good results, so that we can fix the mentality displayed in this cartoon.
InsureBlog – Fire department lets house burn down
The lefties mock libertarians and a free and cooperative market for being heartless toward people in trouble. But, this is a projection of leftist policy, not the market. It is government bureaucracy which witholds help if your form 39-B is missing. The leftists are just as determined as any group to limit their costs, and are as indifferent as any bureaucracy.
A local fire department let a house burn to the ground because the owner had not paid his $75 fee.
This is a shockingly stupid response by the fire department, a local government agency. Yes, the homeowner should have prepaid the fee. But, the response should have been to put out the fire and charge the homeowners for the full service costs.
A private fire service would have extinguished the blaze at the request of the frantic owner, and sent the homeowner a bill. There are plenty of examples of this in private marketplaces.
This puts the lie to the idea of a benevolent government. They will impose or allow any loss to make their point, rather than handle the short-sightedness of the homeowner with some flexibility.
Fair Distribution of Life-Years
Yuri N. Maltsev – 06/22/12 [edited]
Ezekiel Emanuel is director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the US National Institutes of Health and an architect of ObamaCare. His brother is Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former Chief of staff.
Ezekiel Emanuel wrote in The Lancet medical journal Jan 2009 [edited]:
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Allocation of healthcare by age is fair, unlike allocation by sex or race. Even if people aged 25 receive priority over those aged 65, everyone who is now 65 was previously 25.
It would be ageist to treat 65-year-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods. It is fair to treat them differently because they have already received more life-years.
=== ===
Rationing healthcare is tough. Choices must be made because resources are limited. The diabolical part of Emanuel’s vision is that he wants to restrict the availability of care even to those people who can pay for it, under the god-like vision of leveling the distribution of resources to the worker bees.
Any 16th century king would recognize the utility of feeding the young and healthy workers, and starving the old. The old have already lived, and the young have much tax to contribute to the treasury of the king.
EasyOpinions.blogspot.com
I am not sure there is any “Honest Left”; Have you encountered any lately
[...] image was included in Dan Michell’s Powerful – but Deeply Flawed – Leftist Imagery post, where he gives due credit to the left for coming up with such a clear and visually powerful [...]
Let me see if I can interpret this. First, we know that obesity is mainly a problem among the poor. Second, organizations like the IMF and the World Bank are funded by tax payers, even if it’s often unclear to the payers how and to what extent.
So: “An obese poor person draining the life forces of two unwilling professionals. The draining itself is being unknowingly sponsored by the public.”
[...] leftists do something clever, like this video making fun of libertarians or this image portraying the greed of the industrialized world, I’m willing to give them [...]