Socialism for Kids, the Obama Version

I have several amusing posts about the left’s fixation on redistributionism, including this Halloween classic, this Elizabeth Warren takedown, this mockery of the Occupy Wall Street nitwits, and this caricature of Obama’s class warfare.

In this grand tradition, here’s a funny poster sent to me by a reader.

This is an appropriate point for the disclaimer that Obama is not a socialist, which technically requires government ownership of the means of production. As I’ve explained before, it’s much more accurate to say he’s a statist, a corporatist, or a redistributionist.

And since we’re looking at definitions and this post features young children, I’m reminded of the great description of libertarianism put forth by my Cato colleague David Boaz.

You could say that you learn the essence of libertarianism — which is also the essence of civilization —  in kindergarten: don’t hit other people, don’t take their stuff, keep your promises.

That definition isn’t amusing, like what’s portrayed in this satirical video or shown in this mocking poster featuring the 24 types of libertarians, but it has the advantage of being simple and accurate.

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Appearing on PBS to Debate Obama’s Social Darwinism Speech

I posted yesterday about Obama’s demagoguery against the Ryan budget and criticized the President for sloppy budget math, tedious class warfare, and a deeply flawed grasp of America’s founding principles.

This was followed by an opportunity yesterday evening to debate Jared Bernstein on the PBS NewsHour.

Here’s the interview, though I warn you that excerpts of Obama’s  speech take up the first 3:17 of the video, and you won’t get to the debate until about 4:20.

A few observations about the interview (other than that I need a haircut).

• It irks me that I was introduced as someone who served as a “Republican economist” on Capitol Hill. At the risk of nit-picking, I was an economist who worked for a Republican.
• I’m glad that I exposed the dishonest Washington budget math used by critics of the Ryan plan (which allows government spending to grow by an average of 3.1 percent per year).
• I should have mentioned that Obama is MIA on the budget. The non-serious plan he proposed this year was unanimously rejected by the House of Representatives and the budget he proposed last year was turned down 97-0 by the Senate.
• I’m happy that I mentioned that the federal government should have no role in education.
• I should have explained that Obama’s status quo approach means that America becomes Greece.
• It would have been a good idea to elaborate further on the issue of federalism, but at least I linked Medicaid reform with the success of welfare reform.
• I was delighted to have a chance to explain that Bush and Nixon were big-government interventionists (and also to point out that Clinton was surprisingly good on the issue of government spending).

By the way, Jared Bernstein is a co-author of the infamous White House report that claimed unemployment would never rise above 8 percent if we squandered $800 billion on a faux stimulus package based on Keynesian economics. But I’m a nice guy, so I chose not to raise that issue.

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