The Left-Wing Mind, Captured by a Cartoon

What motivates folks on the left? For some, it’s a simple matter of self interest. They belong to a group that benefits from favoritism or redistribution. Or, as Mark Steyn has explained, they want to create dependency for short-run political self interest.

For others, it’s probably a go-along-to-get-along strategy. If you work in Hollywood, your life is easier if you adopt the dominant belief system, even if you privately think it doesn’t make sense.

And don’t forget the folks on the left who assume that wealth is the result of some sort of scam (often because the rich people they know “earned” their money in less-then-impressive ways).

But what about ordinary leftists? Why do they support statist policies. My own personal guess is that they think good intentions make them good people, and they naively assume that spending other people’s money is a way of solving problems (which is the most charitable interpretation of FDR’s policies).

This Chuck Asay cartoon expresses this mindset.

You can enjoy other Asay cartoons here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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On Reason TV, Andrew Ferguson Discusses the Parasite Economy of Washington, DC

Back in February, I posted this startling map showing that 10 of America’s 15-richest counties are the bedroom communities surrounding Washington, DC.

There’s a lot of money in Washington because federal bureaucrats are wildly overpaid, as I document in this video, and also because there is a huge shadow workforce of contractors, consultants, and lobbyists who have their snouts buried deeply in the public trough.

In an interview for Reason TV, Andy Ferguson talks about how these well-paid parasites have created a bubble economy in Washington.

And you know it must be true because even the leftists at Politico wrote a story acknowledging how the DC area was thriving at a time when the rest of America was struggling.

In other words, the poor and middle-class people in the real world are paying high taxes to subsidize the indolent moochers of Washington.

You would think that’s one kind of redistribution that the left would oppose. Heck, it’s almost enough to make you think that it would be a good idea to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

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