Windows into the Progressive Mind: In Their Own Words
Film maker and proud Democrat Michael Moore, Communist theocrat:
Morgan asked Moore about his opposition to capitalism, especially given Moore’s financial success as a filmmaker. When asked if his movie-making amounted to a capitalist endeavor, Moore replied “Is it really?” He then noted that “the only reason I do well is because people want to see my movies,” before indicting the modern financial system as a corruption of capitalism, a “shell game.”
As Moore concluded his remarks on capitalism, he said that “it’s not American.” Additionally, he said “it’s not Christian or Jewish,” after citing 46 million poor people that Moore believes the capitalist economic system neglects. “None of the major religions, in fact they all,” Moore said, “say it’s one of the worst sins you could commit, is to take such a large piece of the pie while others suffer.”
Progressive and former Obama economic adviser Peter Orszag wants to de-democratize America to avoid “polarization“:
To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.
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Proposals abound for expanding this type of process. In the late ’90s, economist Alan Blinder proposed shifting responsibility for tax policy to a Fed-like institution of experts. Stephen Flynn of the Center for National Policy has proposed a similar process for infrastructure decisions—and, indeed, creating an infrastructure bank, as President Obama has proposed, would accomplish much the same goal. Such a bank would be empowered to select individual infrastructure projects, thereby removing some decision-making power from Congress.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this idea is the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), created as part of the recent health care reform legislation. The IPAB will be an independent panel of medical experts tasked with devising changes to Medicare’s payment system. In each year that Medicare’s per capita costs exceed a certain threshold, the ipab is responsible for making proposals to reduce projected cost growth. The proposals take effect automatically unless Congress specifically passes legislation blocking them and the president signs that legislation.
Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren doesn’t think much of entrepreneurs:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you.
But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory.
Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
Putting these together, if you succeed, even despite the left’s anti-business laws, you should be grateful and be a good little leftist anyway. Capitalism is good until it enriches actual capitalists. Theocracy is bad except when a Progressive can use it to shame a conservative into becoming a Progressive. Democracy is good until non-leftists win, at which time “polarization” demands non-democratic rule by Progressive experts.
I think paying people to work in that factory, who then pay taxes to pay for fire, police and road services, and then spend money on food, shelter etc, that other factories make, and pay other people to pay taxes and buy goods & services, etc. etc. etc.
What an idiot that woman is. How does someone this stupid get elected once much less re-elected?
I don’t think she’s ever been elected to office. Nonetheless, really stupid.
– but we got ‘em scared, really scared…
So, even though Orszag had the good sense to bail from this administration, he still is, fundamentally, an idiot.
… he still is, fundamentally, a fascist.
he is still fundamentally, like all marxists, a thief.
Quite the ignorant set of arguments.
1) Michael Moore ignores the definition of capitalism, which is an economic process run by and consumed by, the will and actions of private individuals, with the surplus or profit left in the hands of the entrepreneur.
He ignores his role in the investment and production of the films and declares that he is a passive recipient of the desires of the consumer.
Fine. So, since he rejects capitalism, does he then take ALL the profit and distribute it to the consumer? Or does he keep that profit?
2) Peter Orszag is a typical leftist/socialist, in that he rejects the individual free will and instead posits a society run by an elite set of Rulers. Democracy, he feels, is too slow and messy. He does not, of course, analyze whether the decision-making processes of these Elite Rulers will be valid, moral and beneficial.
3)Elizabeth Warren ignores that societies are made up of people and that knowledge is a communal affair; we humans are unable to exist as isolate. So, she declares that ‘no-one gets rich on their own’. Well, no-one learns to speak on their own. Our species exists only as a ‘social animal’.
No-one can build a road all by themself, no-one learns to talk on their own, no-one, no-one learns a thing on their own. Our knowledge is developed and retained by and within a society.
So- what’s her point? That the man who builds the factory should contribute to the society? No-one, ever, has rejected such a premise. But, what she is ignoring is HOW to contribute to the society.
Should this social contribution be given to the government? Who says that a government bureaucracy builds the roads and the schools best? Why can’t a private company, hired by a community, build that road and run those schools?
What these lame twits fail to realize is that the logical progression of their “ideals” will eventually result in the system that they created eating them for breakfast. That’s when I move in.
Notice that Moore never really answered the question regarding the contradiction between his rhetoric and his own wealth. For someone who talks about how unfair it is for some to have more of the “pie” than others, he eats a pretty big slice himself.
Yeah, but a “huge chunk” of it ends up on his shirt.
The same can be said for Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the wonderful progressive people who advocate “redistribute the wealth” type policies.
“the only reason I do well is because people want to see my movies,”
Michael kind of makes the capitalists’ point with this quip; he provides a product for which there is a market. I guess you could call that a “gaffe”…
The voices and rhetoric of the Buffets-Gates-Moores are becoming indistinguishable.
And like our erstwhile president, all rules apply first and foremost to others: Do what I say, not what I do.
They all need to pony up or shut up. They will, of course, do neither.
One of Moore’s films was debunked by a French (if I remember correctly) journalist, and the film about his lies was shown on German TV. I doubt that he will ever earn much money here again because he won’t be pushed by the publishers and film critics. I hope he has invested his money wisely for the future when no one wants his products any more.
BTW, if I give my money to Coke, McDonald’s, Exxon, and Ford, does that mean they are morally OK?
yep. All these nasty little people trying to make a better life for themselves and their kids are a big problem, aren’t they? They need to be taught to stay in their hovels.
Only people like Moore, that rare guy who can make a movie people want to watch, or Orzag, that rare guy who understands how money works, or Warren, that rare wise economist, should do better than average. Well, a LOT better than average actually.
We’ll call it a happy-talk name. Something like “progress”ivism or “social”ism. That will insure that people will be happy with the hovels they let us have.
I’ll make these guys a deal. We will agree to change government. We will get rid of this “messy”, democratic process. We will put through all those changes. My only requirement is, the government and all those new institutions have to be run by the Right forever.
The sword cuts both ways.
These guys are idiots, truly idiots. They presume they will be the ones in charge when it is all done. It never occurs to them that they wouldn’t be, that the opposition might get the upper hand. After all, the other side wouldn’t do these things. They just know we wouldn’t. They are willing to bet their lives on it. They apparently do not understand human nature at all.
Elizabeth Warren is factually correct. This is how our country operates. What she objects to is thay way the very rich keep paying less and keeping more for themselves.
In economic equality, the US ranks with wonderlands of capitalism such as Jamaica, Mexico, and Madagascar (see Wikipedia GINI index). Thanks, Goldman Sachs.
Yeah, I know all about the poor who pay no income tax. But they pay a lot of sales tax and other regressive fees.
You state that ‘the rich pay less and keep more for themselves’. This is totally factually wrong.
First, you are assuming that the rich are rich because they..well..why? Do they have a Magic Cauldron bubbling up money? Or, do they work hard, take risks, develop companies and products…etc.? Well?
Second, your basic false assumption is that the rich ‘keep it for themselves’. No, they don’t. They INVEST their money.
You are ignoring basic economics, which is made up of three phases: Investment, Production, and Consumption.
You are making the serious (leftist) error of focusing only on Consumption. You think that the rich should give their profits to the government, which will then, use it for its bureaucratic needs and, distribute what’s left to some of the population.
But if the Rich kept their money in their old socks…they will eventually become poor. They INVEST their money. How?
Even if they just put it in the bank, that bank makes loans to small businesses and this investment is turned into PRODUCTION of goods and services.
Or, they invest it in building or expanding a factory, in developing a new product, in researching a new drug, in….
The best investment is private investment. That’s because it is the least wasteful, has the smallest administrative bureaucracy, is not burdened by the public service unions (the Masters of Greed)…and can lend and support diverse local businesses.
There is no such thing as economic equality. A society where everyone has the SAME economic capital is unable to invest that money and produce more goods; it is reduced to only ONE action: consumption. A society must have unequal economic holdings; this enables some to remove that money from current consumption and INVEST it into long term future-oriented business.
There was alreay one commentor (sorry, cannot remember who or where) who pointed out that, if Warren’s assertions were true about the huge importance of roads, police, fire, etc. to the success of the business owner were true then everyone would be similarly wealthy. Nobody doubts the importance of these public services in providing a stable environment for success. But the income and wealth disparities demonstrate that they do not impart it. That is up to the individual, period!
Oh, and that “social contract” that so many port-side eggheads seem to love is the ultimate “living, breathing document”. It says whatever the person invoking it wants it to say at a given moment. And, because it is a “contract”, you are obligated to follow it to the letter!
“In economic equality, the US ranks with wonderlands of capitalism such as Jamaica, Mexico, and Madagascar”
These people really are determined to crush freedom, aren’t they?
The only people who give even a minute to thoughts of economic equality, if they can find a minute between surfing the internet on their iphones, brushing their $200 running shoes, and trying to figure out how to keep their weight under control and pay for their boob jobs, are people who have been thoroughly brain-washed by marxists like you.
And as you know, wikipedia is controlled by George Soros. It is a convenient stealth platform for leftist propaganda. If it’s possible to have a political angle, every article has a leftist one
Hmmm, if a factory does well it should pay it forward. If a factory does well what is one of the first things it does? It expands. Not to expand means it would stagnate. It would not be able to meet demand and would fold. To expand would mean new factories meaning new jobs. Someone would have to build the factories and build new roads to the new factories. The factory workers wouldn’t be expected to build the factories or roads themselves. The new factories bring in new workers expanding the tax base in the new area as well as new workers in the first factory if they build onto it during expansion.
As the factory improves it’s sales, this is usually accompanied by higher wages for the workers that made it happen. So again, more money to the tax base. Not all the new jobs may be filled by local workers, some may have to be filled by new workers coming in from other areas to fill the jobs. These new people will need places to live and schools and services for their families as well as bringing in more money for the community.
Now, in what way is this not paying it forward?