The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

“How Would Making Donald Trump Less Rich Make Anybody Else Better Off?”

Posted on | October 2, 2014 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

. . .asks Kevin D. Williamson, with the following self-response:

There is, obviously, one direct answer to that question, which is that making Trump less rich by seizing his property and giving it to somebody else would make the recipients better off, and that is true. But the Left does not generally make that straightforward argument for seizing property. Rather, they treat “inequality” as though it were an active roaming malice on the economic landscape, and argue that incomes are stagnant at the lower end of the range because too great a “share of national income” — and there’s a whole Burkina Faso’s worth of illiteracy in that phrase — went to earners at the top. It simply is not the case that if Lloyd Blankfein makes a hundred grand less next year, then there’s $100,000 sitting on shelf somewhere waiting to become part of some unemployed guy in Toledo’s “share of the national income.” Income isn’t a bag of jellybeans that gets passed around.

Part of the challenge for conservatives is that we’re still beholden to some notion of rational discourse. You’ve got to understand that the Left is making a purely hormonal play to the flesh here. Somewhere between Gustave LeBon and Saul Alinsky the Left figured out that there was massive political power to be had in rejecting the enlightenment and treating people like a big lump of meat.

By tempting the less thoughtful into a straightforward 10th Commandment violation (that is, stoking covetousness) you can motivate an awful lot of votes. This is a highly tactical maneuver to acquire power, though. In essence, they treat the standard normal distribution like a giant pimple, and give it a big squeeze of temptation. The bulk of the populace regresses toward the mean of the distribution. The dirt poor will always be with you in the left tail. The trick is to be a member of the oligarchy or the clerisy in the right tail.

Fairly diabolical, but effective. Anybody claiming Christianity that is still in the Democrat party may have some repenting to do.

via Instapundit

Category: Culture

Comments

16 Responses to ““How Would Making Donald Trump Less Rich Make Anybody Else Better Off?””

  1. Adobe_Walls
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 9:23 am

    Why wouldn’t the left think that reducing someones income magically produces bags of money laying around for someone else. After all whenever they need a few extra votes bags of ballots simply materialize in what ever precincts they’re needed.

  2. RS
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 9:41 am

    The demonization of wealth obviously demonstrates a complete ignorance of what wealth is, and a deliberate refusal to acknowledge the fact that in any voluntary exchange, both parties are better off than before. In other words, every voluntary exchange creates new wealth. It is only when one falsely believe that wealth is limited or zero-sum, that covetousness can take hold. It’s no surprise that when the Left stopped teaching those facts, such false thinking began to flourish.

  3. kilo6
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 9:44 am

    … the Left figured out that there was massive political power to be had in rejecting the enlightenment and treating people like a big lump of meat.

    Yep, a lump as in Lumpenproletariat , (German: “rabble proletariat”), according to Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto,
    the lowest stratum of the industrial working class, including also such
    undesirables as tramps and criminals. The members of the Lumpenproletariat—this “social scum,” said Marx—are not only disinclined to participate in
    revolutionary activities with their “rightful brethren,” the proletariat, but also tend to act as the “bribed tools of reactionary intrigue.”
    —
    Lumpenproletariat definition is from
    Encyclopædia Britannica    , YMMV when talking to a Marxist, Feminist or Film Studies major (but I repeat myself) about what the “true” definition really is. My opinion is that the flood of illegals streaming into the country for the past several decades represent the new Lumpenproletariat in many ways and also serve as a way of Balkanizing the USA.

  4. Phil_McG
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 10:17 am

    Most literate lefties know that impoverishing Donald Trump wouldn’t make them richer.

    They don’t care.

    It’s not “about” redistribution or inequality or any of that equalist verbiage. It’s about revenge.

  5. CrustyB
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 12:52 pm

    I usually dislike quotes but this is right on:

    “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”

    – Thomas Sowell

  6. NeoWayland
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 1:49 pm

    No.

    It’s about power.

    Power stolen at the point of a gun. Power backed by the state. Irrevocable power enshrined in law.

    Power because a self-appointed elite “deserves” it.

  7. alanstorm
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 2:53 pm

    “How would making Donald Trump less rich make anybody else better off?”

    Ah, but it does make somebody better off – the person paid to make the target less rich.

  8. “How Would Making Donald Trump Less Rich Make Anybody Else Better Off?” | That Mr. G Guy's Blog
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 9:33 pm

    […] “How Would Making Donald Trump Less Rich Make Anybody Else Better Off?”. […]

  9. Mike G.
    October 2nd, 2014 @ 9:37 pm

    I’ve never coveted what others have or earn. I do, however, admire their tenaciousness in acquiring their hard earned wealth and try to emulate them in their success. That is the American Way, after all!

  10. K-Bob
    October 3rd, 2014 @ 3:22 am

    Macro Pimplenomics

    Smitty creates a new dismal science.

  11. K-Bob
    October 3rd, 2014 @ 3:23 am

    But when they get that power, they use it to get what they think is revenge. They set rules not to protect, but to punish.

  12. Maggie's Farm
    October 3rd, 2014 @ 5:22 am

    Friday morning links

    Daddy Longlegs Have a Secret Hunting Weapon: Glue Staged: The Stage World of Ricky and Lucy The Feminizing Of Culture, And Male Self-Hatred You Call This Thai Food? The Robotic Taster Will Be the Judge Women earned majority of doctoral degrees

  13. NeoWayland
    October 3rd, 2014 @ 10:26 am

    Some of them, yes.

    Some just really want the power.

  14. Labor Participation Hits 36-Year Low | Regular Right Guy
    October 3rd, 2014 @ 2:01 pm

    […] “How Would Making Donald Trump Less Rich Make Anybody Else Better Off?” […]

  15. Robert What?
    October 3rd, 2014 @ 6:54 pm

    The trick is to be a member or the oligarchy or the clerisy…

    Aye, and there’s the rub. Come the triumph of the Glorious People’s Socislist Revolution (underway for the past several decades), there simply won’t be the need (nor the money) for that many oligarchs and cleriseseses (is that a word?).

    One thing we’ve learned from Stalin and Mao is that the first ones to be liquidated are the useful idiots. The ones who bought into the revolution. They need to be liquidated because they got a glimpse of what is really behind the curtain. So enjoy your short lived triumph, useful idiots. The shots will be coming from behind you.

  16. K-Bob
    October 3rd, 2014 @ 9:36 pm

    The will to power is animal-instinctive. So I expect that from pretty much anyone who goes into politics. Even those who “just want to help make a better world.”