All one needs to do is to go over to OWS's official website. Under the very first article, entitled Who We Are, the group details their goals. Wade through some rambling craziness and you will come to a link, created and put there by the founders of the protests.To those who say that many in the movement are believers, that they may just be young and impressionable and may not have enough experience in the world to know the "right" way to accomplish their goals, I say that we have a term for them: useful idiots, pawns of the people who posted the what's shown above.
Simply follow that link and in big letters you will see this:You know, I could swear that that says they want to stomp out capitalism... probably because they say they want to stomp out capitalism.
And under their declaration, it reads:This is their official website. This is not some random guy rambling on the forum. This was put there by their founders. (boldface mine--Darren)
And let's not forget that the California Teachers Association supports these people, enough to print signs for them with CTA's logo on the bottom.
What is it that these people have against capitalism? I'm reminded of something Milton Friedman once said on Phil Donahue's show:
Note how Donahue opens this clip, talking about the "maldistribution of wealth", in what could be ripped from today's headlines. Friedman has the perfect response, "In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that." Friedman also addresses so-called greed, commentary I find both hilarious and 100% correct.
If someone can show me that, historically, when wealth is "distributed" in a certain way, that the society collapses, and can show me that we're approaching that point, then I'll entertain discussion about higher tax rates for the rich and other such related issues. Until then I'll just consider such talk to be populist class warfare of the most base sort, conducted by the most base sort of people.
Update: What's causing this increased income disparity?
The Occupiers are right about American incomes: They've definitely grown more unequal. But this fact presents three inconvenient truths for the Occupy Wall Street movement.Click and find out :-)
Really Darren? You link to an American Enterprise Institute written op-ed after and post about how little the Koch brothers are influencing politics on the same page? The Koch brothers pay a lower tax rate for making money on inherited wealth than you or I do working as teachers. How could you possibly see that as reasonable, fair, or anything other than the moneyed elite writing the rules?
ReplyDeleteI don't think you, or I, have any claim on *their* money. And even if we did have a claim on *their* money, I don't think "stomping out capitalism" would be the appropriate solution--unless what you really want is to bring everyone *down* to the same level of poverty.
ReplyDeleteThey are able to have the wealth that they due because of our society, and should pay a fair amount for the benefits that they receive. I think that's rather reasonable. The fact that their version of "working" for that money involves a combination of being born, and of paying people to lobby for laws in their favor does not, in my mind at least, entitle them to pay a smaller percentage of their income that people who work to actually benefit the society that we live in.
ReplyDeleteI understand that point of view, I just vehemently disagree with it. Just because you don't think someone's earned their money, I don't see how that leads logically to the belief that the government is entitled to their money.
ReplyDeleteThe solution to the problem you bring up is to simplify the tax code by eliminating some deductions. The end result may be the same, but it would do so without the class warfare "you owe us" mentality that only invites more.