Dumbfounded By The Unfounded
I recently caught Bill Maher on Jay Leno. (I was waiting for Rickles on Letterman and they were in a commercial.)
He said "People are hurting" and I thought Uh Oh. When someone says that, demagoguery is likely to follow. People are always hurting, and you rarely note this because you're about to appeal to the intellect.
Then he said he's surprised how people vote against their own interest--which broken down means he's shocked people have the nerve to disagree with him at the ballot box. It's a common complaint from the left about the great unwashed (the great unwashed being everyone who isn't ultra-rich) who don't demand greater income redistribution (though note when people who say this sort of stuff vote "against their own interest," they're not class traitors, they're simply "enlightened").
He finally gets specific and wonders why do people want to vote for Mitt Romney. Don't they realize poverty is caused by greedy rich people hoarding all the money? (I am not exaggerating. What he said was actually worse--I wish I could find the transcript.)
Wow! I thought snarling fat cat capitalist bosses in top hats smoking cigars while holding down the proles went out with 1920s Soviet melodrama. Does Maher actually think there's just some pile of money out there, no one knows where it came from, and the rich have grabbed more than their share and spend what they have to ensure no one else gets any?
Does he really believe that someone who creates a successful company hurts our society? That someone who manages a company well hurts us? That someone who works extra hours, or spends extra years in school, hurts us? That someone who invents a new product or service, or who figures out how to deliver something at a lower price or higher quality, hurts us?
It's frightening that some people don't get Montgomery Burns is a caricature.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:27 AM
4 Comments:
If you substituted "progressive income taxation" for his hyperbole, would your reaction remain the same?
I honestly don't understand what you're asking.
Sorry to have been unclear. He said (according to your paraphrase): "Don't they realize poverty is caused by greedy rich people hoarding all the money?" My guess is what he means is the rich control the tax system so that they don't pay as much as in other first-world countries, and our poor suffer for it. Essentially, he's calling for a more progressive tax system.
I think he believes everything is rigged, not just the tax code (which he probably does not believe is progressive), to make sure the rich stay rich and big corporations stay big. Worse, he probably believes the system ensures the poor stay poor (and his definition of poor would probably be mostly people who think they're middle class).
What I would say to that is punishing the rich for being too rich, or corporations for being too big, is not a great strategy for society at large, or indeed, for the poor.
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