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June 01, 2005
A challenge
In the comment section of my entry below, Brad takes issue with the quotes I've pulled from the progessive [snort] new website TPMCafe. His scintillating repartee consists of calling my site (as well as Wizbang) as offering no more than fascist, racist pablum.
Well, Brad (or any other individualphobic "progressive" out there), there's a search engine and a whole list of archives at the right-side bar. Go ahead and link to my "fascist, racist pablum" offerings.
Knock yourself out.
Posted by Darleen at June 1, 2005 12:20 PM
Comments
Darleen,
Once again, you completely didn't get my point, which--let me spell it out for you--is this:
1. You go to a Leftie site like TPM cafe and make some glib observations, essentially stereotyping all of the TPM contributors as allied with socialists and anarchists.
2. This gives me permission to return the favor by stereotyping your own content as either racist or fascist.
3. Of course, I don't really believe that you are a racist or a fascist. My worldview is not that narrow, and obviously I'd be wasting my time visiting your blog if I never got anything of substance from it.
4. But you chose to take my bait--believing that I am a "typical" reactionary type radical.
5. You also misspelled Wizbang.
Whatever.
Posted by: Brad at June 1, 2005 12:45 PM
Brad
I cited specific phrases that are indicative of a philosophy that is group-sovereign minded, not individual-sovereign.
A lament against "private" risk? Or allowing private ownership of one's own Social Security contributions? Or the idealization of being LIKED over being right?
Certainly, Brad, you could characterize my site as "fascist, racist" but could you pull out any writings of mine that would substantiate your charge?
Tell me where I am WRONG about TPMCafe, or "progressivism" at large.
Posted by: Darleen at June 1, 2005 04:01 PM
I love the word pablum.
Posted by: Mieke at June 1, 2005 06:13 PM
Erm....not to put too fine a point on it.... but so did you Brad.... its Wizbang! ....(explosively unique)...
Darleen - Its all about the pork barrels that privatization threatens to vastly reduce, priciple among them, social security, from which so many of the gov. givaways are funded...
Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at June 1, 2005 10:42 PM
The more money of ours they collect, the less control we have of it. More control = more power.
And he probably can't get his mouse that far over on the right side of the screen.
Posted by: Mr.Kurtz at June 1, 2005 10:50 PM
Enjoyed my morning coffee with you. You have a winning way with words.
Posted by: Julia at June 2, 2005 03:34 AM
"Its all about the pork barrels that privatization threatens to vastly reduce"
I am for privatization in most cases (well, for COMPETITION, really, not necessarily privatization although that is normally a necessary first step), but let's not kid ourselve: A big reason there is a push for privatization is so that investment firms can get a cut of people's money (they stand to make a LOT of money with little to no effort or risk). It is not about making retirement savings more cost efficient (if they wanted to do that, and still "privatize", they could take a portion of ALL the money and invest that in the stock market... that would probably yield a higher average return than individual accounts will).
People are already allowed to save for retirement in private risk accounts (such as 401(K)), so I don't get why there is a need to take away the only mandated non-risk retirement savings.
As for that cafe website, what a pain. Too much of everything.
/Mike
Posted by: Mike at June 2, 2005 08:26 AM
I don't call you a fascist or a racist. I just think you didn't give us any reason to disagree with the stuff that you cited from TPMCafe.
There's a bunch of different ways to organize the transfer of goods. Free-market capitalism is best for lots of cases (computer hardware, for example). But it's a messy world we live in. In some cases, banning certain consensual transactions entirely (cocaine sales) prevents public health catastrophes and is thus a good idea. In other cases (annuity pricing, as Yglesias points out in the next-to-last paragraph of this post), odd things come up that make the free market a worse deal than some other option.
I'm flexible about these things. I distrust people who think we need a free market everywhere, and I distrust people who think that everything has to be centrally planned. The world just isn't that neat.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at June 3, 2005 08:53 PM