According to Glenn Beck, "Media Matters," a liberal blog, has launched an attack against him and the Fox news organisation. Check the following link to see that he is correct:
http://mediamatters.org/columns/201010290036
This blog has no fundamental disagreement with the issues that Media Matters raises in this article. That is, we agree that they are issues. We differ diametrically in our view of these issues. In fact, what Media Matters accuses Fox of is often exactly what this blog (and the Tea Party conservatives) say that they (and the Statist Progressive Left) are doing. For example, Media Matters says:
"They [Fox] do all of this while continuing their time-honored tradition of tearing down liberal initiatives and politicians with shameless smears, lies, misrepresentations, and fabricated stories..."
So, they are correct that Fox attempts to tear down liberal initiatives. Fox does it by telling the truth about liberals and their initiatives. It is the left, presumably with the endorsement of Media Matters, that uses shameless smears and fabricates stories. Just look at the recent statements from the left regarding conservative women candidates, which have been exposed as farcical fabrications and certainly smears and shameless too. Look at all the lies we were told about the Health Care bill with hardly a peep of objection from the mainstream media.
Media Matters' article also states:
"Right out of the gate, Fox led the charge against the stimulus, eschewing the views of economists to attack deficit spending and rewriting history to attack FDR and the New Deal.
The network was certainly "the voice of the opposition" on health care reform, spewing countless falsehoods about both our broken health care system and the proposals to fix it while promoting disruptions of health care town halls and GOP initiatives to kill reform."
Here again we have clear lines of demarcation. We believe one thing and they believe the opposite. Fox, Sarah Palin's Common Sense Conservatives, The Tea Party, me, and innumerable others did not want so called economic stimuli from government spending, which some economist believe in. We have discussed John Maynard Keynes, Paul Samuelson, and Paul Krugman (a real bearded Marxist), for example. Other economists, such as Milton Friedman and Ludvig von Mises, disagree. They do not so much eschew the opposing statist progressive views as they have study them in depth then refute and reject them. That is true of the views and initiatives of FDR and of BHO.
That Fox and the afore mentioned conservatives oppose the so called health care and wall street reforms is also no secret. [Ed Note: This blog opposes Cap-and-Trade most of all.] In a free society with a free press, the public hears both sides and decides. Media Matters would have us hear only their side. It brings to mind the bible story of David and Bathsheba. When David saw Bathsheba and desired her, even though she was married, the prophet Nathan (I think that's who it was) rebuked him. He compared King David to a rich man with many flocks who sees a poor man and wants his only lamb. The left is supported by many large media outlets, the only comparably strong voice of dissent is Fox. To Media Matters and its masters, that is too many.
William F Buckley observed that the left says they want to hear both sides, but they are shocked to hear that there is another side. We know who the other side is and what it stands for and we do not want it.
Showing posts with label Buckly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buckly. Show all posts
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, August 27, 2009
New Day for living Reaganites
What we have here is an (intentional) failure to communicate. I can usually end arguments with young children quickly. If they object to something, I ask them if they want to argue. If they say yes; I say no. If they say no; I say yes. Then we continue the argument thus: yes, no, yes, no, yes, no …. We both get tired of this fairly soon and usually forget what the original argument was about. It seems that many on the left are using this method to avoid debate by turning it into an argument about arguing.
Paul Krugman has written several columns about the congressional health care bills that illustrate that this sort of lack of communication is the problem. Normally if party A says something and Party B states what their objection is, then Party A should address what party B said. With the health care debate, Party A (the left) only repeats their original statements ignoring the objection of party B. They then claim that no coherent arguments are being offered. Then party B (the right), because they got no response, has to repeat their objections, somewhat louder because they feel that party A did not hear them. Then party A accuses party B of shouting and repeating the same old arguments. Well, party A, why don’t you address those same old arguments?
Paul Krugman's dismissal of any contrary views is reminiscent of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s observation that the left says they want to hear other opinions, but then are shocked to hear that there are any other opinions. (The exact quotation is elsewhere in this web site.) In his August 25, 2009 column, Mr. Krugman goes on to attack any free market views as the battered remnant of the failed policies of the Reagan administration. (The somewhat clever title(s) of his column is, "Night of the Living Reaganites." or "All the Presidents Zombies" The Seattle paper had a different headline that the Times, I guess. See NYT version: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html?_r=2) Here again he dismisses all the achievements of conservative policies by simply stating that they do not exist. (It would take a month to refute all of the misstatements and faulty logic in Mr. K's column. For an attempt see: http://spectator.org/blog/2009/08/24/paul-krugman-clears-throat-new) In my opinion, the shortcoming of Ronald Reagan was that he did not adopt the conservative policies that he so eloquently advocated. Government indeed grew under Reagan. That is certainly not a fault of conservatism but another example of conservatism not being tried.
There have been many coherent and cogent arguments made against a government health care option, starting with the objection that it would soon not be optional because it would drive out private insurance. It has been explained ad nausium how this would happen based upon people and employers making decisions in their economic interest. (No plan that assumes people would act otherwise can ever succeed.) President Obama's only rebuttal is that insurance companies would work like Fed Ex, which competes with the post office. (My and other's sur-rebuttal was made a few days ago - see this blog) Mr. Krugman apparently is saying that this is not even an argument at all. There is the further argument that there would be less incentive for research and development in medicine; and even more importantly, no way to determine how to allocate research resources. Of course the Übermenschkins of control central would claim that yes they can do that, but that is to anticipate the rejoinder that they demure to make. (See von Mises, Economic Calculations in the Socialist Commonwealth; and also The Calculations Argument, an on-line article at Mises Institute, for the argument that no they can't.) Yes Mr. Krugman, the current plans, to the extent that they would involve government action, would result in shortages of some types of medical services.
Economic arguments regarding the inefficiencies of socialism and of government in general can be difficult to grasp. Essentially it boils down to the unhindered market place being the only possible determinate of the best combination of resources to be allotted to every possible use. John Muir said that if we pull on a single tread of nature, we will find it attached to the rest of the world. We too are a part of nature and all of our actions, including economic decisions are interrelated. That may explain the title of Ludwig von Mises' greatest work, Human Action. Destructive government intervention reverberates through our lives destroying or wasting our very limited recourse's. One argument that is easier to grasp is the cost: the current administration is budgeting deficit spending that is greater than that of all previous administrations added together.
Besides economic arguments that government control causes inefficiencies and misallocations of resources (and what are recessions but the inevitable result of such wasted resources); there are social arguments regarding how government would replace personal and family health decisions. The "death panels" objection of Sarah Palin is ridiculed instead of addressed (as everything about Sarah Palin is). It has been my experience in dealing with government that we would be lucky to get death panels. What we would actually get is a denial of treatment based upon some codes read by a computer. If we could appeal at all, it would begin with several hours trying to find the correct faceless bureaucrat. At least insurance companies can ultimately be held to the terms of their policy and applicable law. In the final analysis, the government is de facto and de jure a law unto itself.
The arguments against government control of health care have been proffered for decades if not centuries, as have the arguments against socialistic policies in general. Why cannot the proponents even acknowledge that such arguments exist? To quote Mr. Krugman's column, "Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction -- in Congress, if not with the broader public -- simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program." Mr. K should read about objections to government programs (and objections to the methods of discourse of the left) in chickenshitnewworld.blogspot.
Paul Krugman has written several columns about the congressional health care bills that illustrate that this sort of lack of communication is the problem. Normally if party A says something and Party B states what their objection is, then Party A should address what party B said. With the health care debate, Party A (the left) only repeats their original statements ignoring the objection of party B. They then claim that no coherent arguments are being offered. Then party B (the right), because they got no response, has to repeat their objections, somewhat louder because they feel that party A did not hear them. Then party A accuses party B of shouting and repeating the same old arguments. Well, party A, why don’t you address those same old arguments?
Paul Krugman's dismissal of any contrary views is reminiscent of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s observation that the left says they want to hear other opinions, but then are shocked to hear that there are any other opinions. (The exact quotation is elsewhere in this web site.) In his August 25, 2009 column, Mr. Krugman goes on to attack any free market views as the battered remnant of the failed policies of the Reagan administration. (The somewhat clever title(s) of his column is, "Night of the Living Reaganites." or "All the Presidents Zombies" The Seattle paper had a different headline that the Times, I guess. See NYT version: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html?_r=2) Here again he dismisses all the achievements of conservative policies by simply stating that they do not exist. (It would take a month to refute all of the misstatements and faulty logic in Mr. K's column. For an attempt see: http://spectator.org/blog/2009/08/24/paul-krugman-clears-throat-new) In my opinion, the shortcoming of Ronald Reagan was that he did not adopt the conservative policies that he so eloquently advocated. Government indeed grew under Reagan. That is certainly not a fault of conservatism but another example of conservatism not being tried.
There have been many coherent and cogent arguments made against a government health care option, starting with the objection that it would soon not be optional because it would drive out private insurance. It has been explained ad nausium how this would happen based upon people and employers making decisions in their economic interest. (No plan that assumes people would act otherwise can ever succeed.) President Obama's only rebuttal is that insurance companies would work like Fed Ex, which competes with the post office. (My and other's sur-rebuttal was made a few days ago - see this blog) Mr. Krugman apparently is saying that this is not even an argument at all. There is the further argument that there would be less incentive for research and development in medicine; and even more importantly, no way to determine how to allocate research resources. Of course the Übermenschkins of control central would claim that yes they can do that, but that is to anticipate the rejoinder that they demure to make. (See von Mises, Economic Calculations in the Socialist Commonwealth; and also The Calculations Argument, an on-line article at Mises Institute, for the argument that no they can't.) Yes Mr. Krugman, the current plans, to the extent that they would involve government action, would result in shortages of some types of medical services.
Economic arguments regarding the inefficiencies of socialism and of government in general can be difficult to grasp. Essentially it boils down to the unhindered market place being the only possible determinate of the best combination of resources to be allotted to every possible use. John Muir said that if we pull on a single tread of nature, we will find it attached to the rest of the world. We too are a part of nature and all of our actions, including economic decisions are interrelated. That may explain the title of Ludwig von Mises' greatest work, Human Action. Destructive government intervention reverberates through our lives destroying or wasting our very limited recourse's. One argument that is easier to grasp is the cost: the current administration is budgeting deficit spending that is greater than that of all previous administrations added together.
Besides economic arguments that government control causes inefficiencies and misallocations of resources (and what are recessions but the inevitable result of such wasted resources); there are social arguments regarding how government would replace personal and family health decisions. The "death panels" objection of Sarah Palin is ridiculed instead of addressed (as everything about Sarah Palin is). It has been my experience in dealing with government that we would be lucky to get death panels. What we would actually get is a denial of treatment based upon some codes read by a computer. If we could appeal at all, it would begin with several hours trying to find the correct faceless bureaucrat. At least insurance companies can ultimately be held to the terms of their policy and applicable law. In the final analysis, the government is de facto and de jure a law unto itself.
The arguments against government control of health care have been proffered for decades if not centuries, as have the arguments against socialistic policies in general. Why cannot the proponents even acknowledge that such arguments exist? To quote Mr. Krugman's column, "Perhaps the most depressing aspect for progressives, however, has been the extent to which opponents of greater choice in health care have gained traction -- in Congress, if not with the broader public -- simply by repeating, over and over again, that the public option would be, horrors, a government program." Mr. K should read about objections to government programs (and objections to the methods of discourse of the left) in chickenshitnewworld.blogspot.
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