It appears that officials will not allow free range chickens to roam on election day in Nevada. Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden has been ridiculed for her comment about how people used to barter for medical care. Critics have suggested that she was looking back fondly on the way “our grandparents would bring a chicken to the doctor.” Now, officials have banned chicken suits at polling places to stop critics from ridiculing Lowden.
Various activists have been campaigning against Lowden under the banner “Chickens for Checkups” and followed her with people in chicken outfits.
Washoe County Registrar of Voters Dan Burk banned the outfits as “inappropriate and obvious” advocacy in polling places. In fairness, most states do not allow open campaigning in polling places, though large chicken costumes have not been a common problem.
For the full story, click here.
Byron,
ONE type of socialism does that.
I say “‘Liberated Brother’ is great jazz.”
You say “How is that jazz, there’s no swing?”
While some jazz is famously swung, there are a wide variety of jazz sub-genres and grooves that don’t swing.
While some socialism famously involves the government ownership of the means of production, worker ownership is also included.
Mike was pretty obviously referring to the broader definition, while you changed the conversation to a discussion of the second. That’s equivocation.
Gyges:
I was asking Mike A that question.
Socialism “forces” people to pay taxes to take care of their neighbor. Putting a barn up or putting out a fire in your neighbors house is insurance for one thing and good neighborliness for another. But it in noway indebts you or your neighbor to each other and it is not compelled by force of government.
Farmers coops are another example of pooling resources to benefit a community. The operative word is free association.
Byron,
What exactly does that have to do with “How is socialism implied in neighbors working together if they do it of free will and are not coerced?” I was just pointing out that Equivocation is a hell of a drug.
One more time with feeling, “Not all socialism is the third letter in the USSR.”
Elaine:
I would be for it, if the country goes to war it should be worth the loss of life and treasure. I would have thought we would have learned that lesson in Vietnam. We should also have Social Security and the other social programs off limits to politicians and have pay as we go. If the money isn’t there the programs get cut. First at the government employee level then the state employee level and finally reducing benefits to the individuals as a last resort.
Imposing fiscal responsibility on government is a good idea.
Byron–
Maybe we’d have more money in the US Treasury if we didn’t start preemptive wars. What do you think of the idea of imposing a war tax on the population to pay for the wars we wage?
Gyges:
We have socialism here in the US to a very large degree and have had for at least the last 50-70 years in one degree or another.
Public Schools, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all forms of welfare. What more is there? But the problem is that socialism is only sustainable to the extent that a free market is allowed to prosper. Even now we are running out of money because our private sector is winding down and tax revenues are decreasing.
If you want social programs you must have a vibrant private sector otherwise where does the money come from? If the fat capitalist has to pay 50, 60, 75% tax on all forms of income he quits working and investing and more importantly he doesn’t have the money to hire additional people or buy additional equipment.
Maybe I am missing something but it seems self evident to me. To have social programs you need capitalism’s ability to produce wealth. For whatever reason the current crop of democrats and to a lesser extent republicans don’t seem to understand that simple fact.
The Soviet Union was a burned out hulk by the 1930’s after less than 20 years of a workers paradise. It is a testament to the stupidity of our leaders in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s that it did not end sooner. They were always a paper tiger.
Why do you think China is allowing a free market? It will eventually be their undoing of the communist hold on that country but they are doing it because their way didn’t work and they want to be a super power.
You want to help people very noble, but you help them by having a prosperous private sector. It may not be perfect (and I know there are problems) but it does create wealth and not just for a select few. Granted there is great discrepancy from Bill Gates to the mother of 3 on a fixed income but if you distributed the wealth of the top 400 wealthiest individuals to the country at large the sum would be $5,200. Not a great deal of money. They are worth much more as wealth producers than they are as a one time meal.
But the problem (or virtue) of wealth production is that the person producing must be free to produce as the Soviet Union and other countries have shown us it doesn’t just happen by government fiat. And so the Chinese have embraced the free market for those reasons.
“The overall wealth of the 400 richest Americans is staggering. There are no multimillionaires on the list; a minimum of $1.3 billion being required to gain admittance, while the average net worth is $3.9 billion.”
From this article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20852.htm
What I did was multiply 3.9 billion by 400 and then divide by 300,000,000 (approx. number of people in US so number might be plus/minus a few dollars).
Stick it to the rich by giving them an incentive to work harder to pay for the social programs. I believe you can do both. If the object is to really help the poor then you must have a flourishing private sector so that there will be money to spend. As the left is fond of saying Ronald Reagan was responsible for the biggest tax increase in the history of this country, I say amen brother and that is my point.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqQTLgo_idc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
The thing speaks for itself . . .
Byron,
Socialism is a tricky word, it’s easy to fall into the trap of equivocation. Not all socialism is the Third letter in USSR.
Byron–
I actually have one retelling of the old tale in front of me. The Little Red Hen ate the whole loaf of bread by herself. She didn’t sell a crumb of it.
Quoting from Paul Galdone’s retelling:
But the little red hen said,
“All by myself
I planted the wheat,
I tended the wheat,
I cut the wheat,
I took the wheat to the mill
to be ground into flour.
All by myself
I gathered the sticks,
I built the fire,
I mixed the cake.
And
all by myself
I am going to eat it!”
And so she did,
to the very last crumb.
After that,
whenever there was work to be done,
the little red hen had three very eager helpers.
The Helpers? A dog, a cat, and a mouse.
Elaine/Gyges:
I read your response(s) after I responded to Mike Appleton. Good points.
But we don’t know the entire story. We assume she ate it herself because that is what the author says. But I have it on good authority from the horse that she actually sold half of her output to the pigs to buy grain for next year. She took 1/4 and put it into savings and used the remaining to sustain herself and her family until the next harvest.
The pig heard that she was going to buy an additional plot of land with the savings and had made a deal with the horse to plow the land. She anticipates doubling her output next season.
She certainly sounds like a capitalist to me 🙂
The neighbors could form a cooperative or maybe even a collective.
Mike A:
I think the Little Red Hen also shows the value in working together and the benefits.
How is socialism implied in neighbors working together if they do it of free will and are not coerced?
Elaine M.: great poem.
Byron: You can keep your “Little Red Hen.” I much prefer “The Little Mailman of Bayberry Lane,” which demonstrated what real values are. Not surprisingly, it is no longer in print, probably because of the socialism implied in neighbors working together.
mespo,
Thanks for the “inside story” on Gretchen “family values” Carlson.
P.S. I should have noted that the miller’s daughter SAID she’d give Rumpelstilskin her first born child–but she never did.
Byron,
I fail to see how The Little Red Hen is a story about the success of capitalism/the free market. The hen was not producing bread to sell. She labored to have food to eat–to sustain herself. She didn’t take her bread to market. She didn’t distribute any goods or products or reinvest any profits from her breadmaking endeavor. There were no profits.
Old tales such as The Little Red Hen issue from a time in the past–a time when societies were mostly agrarian…when people grew crops and raised animals for milk, meat, wool.
A tale that better fits the “chicken for a checkup” bartering system for medical services would be Rumpelstiltskin. The miller’s daughter couldn’t spin straw into gold–as her father said she could. She traded pieces of jewelry and finally her first born child to the “little man” in order to save her life.
Byron,
Not to put too fine a point on the matter, but doesn’t the whole story point to a failure of the free-market? The potential investors fail to recognize an opportunity for gaining wealth, and the only one with something to sell prices herself right out of the market (probably due to poor negotiating skills, she never actually states what the others would get in exchange for their labor). At the end we’re left with no exchange of goods or labor and no building of wealth.
Or alternately it’s an overly simplistic story meant to teach children the value of communal labor.
Byron:
It’s true. She was here in 1990-91.
Mespo:
is that true? So she just plays stupid, I was wondering. Some of the stuff she says has caused me to believe she is indeed a ditz. But then the John Stewart segment showed her playing the violin like a pro. Although I had a college girl friend who could play the violin well but she wasn’t very good at much else and had no intellectual curiosity at all.
I will have to relay that story to my wife, very funny but I can see her doing something like that to get ahead.
“Carlson graduated with honors from Stanford and studied at Oxford. Still, it doesn’t prove she’s the brightest bulb on the string of Christmas lights.”
*****************
Judging by her experience as a “cub” reporter here in Richmond, Gretchen appears more devious that a ditz. Fresh off her title, she “sash”ayed (forgive the pun!) into town to WRIC to work as a on-air reporter. The very married anchor man, Kevin McGraw, had a notorious alleged affair with our conservative credentialed young lass that resulted in Kevin’s wife coming to the station in a rage. Ol’ Kevin got sent to a 1000 watt’er in West Virginia, and Gretchen got kicked up to CBS and then Fox. Ah, family values in action.