"Why I'm a Libertarian"...

No, not me, this guy posting at Real Clear Politics.

 There's a quote from a Harvard economist in there: ""But it means you're not taking from people who've worked hard to earn their income (in order) to give it to people who have not worked hard."

This sort of thing infuriates me.  Because it's exactly the kind of sloppy thinking I firstly don't expect to see from an economist, and secondly, it's utterly and completely meaningless.

What people is the person referring to?  I know what people without even thinking.  He's thinking of somebody on welfare or being paid so little in their minimum wage job that in the RICHEST country on the planet they can't afford healthcare, a chance at college for their family or the ability to feed, house and clothe themselves.

Those are the people that this person has a problem with.

And to do so he's channeling the ire of the middle class person struggling to do the same but earning many times as much as our minimum wage "sponger" that they are thinking of in their minds.

He's not, probably, thinking of the CEO pulling in $14.4M a year with an exit clause that pays them $7M + a year's salary if they completely fuck up their company.  Nor is he thinking of traders or hedge fund managers earning 7 figures for playing roulette with tax payer money - because I'm SURE they're "earning" that...

His definition of "people" is probably a narrow band of largely white middle class professionals social bands C1/B earning $100-$200K a year.  And yes, they are being screwed, but not by the people that the writer thinks they are.

Then we get this gem:  "Private Charity... will provide..."

Firstly, DID YOU REALLY SAY THAT?  Secondly, what if it doesn't.

We have massive emperical evidence that private charity does nothing of the kind.  Not because it doesn't want to but because in a complete modern society it just doesn't stand a chance of keeping up.

This is just the kind of "I've got mine, sod off you little oik!" thinking that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth and a rant on my keyboard.

They should be more worried about the income differentials that have grown up in the last 30 years that mean that middle class people earning good salaries can no longer afford housing, healthcare and education while a class of super rich earning 100x what the rest of the population earn are living practically tax free.

If that doesn't make your blood boil I don't know what would.  Perhaps we should have some pictures of kittens now?

Why Blogs Aren't Replacing Traditional News anytime, soon, now...

Rand Simberg has a post up "Ahmadinejad is no rube"...

Rand is a fairly prolific blogger, which generally means he has to post a lot of links that he, we assume, agrees with, generally with a small amount of comment about how clever the person saying this is.

The thrust of the post, I don't suggest reading it unless you've a strong stomach, is that Obama is destroying the "traditional" relationships that have supported America and will leave no form of international support for the next president in 2013.  Given the actual history of the last 8 years that's a pretty amusing conceit there.  But that's not what my real problem with this is.

Bloggers like to think that the Blogosphere is doing something important for news and generally showing the limp wristed liberal "lame" stream media how to do their jobs.  The problem I have with this is that, at least in Rand's case, this generally involved posting any old crap without thought or consideration.  It also involves posting that crap as fact.

There's no come back, no research, no thought and no follow up.

Let's take the concept that Obama is ruining the "so called" special relationship between Britain and the US.  While there certainly is one, pretty much every incoming president of the last er... dunno, probably 100 years, has had a view on that relationship and how special it was.

GWB tried to distance himself from Blair because he was pissed that Labour had provided more support to Gore.
Clinton was pissed at John Major for the support the Conservatives gave to Bush Senior.
Regan and his team initially didn't have that much interest in a relationship with Margaret Thatcher...
LBJ thought Harold Wilson was a sneaky, underhanded SOB who shouldn't be trusted.

A parliamentary group in the UK warned that the "special relationship" stuff was over rated and was so over used that it devalued whatever relation actually existed.

All of these things are facts.  They might spoil a nice piece of rhetoric that appeals to a certain mindset but you can't pretend they don't exist nor that these things didn't happen.  Live with it.  

If you want to be seen as a credible direction for news media to take, then, for fuck's sake think about what you're posting and what the actual issues are rather than showing the self control of Mr. Toad in the presence of something shiny.