Charlotte Gore on the taboo of public spending cuts.
See, whilst many… are psychologically able to ignore, or excuse, or basically discount altogether the taking money from people bit of public spending, there are some of us that just can’t. One day it occurs to ask the question, “What exactly gives them the right to help themselves to whatever they want?” and the answer turns out to be because they can. Then you get a bit angry and frustrated, feel almost entirely helpless, then, just to make things that little bit worse, everyone else in the world comes and slaps you in the face for even daring to consider such heretical notions. The taking from me bit doesn’t count. I don’t matter. It’s the no longer giving bit that counts. Think about how people feel! Think about all the things they could do with that money, or that job, or learn from those people or achieve with the support of those others! Don’t you understand? Have you no feelings? Apparently not. I just keep thinking, “But it’s not your money. How can you live with yourselves taking it?”
Shannon Love on the 1970 Kent State shooting and pathological vanity:
In the end, the idea that the Guard opened fire out of ideological hatred of all that is good and pure is really just a manifestation of the left’s own narcissism and megalomania. They are so convinced not only of their rectitude but of their critical importance to the world that they convince themselves that they are actually important enough for non-leftists to want to kill them. The thought that the Guard saw them not as world changing revolutionaries but just as spoiled, violent children just doesn’t play into the self-hagiography of the individual leftists.
Mick Hartley visits the Tate and ponders a room full of porcelain seeds.
Ah. A powerful commentary on the human condition. I should have known.
Feel free to add your own.
“But it’s not your money. How can you live with yourselves taking it?”
Go Charlotte! But hang on -I thought taxpayers were evil…?
Charlotte calls it a rant, but she does cast some light on a prevailing narrative and what it omits. There is a taboo, at least in some quarters, and it makes some rather obvious lines of questioning impermissible. They become scandalous by default before they’ve even been explored.
As I’ve said before, if you were to rely on the Guardian or BBC, you might easily assume that “greed” and “selfishness” were terms that couldn’t possibly apply to a recipient of welfare or to anyone but the rich or middle class. Do notions of greed, presumption and selfishness apply only to people above a certain level of income? See, for instance, the incorrigible Seumas Milne, who projects his own motives, assigning to others his own arrogant presumption and sense of “unchallengeable entitlement”:
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2009/04/entitlement-2-.html
Like a good little socialist, Milne lays claim to the term “fair,” as if the fairness of punitive taxation were self-evident and uncontestable. His urge to punish and confiscate is righteous, apparently. He even calls it “social justice.” But Milne wouldn’t be likely to use such moralistic terms regarding abusers of welfare and those who expect something for nothing on an indefinite basis at someone else’s expense. The “someone else” isn’t regarded as deserving, even of reciprocation. And I think that’s significant.
And let’s not forget the devout Guardianista Zohra Moosa, who’s itching to go shopping with “a lot of society’s money,” but isn’t so keen to justify her spending choices to those footing the bill.
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2007/11/so-very-tired.html
So no “unchallengeable entitlement” there, obviously.
Re Tate Modern’s seed cock-up:
‘Section of Gravel Drive Seen From A Distance. No Trespassing’
http://pavlovscat2.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-sunflower-seeds-and-zen-gardens.html
Thank you for the Kent State -link, David.
I guess when you peel away history to expose more details, the only thing you are exposing is more history, as the history is in the details you remember – or want to remember.
-S
And it looks like the national guard didn’t fire the first shot.
http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/10/analysis_of_kent_state_audio_t.html
“One day it occurs to ask the question, “What exactly gives them the right to help themselves to whatever they want?” and the answer turns out to be because they can.”
Cry havoc! and let slip the dogs war.
There is only one way to teach them what they can and cannot have: the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants. Either that or live with the leeches.
Sort of related to #2… ‘8 Things I Wish I’d Known (or Remembered) When I Was a Leftist’:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/10/17/8-things-i-wish-id-known-or-remembered-when-i-was-a-leftist/print/
Yes, the Left claims words and redefines their meaning through their media presence. It has now reached the absurd point with the family allowance cut that it is now ‘fair’ to take money from people on £20,000 a year and give it to people on £50,000 a year.
The confiscation is the motive.
“…the Left claims words and redefines their meaning…”
A subject touched on here:
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2010/10/dissident-academic-feels-the-warmth-of-social-justice-.html?cid=6a00d83451675669e20133f52867e7970b#comment-6a00d83451675669e20133f52867e7970b
In terms of public spending cuts, the language used by the Axis of Hand-Wringing is quite bizarre. The Guardian’s Priyamvada Gopal wrote an unintentionally hilarious defence of spending on the arts and humanities, claiming they foster subtlety of mind and moral acuity. She did this while casually equating bankers with dictators and war criminals, thus casting doubt on her own proposition.
http://thylacosmilus.blogspot.com/2010/10/oh-humanities.html
“Social justice” is perhaps the most obvious example. The term seems evacuated of content and is rarely, if ever, defined. Those who hint at what it might entail are often embittered socialists like Seumas Milne, who suggests it means punitive taxation and “social trust” – i.e. a combination of the woolly and the vindictive. As Milne defines the term, “social justice” only applies to those being given other people’s money, not those from whom it’s being confiscated. And maybe that’s the nub of it. Some advocates of “social justice,” like the Guardian’s Zohra Moosa, assume they’re entitled to spend “a lot of society’s money” – without being questioned, of course – and while carefully omitting any hint of where this remarkable substance comes from or how it’s extracted.
David,
“Debate” redefined…
http://timworstall.com/2010/10/23/what-an-inelegant-argument/
“‘Debate’ redefined…”
Heh. Poor Mr Murphy. He will no longer “tolerate… those that seek to oppose [his] views.” Maybe he’s finally grown weary of his arguments being demolished – at length, in detail and to comical effect. Redefining questions and corrections as “comments that add little or nothing to debate” is the obvious next step. Better yet, just call those corrections “right wing” and righteously ignore them.
Hm. Sounds familiar…
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2007/07/harker-barking.html
Richard Murphy logic:
“I’m not interested in debate with the close minded – only the open minded”
Next sentence:
“Candidly if another right winger never turned up here we’d all be better off”
The man’s a genius.