Burning a Hole in Your Pocket

When I was younger, and had managed to finagle a few bucks into my pocket by selling quarts of wild raspberrys I had picked myself, or by shoveling peoples walks and driveways in the winter, my Dad would ask me, when I wanted to spend that money, if it was burning a hole in my pocket.  Of course, the money was never burning a hole in my pocket, but the money was mine, I had earned it myself, and no one was taking it away from me for the “common good.”

godless, at Gene Expression, has read Matthew Iglesias’s comments regarding Sullivan and Healy’s responses to Hillary’s confession and call for government organized stealing.  The post ends this way.

"The question is this: would you rather give $100 to the government to (hopefully) spend on your behalf...or would you rather spend it *yourself*?

But even this frame is too generous, because it makes the act of giving $100 out to be a sacrifice. The empirical fact, though, is that liberals don’t really believe in sacrifice. They believe in robbery. If liberals REALLY believed in sacrifice, they’d have staged a unilateral repeal of the Bush tax cut. There’s a box on the federal income tax form that you can check to send the money back to the government. [1]

Did you check that box, Matt?

(crickets...)

Right. Didn’t think so. What passes for altruism is really the desire to spend *other people’s money* in the way you see fit. In order to appeal to people’s worst sentiments, you call those other people “the rich” and imply that they don’t deserve their money and/or they’ve looted it from “the poor” (= favored leftist group). Bottom line: class warfare is 50% envy, 50% avarice...and 0% altruism."

The post is titled “The leftist mask slips… “

Posted by on 06/30 at 02:54 AM

  1. Actually, “godless” is wrong.

    Altruism is involved here. How else could liberal lefties manage to convince so many of the world’s wealthiest people to feel guilty about what they have earned by right? Fact is, these liberals want us all to believe that the “rich” owe a debt to society, and altruism is how they philosophically justify placing other people’s needs above the wealthy person’s own interests and rights.

    As Ayn Rand wrote in “The Fountainhead”:

    “It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And [he] intends to be the master.”

    And Hillary does indeed intend to be the master. Take heed.

    JG

    Posted by  on  07/01  at  06:32 PM

  2. Avarice, Envy… That sounds like all the so-called altruism I’ve ever experienced, but admittedly I’ve had some bad experiences with people who claimed they were trying to “give selflessly” to me. So I am hardly unbiased on the subject. I have a certain relative whose “giving” is actually an attempt to get others to feel (and be, if she can swing it)dependent upon her at which point her “gifts” become harder and harder to get and to keep. 

    Posted by Rainbough Phillips  on  07/02  at  12:52 AM

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