A difference between leftists and capitalists
My third son, Roger, is taking philosophy this semester. He and I were talking and he mentioned how his professor was criticizing how people were buying products such as SUVs or other products because they "really didn't need them." For SUVs, the professor claimed that they were a waste because very few people who buy them actually use them off road. My response was that he probably had no idea why people may be buying them (e.g., for safety or style or size). If I had extra money, I might buy all my kids SUVs to drive simply because I think that they are safer. Does this teacher mind what color car people buy? Is a red car bought to be showy? In any case, the bottom line is that leftists care about whether other people are making the right decision by the leftists values. A capitalist doesn't care why someone is buying a particular car. Leftists feel that they should make decisions for others. Capitalists don't.
posted by John Lott at 3:25 PM
4 Comments:
Americans don't want a small fuel efficient (but extremely heavy duty) car. SUV's are safer, especially when the entire family is in it. People buy them because, usually, they need them. Lefties want to dictate to everyone about everything. They may not like big vehicles but they definitely like BIG government.
Lefties are more akin to Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and that nut that runs Korea, Charlie Schumer, Hillary, Nancy Pelosi, and Richard Durbin than any capitalist.
SUV's symbolize the independence of Republican suburbs. That irritates urban leftistas who want us all to use buses and trains, so that our transportation dollars can be funneled through the government.
Sort of like Hillary's "Single Payer" health care proposal, where all medical payments were to be routed through the government.
Marxists, like Hillary and her friends, are really big on really big government.
I'm always amused when someone pronounces, always from the moral high-ground, that someone doesn't "need" to do something, implying that because something isn't "necessary," it is therefore sinful and ought not to be done.
Of course, the professor doesn't "need" his high salary, his vacation, his health care, his sabbatical, his car, or a supermarket to buy his food cheaply if he's willing to make a few sacrifices in the name of ethical purity: he could volunteer to work for half salary or quit his job altogether, work for free rather than going on vacation or taking a sabbatical, decline health care benefits, give his car away and/or raise his own food.
But he won't do any of these things, for no other reason than he doesn't want to pay the price of doing so, whether that price is measured in bucks, prestige, disease or inconvenience.
When you get right down to it, nothing is necessary if you're prepared to suffer the consequences of doing without. You don't even "need" to eat, if you're willing to starve to death.
Brian
It's not about whether these objects are "needed" or whether their use needs to be justified. To imply such means that there is actual regulation over the individual seeking the object. Such values are against the notions of freedom. One cannot live by Utilitarian argument 100% of the time or a loss of freedom is inevitable. Certain natural rights (freedom) are ABSOLUTE... and need not be justified. To the "Leftists" out there... I tell them "Fuck you... mind your own business."
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