A thought experiment for you avid Libertarians who are so concerned about someone "taking your money":
How about we put you down on a deserted isle for a year, with no tools or help? I am perfectly willing to concede that in such a case anything you produce during your stay will be yours alone, even though you will still be benefitting from an education that someone else gave you. How wealthy will you have become when we pick you up? Assuming you live through it, I mean?
News flash: the latest right-wing craziness to surface is the idea that poor people don't pay enough taxes.
hxxp://slate.msn.com/id/2074666/
Amazing gall, considering that we already have a flat tax rate in the US... What, you weren't aware?
from the New York Times Business section, Jan 20, 2003:
I don't come to this forum to debate politics but when I hear right-wing cant coming out of otherwise intelligent people it's hard not to froth at the mouth and chew the carpet (sure, left wing dogma is just as revolting, but not as destructive). Now I was weaned on Robert A. Heinlein and used to enjoy reading Ayn Rand's essays, if not her dreadful fiction, but if you live long enough, read enough, and pay attention to what people actually do rather than what they say, it becomes apparent that things aren't that simple. That's right, even Papa Heinlein had some clay on his feet.
People will always disagree about politics, but it is a
fact that many of you out there think the way you do at least in part because for over 40 years, the corporatist right wing has waged a relentless, pervasive and well-financed propaganda war, particularly in the US. This is not opinion or conspiracy theory, it's on-the-record history. Anyone with an open mind and access to a good library and the internet can confirm it for themselves if they are willing to take the time. If you dismiss the idea because you think you are too smart to fall for marketing techniques, then you are being foolish. Even knowing what is being done to you doesn't entirely negate the effects of being immersed in lies 24/7. And they
are lying to you. Before you trust your mental map of the world, remember -- garbage in, garbage out.
Propaganda was not perfected in the Soviet Union or Germany, that has happened in the good ol' USA, starting in the 1920's with roots in Madison Avenue. Goebbels and the other Nazis took lessons from people like Edward Bernays, who was busy inventing modern-day public relations in the USA.
hxxp://www.bway.net/~drstu/chapter.html
This history is only one reason that the US is the least liberal of all the modern developed nations (yes, Virginia, that's a
bad thing
).
Can I prove what I'm saying? Yes, but not without a lot of time and effort. Practically, the best I can hope to do here is cast a few crumbs upon the water, so to speak. I don't expect to change anyone's mind, but sometimes you just have to speak up....
A primer on some common propaganda techniques:
hxxp://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/home.htm
Hybrid Mode
