Hurricane Sandy prompts two sharply divergent views on how society should respond
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Occupy Wall Street, the group alleged to be the left’s answer to the tea party. But you might hear more about these messages yesterday from the group expressing apparent approval of the wrecked state of New York City post-Hurricane Sandy:
No subways. No electricity. No chains. #capitalism #sandy #nyc
I don’t think the person tweeting from the OWS account really believes things would be better in a world with so much physical destruction (although, in light of the way OWS treated the Manhattan park where it held its famous rallies last year, I may be giving him/her too much credit). I do, however, think these messages betray an astounding lack of recognition that free-market capitalism is the most accurate system mankind has yet devised to represent how members of a community want to interact with one another.
So, when OWS tweets,”Insurance is the capitalist answer to what should be an effort of mutual aid from the community. #sandy,” while philosophizing, “That community you’re experiencing, in the face of crisis? It’s always there. Think about what it is that usually obscures it. #sandy,” it’s missing the point that people usually don’t “experience” “community” in this way because they’d prefer to make other arrangements and not live like the world is collapsing around them. Arrangements such as insurance.
But whither government? After all, liberals like to say government is “simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” That sentiment, however, suggests everyone is always on board with what government takes from them and does on their behalf. The more government does, the less that’s true.
Back to the topic at hand: That doesn’t mean conservatives think government should be out of the disaster-relief business altogether — even if some of us think government should refrain from some other spending and set that money aside to make sure we don’t have to borrow money to cover these expenses, while others believe the more local and state governments can handle emergency management, the better it will be done. (Not to mention that the private sector is often quicker and more efficient in delivering aid than government agencies, as Wal-Mart famously demonstrated in post-Katrina New Orleans.)
This topic tends not to get the thoughtful treatment it deserves in the midst of a crisis, and then it’s usually forgotten once the crisis leaves the headlines. So, we get broad claims about Mitt Romney’s alleged heartlessness based on one brief segment of one interview in which he promoted a federalist approach to disaster relief. Which is about as fair as it would be for me now to point out that President Obama has said nice things in the past about OWS and argue he must necessarily subscribe to its anti-capitalist view of how the world works.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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331 comments Add your comment
Sick of Progs
October 31st, 2012
5:16 pm
Finn McCool (The System isn’t Broken; It’s Fixed)
October 31st, 2012
4:15 pm
Christie might be able to beat Hillary in 2016. We will probably find out.
Their respective 2016 campaigns start next Wednesday.
mwuahahahahahhaha
If she’s so spineless to throw herself on the sword for this halfrican, only a lib would be able to endorse that intestinal fortitude and endorse her as our nation’s representative to the world.
Mwuahahahahahahha
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
5:18 pm
You don’t say, I’m looking back on all the posts you’ve made on this subject, and shock of shocks, I find no posts that could even remotely be considered “thoughtful”.
Why am I not surprised?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
5:28 pm
Uh, Sick of Progs?
Your points would be better made if you refrained from terms such as “halfrican”.
Just sayin’.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
5:32 pm
Romney has no plan for the economy – or, at least no workable plan. In his famous 47% speech, he essentially admitted it. He thinks that by simply “showing up” he’ll make things better. Other than increase the incomes of the very, very rich, his policies will match Obama’s and his Federal Reserve will mirror Bernanke’s. That’s why social issues, such as women’s rights become the differeniating factors in the election. The right needs to keep those evangelicals and other social conservatives happy with some crumbs so they won’t notice that the middle class, to which many of them belong, is being screwed.
Don't Tread
October 31st, 2012
5:36 pm
As capitalism halts, we experience “an exceptional period of mutual support and common care.”
And apparently looting…would that be classified as “mutual support” or “common care”?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
5:40 pm
“Romney has no plan for the economy – or, at least no workable plan.”
Your opinion is noted, Randy Ayn, regardless how factually inaccurate it may be.
@@
October 31st, 2012
5:48 pm
Now the libs have kind things to say about Christie????
It wasn’t THAT long ago when they were calling him a loud-mouthed bully…not to mention FATSO.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
5:52 pm
Well, Tiberius, here’s a math problem for you. If Romney cuts taxes by $4.8 trillion over 10 years, but is going to make it revenue neutral by eliminating deductions, what is the dollar value of deductions that would need to be eliminated for this to work? Assume a 33% tax rate on the deductions eliminated, if you wish. It makes the numbers come closer. Now, compare your answer to the total deductions taken each year. You’ll find that he could eliminate all deductions and it still wouldn’t work.
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
October 31st, 2012
5:54 pm
Obozo had a plan for the economy, and it failed spectacularly. Unemployment went UP. Deficits went UP. Poverty went UP. Credit rating…DOWN.
Doing nothing would have produced better results than Obozo’s “plan”.
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
October 31st, 2012
5:55 pm
Randy, you didn’t give us an important number–GDP growth. It’s been pathetic during the failed Obozo regime.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
5:57 pm
Randy, Ayn, if you’re going to continue to use just one of many policies being espoused by Mitt Romney to help fix the economy, while ignoring the rest of them, you’re just not a complex enough thinker to be debating this issue.
Mitt Romney has proposed a 59-point plan to turn this economy around, son, and only ONE facet of that plan is a flattening of the tax rate. The economy runs on more than tax rates. Deal with it.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
6:05 pm
Tib – if you can blow a hole big enough to drive a semi through on the main point of Romney’s 59 point plan, you’ve blown up the whole plan.
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
October 31st, 2012
6:08 pm
I guess since YOU couldn’t do it, Randy, you expect Tib to?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
6:08 pm
And yet, it’s not the main point of Romney’s plan, despite you and the rest of your liberal buddies wishing to make it so.
Dave
October 31st, 2012
6:09 pm
“That doesn’t mean conservatives think government should be out of the disaster-relief business altogether — even if some of us think government should refrain from some other spending and set that money aside to make sure we don’t have to borrow money to cover these expenses, while others believe the more local and state governments can handle emergency management, the better it will be done. (Not to mention that the private sector is often quicker and more efficient in delivering aid than government agencies, as Wal-Mart famously demonstrated in post-Katrina New Orleans.)
“This topic tends not to get the thoughtful treatment it deserves in the midst of a crisis, and then it’s usually forgotten once the crisis leaves the headlines.”
So, the thoughtful treatment is? It will be interesting in a few years to compare the federal response to NOLA, Joplin and the the Northeast. The first disaster was on the GOP’s initial watch, the second and third with a Dem President and a Republican Congress. Both sides of the political spectrum have given lip service to the needs of New Orleans and Joplin and not a whole lot in the way of dollars down the road. There are more one percent folks in the path of this storm, I wonder how they will do with federal bucks?
To my mind, how we deal with catastrophes is how we should judge ourselves. If what is increasingly our “the hell with those that have little” attitude prevails, I think we will fail. What the well to do forget (I’m doing okay in the event you were wondering) is that the folks they don’t want to help eventually will be desperate enough to do things that might not be pleasant.
Kill what you eat as a political philosophy just doesn’t work.
Tealiban Party
October 31st, 2012
6:12 pm
Lil’ Barry Bailout – Vote American
October 31st, 2012
5:55 pm
Randy, you didn’t give us an important number–GDP growth. It’s been pathetic during the failed Obozo regime.
As noted many times on here before, Lil’ BB enjoyed the -8.9% GDP in Q4 2008, instead of the positive growth the United States has today.
Lil' Barry Bailout - Vote American
October 31st, 2012
6:13 pm
Romney’s plan is to fix Obozo’s mistakes and return the economy to at least the average GDP growth (and likely higher given all the capital Obozo has driven to the sideline).
Stephenson Billings
October 31st, 2012
6:14 pm
BTW, Obama’s plan for sequestration calls for $900 million dollars to be cut from FEMA…. And in a recent interview with the Des Moines Register, Obama basically said he will go through with the sequestration AND let his tax cuts expire. And I was told only conservatives wanted “austerity”
mike
October 31st, 2012
6:22 pm
It’s really hard to grasp the enormity of the damage caused by Sandy until you see actual photos. This will keep you busy for a while….
http://www.weather.com/news/hurricane-sandy-pictures-photos-20121025
mike
October 31st, 2012
6:25 pm
Oh, and BTW, remember that last insurance bill you got for your homeowner’s insurance? You might want to frame it so you have something to remember what you used to pay for homeowner’s insurance.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
6:25 pm
Well, based on all of your responses on Rom’s economic plan, I guess we can say Rick Santorum was right about one thing – the GOP “will never have the elite, smart people on our side.”
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
6:29 pm
Oh, and Randy Ayn?
I’ll take a guy who has spent a lifetime creating jobs through sound economic principles over a guy who hasn’t created a single net new job in four years while bankrupting us in the process.
Stephenson Billings
October 31st, 2012
6:32 pm
Shameless Looters Display Stolen Goods On Twitter
http://www.infowars.com/shameless-looters-display-stolen-goods-on-twitter/
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
6:32 pm
Yeah,Republican businessmen have made great presidents. GW Bush. Herbert Hoover.
Goody Three Shoes
October 31st, 2012
6:36 pm
Stephenson
“Their is a war on for your mind”
Your boy Alex Jones the Ron Paul groupie is no fan of Obama or Romney
The NWO is outside your door
BOOOOOOO
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
6:38 pm
“Yeah,Republican businessmen have made great presidents.”
Well, Democrat community organizers haven’t done so well either, have they, Randy?
Goody Three Shoes
October 31st, 2012
6:38 pm
“There is…………….”
Stephenson Billings
October 31st, 2012
6:41 pm
don’t really care for Alex Jones….. but there wasn’t really any propaganda in that article.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
6:46 pm
I’ll take Obama’s record vs. GW Bush’s or Herbert Hoover’s any day.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
6:48 pm
Color me shocked, Randy.
But given the fact you don;t even understand the intricacies of economics (nor history), it doesn’t surprise me.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
6:49 pm
I think that would make a great slogan for Romney – In the great tradition of Republican businessmen presidents: Herbert Hoover, GW Bush and Willard Mitt Romney. Great Depression, Great Recession and…what? Great Apocalypse?
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
6:50 pm
Sure Tib – Romney’s plan is soooo subtle and nuanced that we just don’t understand it. Maybe it’s detailed in his tax returns.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
6:54 pm
“Romney’s plan is soooo subtle and nuanced that we just don’t understand it.”
No, it’s just that you cannot even grasp simple concepts, Randy.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
6:54 pm
Tib – lame. Try again.
Beyond The Middle of the Road
October 31st, 2012
6:56 pm
“Great Apocalypse?”
Nope, Zombie Apocalypse.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/30/why-is-joss-whedon-supporting-mitt-romney-hint-zombies/
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
7:00 pm
OK, Randy, let’s try this:
Name one specific piece of legislation signed by George W. Bush which directly contributed to the recession of 2008.
Let’s see if you really understand history or economics.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
7:03 pm
When did obozo get a “record?”
Are we talking about golf now?
JeninAtl
October 31st, 2012
7:06 pm
Kyle,
I agree with @MarkV, if you have nothing to write either work harder, promote an intern, or just skip a day. This is column unworthy of your name (actually anyone’s name) and appears to be grasping at unrelated, weak, and irrelevant straws. The phrase “Mumbo Jumbo” comes quickly to mind when reading it.
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
7:11 pm
JeninAtl, if you don’t like it, don’t read it (and more especially don’t bother to comment on it).
cc
October 31st, 2012
7:11 pm
I Report@5:06 pm:
No, they have no shame. Every situation and every person is to be used to further their cause. What does four deaths mean to them?
I know that if I were serving my country at this time under this administration, I would evaluate my chances of surviving any given situation before I involved myself in it, knowing that I could NOT count on my country to aid me should events go badly. I wonder if those currently in service to our country feel that way?
dabir dalton
October 31st, 2012
7:12 pm
Kyle the conservative concept of the free market is at best a myth and at worst an outright lie promoted by conservatives like yourself. The truth is there is no such thing as a free market as either the market is regulated by the government to prevent corporations from selling tainted and deliberately poisoned food and other unsafe products to unsuspecting consumers. Otherwise corporations would dominate the market and conspire with each other to keep prices high, wages low and competitors out of the market until the economy overheats and crashes just as conservative economic policy allowed it to do in 1929 and 2008.
In regards to Wal-mart the Walton family is one of the richest families in America yet the majority of their employees are paid so low that many of them are forced to rely on welfare and – here in Georgia – on Peach Care to in order to get medical care for their children.
Unfortunately that is the reality of the so called free market and the private sector conservatives promote while covering their covetous nature with a robe of false morality just as their master Satan chooses to appear as an angel of light in his effort to deceive the very elect.
cc
October 31st, 2012
7:13 pm
JeninAtl:
Go on back to Bookie-man’s blog. I’m sure you are miseed there . . .
cc
October 31st, 2012
7:17 pm
“I’ll take Obama’s record vs. GW Bush’s or Herbert Hoover’s any day.”
Do I hear a nomination for “Dumbest Post of the Year”?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
7:19 pm
“Otherwise corporations would dominate the market and conspire with each other to keep prices high, wages low and competitors out of the market until the economy overheats and crashes just as conservative economic policy allowed it to do in 1929 and 2008. ”
dabir, you just flunked U.S. economic history.
But thanks for playing!
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
7:19 pm
Tib – did Bush sign off on tax cuts and get us in wars in two countries? Now, all the righties say that the deficit is our big problem, but this apparently didn’t bother them too much. Then there was the American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act that encouraged people to buy houses they couldn’t afford. Of course, it’s not always what you do – it’s what you didn’t do that hurts. For example, there was Bush’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency shutting down New York State’s attempt to stop predatory lending. The Supreme Court had to get involved and ruled against Bush’s admin. Heck, even Scalia went against Bush on this one.
Now, I’ve done my part. You go work on that math problem I gave you on how to decrease tax deductions and make Mitt’s tax cuts revenue neutral. I’ve got to hand out some candy – a redistribution of sweets to the neighborhood moochers.
Master (de)Bater
October 31st, 2012
7:25 pm
Jiggle @ 4:06 pm
“I think Christie has the makings of a great populist candidate if he can manage to avoid the rigid ideology of the Right Wing Crazies that currently defines the Republican Party. However, it remains to be seen if his bombastic and often bullying style lends itself to effective governing.”
POPULIST? Have you not paid attention? A populist is one who tries to do what he thinks people want him to do or more importantly say what people want him to say. That is the OPPOSITE of what Christie usually does! He usually says what he thinks is the truth, and he doesn’t pull punches as he does it. He will be at a gathering discussing teachers’ union cuts with mostly teachers in the audience, and he will say mostly what they DON’T want to hear.
You sure we are talking about the same guy?
Tiberius - pulling the tail of the left AND right when needed
October 31st, 2012
7:32 pm
“did Bush sign off on tax cuts and get us in wars in two countries? Now, all the righties say that the deficit is our big problem, but this apparently didn’t bother them too much. Then there was the American Dream Downpayment Assistance Act that encouraged people to buy houses they couldn’t afford. Of course, it’s not always what you do – it’s what you didn’t do that hurts. For example, there was Bush’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency shutting down New York State’s attempt to stop predatory lending.”
In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, Randy:
“What a maroon!”
So now two wars and a tax cut killed our economy? Really? THIS is your explanation? Prove it.
And the American Dream Downpayment Act which encouraged people to buy houses they couldn’t afford for a couple of years killed it, but the Community Re-investment Act which did the same thing for over 30 years didn’t do it?
And the state of New York is so powerful all by itself, that their lending policies killed the entire U.S. economy?
Pitiful. What’s it like to be brainwashed, Randy?
Bruno
October 31st, 2012
7:47 pm
Happy Halloweenie everyone.
To kick off the festivities, here’s “Ghost Dance” by Robbie Robertson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA0zpemMUow
Sure hope JamVet drops by. Lot of great Halloween songs.
Randy Ayn
October 31st, 2012
7:52 pm
Lull in the trick or treaters – OK, Tib – name 3 things – before 2008 – that Bush signed that stopped , or even slowed, predatory lending, mitigated the risk of CDOs, required financial backing for credit default swaps – anything at all Bush did to stop the meltdown. Where was his leadership? What bold steps did he take to get things under control? I guess you’re asking what it’s like to be brainwashed because you wish you had one to bathe.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
October 31st, 2012
7:52 pm
A rat runs down the alley and a chill runs up your spine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6TzeuxwO7A