Shot in the Dark

The Left Destroys Everything It Touches

It’s a Dennis Prager line, and it’s utterly correct.

John Miltimore goes over the “why”, on two issues Democrats claim to hold dear in their platforms – affordable housing and hunger.

And shows that in the 18 states that Democrats control, housing is less affordable, that people are hungrier, and it is in fact their fault, since there is in effect no Republican opposition for them to, er, overcome.

Prefer your left-shredding in convenient video form, from that noted tool of conservative intellectual thuggery…

…, the New York Times?

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Mitch Berg

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20 responses to “The Left Destroys Everything It Touches”

  1. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    There is a lot to criticize in this video.
    The three areas mentioned — housing, education, and taxes — represent pocketbook issues. The two presenters would like higher levels of government to override the choices made by smaller communities in blue states. This is absurd, if Cook County consolidated its poorer and richer school districts, the result would be better funding for schools in poor neighborhoods, but it would mean less money for schools in rich neighborhoods. The wealthy would then pull their kids out of the public school system altogether. The bad drives out the good.
    The bourgeois values that produce liberal political beliefs also produce liberal selfishness as expressed in heavy investment in their own children’s education over the education of other people’s children, and liberal concern for the value of the real estate that they own. Their capital is a large part of their social status, and they are extremely status conscious.
    All that aside, look at what the governments of blue states actually priotitize.
    In all the blue states, abortion is made as accessible as possible, teachers are coddled with better salaries, better retirement packages and job protection, and racial and sexual discrimination are institutionalized as much as it legally can be, and often beyond what is legally allowed.
    If these are your priorities, by all means vote democrat, but don’t think for a moment that you are voting D because you care about education, fair housing, and more progressive taxaton, because empirical evidence shows that Democrat governance will not deliver these.

  2. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    The situation is worse than the video describes. Not only do Democrats face no Republican opposition, Democrats often enjoy Republican-In-Name-Only assistance. But despite this, Liberals (Democrats and RINOs) can’t move their professed policies forward and it’s their own fault..

    And that’s a Good Thing. The video doesn’t say it, but Liberals’ professed policies are wrong. Housing is not a human right, it is a commodity for sale which is subject to the laws of economics. Basic education is a public good but money is only one problem alongside teacher’s unions and lack of parental involvement. And the ultimate end of “fair” tax rates is: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his means,” which destroys the financial incentive for high-ability individuals to work and save and invest, for inventors to bring new products to market, for factory owners to employ machine operators to make them.

    The video is correct that Democrats’ own actions prevent them from achieving their professed policies. I wish Liberals would stop professing those policies. I wish they’d learn from the Instapundit:

    “The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”

    He’s right, it does, just as plunking low-income housing projects in single-family neighborhoods destroys those neighborhoods, tinkering with school district funding merely redistributes the graft without improving the learning, and punishing productive people to subsidize layabouts makes everybody poorer.

    Thank God Liberals are hypocrites. It’s the only thing saving us from their insane ideas.

  3. Joe Doakes Avatar
    Joe Doakes

    Excellent points, MP, thank you. Also,

    Subsidiarity (solving problems at the lowest level of the organization capable of handling them) is the bedrock of Conservatism. It’s the principle behind democracy: let those who are affected, decide.

    Centralization (dictating one-size-fits-all solutions for the entire organization) is the hallmark of collectivist societies. It’s the principle behind Liberalism: let those who are affected, comply.

    At every turn, people are happier if they make their own decisions to fit their own local circumstances. They know what they want in their own communities, even if what they want does not match the grand scheme of the overall party plan.

    Palo Alto residents voting down the zoning change was not an act of selfishness, it was an act of freedom. We need more of that.

  4. bosshoss429 Avatar
    bosshoss429

    The main presenter made an excellent point when he pointed out that liberals say they want these things, just NIMBY. A classic example of this, is the Kennedy family. Ted “Chappaquidick” was one of the early gloBULL warming zealots, but when there was a project approved to put wind generators off shore by their family compound, they sued on the grounds that those wind generators would obstruct their view. Ultimately, the project was cancelled.

  5. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    A bad week for the Alt-Right

    Jury Finds Rally Organizers Responsible for Charlottesville Violence
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/charlottesville-trial-verdict-jury-finds-prominent-white-supremacist-leaders-liable-11637698395

    One side now has some very fined people.

  6. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    One side now has some very fined people.

    How can you tell your resident leftist has no retort? He changes the topic. For bonus points, he distorts and misrepresents what the man living rent-free in his head actually said.

  7. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Lol, lame threadjack. How many people died at Charlottesville? 1. How many in Waukesha, by a black supremacist domestic terrorist? 8 so far, and the mediots are memory holing it, or in no surprise to me, msnbc is calling it an accident.

    Normal, hard working decent folks don’t even remember whatever you just threadjacked with, and don’t care about Jan 6 either. Only the mediots talk about it, just like q whatever, mentioned again in the lamestream media today. I still haven’t read or talked to anyone, outside the left, who knows what q is.

    What decent people care about is skyrocketing prices, all driven by gropey joe’s war on the energy sector. Have fun in 2022 troll, stock up on kleenex and lotion.

  8. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    ^ Quite a revision here from Morgan Stanley

    “Incorporating the wealth of data today, including GDP revisions to 3Q21, more robust spending, strong inventories, strong durable goods orders, and upside in new home sales, we significantly raise our Q4 GDP tracking from 3.0% to 8.7%”

    Atlanta Fed has GDP at 8+ also!

    This Brandon guy is doing a great job!!

  9. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Going to post this in this thread, because it follows on my previous point: what the mediots and lefties (birm) (and trolls) care about, and talk about, is not what normal, every day working people care about.

    Support for gun control just hit its lowest point in almost a decade

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/23/politics/gun-control-gallup-poll/index.html

    The left still talks about this all the time, and it is HUGELY unpopular, just like all their other blather.

    But go on ahead troll, keep talking about Jan 6 and maga whatever, and defund the police, and q, and green energy. Meanwhile the adult party will be cleaning house and taking back the government for the people.

    Can you say “landslide?”

  10. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Lol, troll called him Brandon.

    Unsure on that one, eh?

  11. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Gas prices in Cali have hit an ALL TIME high; the trucking fleet we depend upon for a good economy is about to lose a THIRD of its force due to gropey joe’s unconstitutional mandate, but yeah troll, everything is fine. Don’t change a thing, you have nothing to worry about in 2022.

  12. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    ^ Last time I filled @Costco it was $2.88.

  13. kinlaw Avatar
    kinlaw

    Those damn maga voters who work for, er, Google.

    Several hundred Google employees sign manifesto against widened Covid vaccine mandate

    Too long a link to post, but its CNBC

  14. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    ^ I wouldn’t waste time taking the unvaccinated to the hospital. They need top medical experts — they need to be taken to the comments section….

  15. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    Oh my — Costco gas is 2.829 today trending down….

  16. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    ^^ whistling past the graveyard.
    Anyhow, we all know that Emery’s economic analysis is based on rainbows and moon beams. It’s an old game — when your side is in power and the economic news is bad, point to an imaginary economy called “the future economy” that is better. When the other guys are in power and the economy is good, point to an imaginary economy called “the future economy” that is bad.
    Above all, avoid discussing the existing economy.

  17. Mammuthus Primigenesis Avatar
    Mammuthus Primigenesis

    Here is a graph showing US average regular price for 2021: https://bit.ly/3FNCEG4
    Note the current spike, which has seen the price of a gallon of regular go from $2.12 around election day, 2020, to the current price of ~$3.40/gallon.
    A good argument can be made that the most significant driver of the increase in the price of gas was the election of a president who has introduced policies that discourage eploration and exploitation of fossil fuels.
    N.B. that I am using the same domain and range that Emery is using — the price of gasoline over time — but I am giving you data. Emry is giving you anecdote and conjecture.

  18. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    The old “data” canard.

    Oil prices are set by the world oil market not by the President. The foolishness of some of the comments is breathtaking. On an inflation adjusted basis, the cost of domestic gasoline is up a little more than 2% on a real basis since 2015.

    I just can’t really understand the complaining. Seems like gas is in the same range it has been the last 10 years except for the height of the pandemic.

  19. jdm Avatar
    jdm

    ^ Hmm, wonder if there’s anything significant about that 2015 baseline…

  20. Emery Avatar
    Emery

    Oil prices drop more than 13% to $68.15.

    According to woolly oil is down because Biden is President….

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