Saturday, December 7, 2013

Robert Reich & The Mugger Who Justifies Theft

By, Chris Rossini

Let's say you're walking down a dark city street, and a mugger comes up to you and threatens violence unless you hand over money. Seeking to avoid being beaten to a pulp, you hand over your cash.

But as luck would have it, some good people who witness the theft, tackle the mugger and hold him down until the cops come to take him away. As the cops put the mugger into the car, you hear him rattle off a bunch of excuses as to why he stole your money: "But my family needs it....I owe the banks....I have to pay for my car...."


The excuses mean nothing to you, they mean nothing to the good people who tackled the mugger, and they mean nothing to the cops. It is wrong to aggress against another person and to steal their property. Excuses don't matter and it's off to the jail cell for the mugger.

Now let's substitute the mugger on the street with government. In other words, government now does the dirty work of stealing. Government now takes your money against your will, and threatens you with violence if you don't cough it up.

Now the excuses to justify the theft not only matter, but become known as "respectable opinion".

Let's bring in Robert Reich, Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor for Slick Willy, into the picture.

Reich is in favor of theft, however he uses the fluffy word "redistribution" instead. However, in this day and age, even that euphemism is losing its luster. Reich writes:
The President’s speech yesterday on inequality avoided the “R” word. No politician wants to mention “redistribution” because it conjures up images of worthy “makers” forced to hand over hard-earned income to undeserving “takers.”
In other words, "redistribution" conjures up the truth: Stealing from one to give to another. The mugger Reich then comes up with a litany of excuses as to why it's ok:
The number of losers is growing so quickly, and so much of the economies’ winnings are going to a small group at the top...
What an odd way to look at the marketplace. Winners and Losers....and then something called "winnings" as if we're all at a casino pulling the handle and hoping for 7-7-7-7. The marketplace is not a zero-sum game.
Without some redistribution, the losers are likely to react in ways that could hurt the economy. They’ll demand protection from global markets they believe are taking away good jobs, and even from certain technological advances that threaten to displace them...
Now where on Earth would people come up with such crazy ideas? With government run schools, you'd think people would understand the harms of protectionism and increased regulations....right? What a shocker to find out that people are conditioned to run to government for protection against competition, and to tilt the scales in their own favor.

Reich has more excuses:
Without some redistribution, our ever-increasing number of low-wage workers won’t have enough money to keep the economy going.
Ahh...yes. So not only is the economy a casino that showers "winnings" on the lucky few, but it's also a kind of Rube Goldberg machine as well. It's a mechanical contraption that "keeps going" when it's fed with the magic fuel known as "spending".
And without some redistribution, America’s growing army of low-wage workers may fall prey to demagogues on the right or left who offer convenient scapegoats for their frustrations.
Oh God forbid!....That would never happen in America!



The sadness of it all? Robert Reich's excuses for theft are not treated in the same way that the street mugger's excuses are treated. They should be. It's the same exact thing, just done on a much larger scale.

"The State is a gang of thieves, writ large" - Murray Rothbard


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3 comments:

  1. Ever notice they never ever ever redistribute from the insiders, those closest to government to the poor? It's always from the middle class or the people who have somewhat more than middle class. Never is it from the truly wealthy, the 0.01%. It's always some scheme to make those with a very little, microscopic really, by comparison have even less.

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  2. Robert Reich and many other of our so called "intellectuals" who infest our socialist institutions of higher indoctrination, is a particularly loathsome and dishonest thief who has others do his stealing for him. A modern day Wesley Mouch who ruins young minds and produces nothing of moral value.
    Don't get me started or I may tell you what I really think.

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  3. Simple but true. These messages are always worth saying.

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