I don’t like posting back to back YouTube videos but this clip really angered me. The person that O’Reilly is interviewing is left wing Obama supporter. He is articulate, pleasant looking and evil. Don’t be fooled by his affable demeanor or his feigned sympathy for the so called downtrodden. If you think evil is too strong of a description, let me explain. You see, most listen to people on the Left using various clichés and platitudes to show how much they want to help the poor and our knee-jerk reaction is to feel guilty, bend over and agree to more taxation. I would ask you to please watch this video in a new light and with some helpful illumination from me.
First watch the joy and glee on his face as he talks about taking money and possessions from wealthy people to “enrich” others that are less fortunate. Watch him near the end of the clip as he cannot hide his laughter as he knows everything he is saying is false. Dr. Hill is a very smart man and he knows that everything he is saying is a lie. He knows very well that since the beginning of the welfare state programs passed under LBJ, over 4 trillion dollars has been transferred from the producers to the non-producers in society. We have witnessed the destruction of the black family, deterioration of the white family and the erosion of family values in general. The welfare system has taken the father out of the household, making him obsolete and replaced him with a government check, food stamps and Medicaid. I once heard a political commentator state that if all the leaders of the KKK were to get together and determine how to destroy the black family in America, they could not have come up with a better plan than the welfare system.
Dr. Hill also tries to equate his income redistribution with the Christian value of helping your neighbor. I spent many years in the Christian church and can tell you that Jesus never commanded his followers to help the poor by paying more in taxes. He wanted us to do this on a personal level to not only help the neediest among us but to also edify our own souls and teach us to remain humble. Shifting the burden to a government agency is actually an abdication of responsibility. Let’s not forget that Jesus never ran for office and didn’t come here to save humanity through better government. He was in fact, such a threat to the establishment (religious and political) that they found it necessary to crucify him. What Dr. Hill is doing here is pushing a Marxist, Jeremiah Wright, perverted form of Christianity called Black Liberation Theology. Subject for another day.
Never forget that with the public school system, Medicaid, food stamps and public housing, nobody in America goes without education, food, housing and health care. This is what makes Dr. Hill and his ilk evil. Whether it’s Stalin, Castro or Chavez they all rise to power on the backs of the very people they claim to want to help. This is not CHANGE and is certainly not HOPEful. This idea is old, tired and has failed every time it has been tried. If the United States is to survive as a first class nation, we must remove the fallacious idea that money can solve our social problems. In many instances, money only makes the problem worse. If we can see through the rhetoric and lies we can actually move on to some real solutions that will bring about the change we all want.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
"The People Deserve The Fruits Of Your Labor"
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2 comments:
I saw this interview in real time, when it aired. I've seen Dr. Hill during debates several times and he always nauseated me, but this took the cake. He never wiped the smirk off his face as he "tried" to disprove O'Reilly's arguments. I think O'Reilly did a great job exposing him - at least I hope so - because the guy really couldn't defend his point of view. Hopefully these type of people will be revealed more and more to Americans and their real ill-intentions exposed-i.e., they want the U.S. to be Socialist and even worse, Marxist.
Good job on showing this and commenting strongly on it on your blog.
Lori
I just watched this and actually think that Dr. Hill made some excellent points, though he seemed to be having some trouble finishing his sentences without being interrupted.
His main point, if I understood it correctly, is one I agree with, which is that it is a gross oversimplification to think of what one accomplishes in life as having been solely the results of one's own labor -- the real truth is much more complex. I think I have been fairly successful in life, and realize that that is due in large part to the fact that I have been willing to work hard, but also recognize the many factors over which I had little or no control that have also contributed to my success. I am extremely fortunate to have been born white and male, and to have grown up in an upper middle class community surrounded by role models who encouraged hard work and valued important skills such as reading and learning -- it is very easy for me to envision a different life for myself with less exemplary role models. I also look at my career and see how fortunate I have been to find teachers and mentors who have been willing to expend special efforts to help me along, and how critical it has been for me to have a loving, supportive wife and family. I can also see various points along the road where I could have taken a different turn, with vastly different results. I strongly suspect that just about everyone who considers himself or herself even mildly successful, could probably see many of the same things in his or her own biography, if they chose to look. So I frankly have a great deal of trouble swallowing the notion that Mr. O'Reilly (with a brief nod to his parents)is solely responsible for his own success, and that many of those who have been less fortunate are in that position because they weren't willing to work as hard, or somehow don't measure up and are therefore less deserving of a decent life. I think Dr. Hill is much closer to the mark in pointing out that our successes or failures, financial or otherwise, are due in part to our personal efforts but also to factors well beyond our control, and it is only right that those who have reaped the benefits of our society should help cover the basic needs of those who have been less fortunate.
As someone who has worked in the tax field for 23 years, I can tell you that it is ABSOLUTELY the case that we have witnessed, over that period, and in particular over the last decade, an extreme redistibution of wealth in the form of tax cuts favoring the very wealthy. To my surprise, by and large the working class in this country has not objected to policies that favor the ultra rich at the expense of the middle class -- in fact, it seems that if you want to get the attention of the middle class taxpayer in this country, you do so by proposing to lower taxes on the ultra rich. This has always struck me as more than a little strange, but I think is a function of our self-image as a country where we all have the potential to become ultra-rich -- many members of the middle class seem to be so concerned about making sure they are taxed fairly when they become ultra-rich that they overlook the inequities of their current tax situation.
A case in point is the estate tax. Any tax practitioner will tell you that it is just silly, because it applies to very few people to begin with, and, when it does apply, can generally be reduced or eliminated by a few well known estate planning strategies (it is, admittedly, a more significant problem for very successful, privately held businesses -- but that is clearly not Mr. O'Reilly's situation -- he is railing about a tax he can very easily avoid). So the universe of people who are subject to this tax (again, putting aside the very successful private business owner, for whom this does present a problem) is limited to those who are (i) very rich, but also (ii) too stupid to get good advice -- a very small class, in my experience. Yet this tax (which I am not defending -- I think it is very poorly structured) whips up a frenzy among the middle class the likes of which I have never seen. I frankly just don't understand it, particularly when Mr. O'Reilly begins his tirade by extolling the virtues of those who succeed "without help" -- that is precisely the policy behind the estate tax, to break down multi-generational mega-fortunes over time so that we don't create a rigid societal hierarchy in which the identity and social status of your parents matters as much or more than your own personal contribution to society. So in some ways I find his arguments to be self-defeating -- I would not expect a champion of the middle class who values personal contributions above all else to aggressively attack the estate tax, which is basically designed (poorly) to make sure that the generations who follow a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates don't get a completely free ride off of the genius of their ancestor.
If you want a tax issue that's worth getting mad about, I will give you two:
1. current tax treatment of "carried" interests" -- you may or may not realize it, but persons who run successful private equity and hedge funds not only reap huge economic benefits, but they pay tax at a much lower rate than you and I pay on our ordinary income. This happens because the bulk of their compensation comes in the form of what is called a "carried interest" -- a percentage of the profits of the enterprise. If the underlying fund that they manage makes investments that generate long term capital gain, then these managers pay tax on the bulk of their compensation at capital gains rates -- currently 15%. Now, the last time I looked, the justification for having a low capital gains rate is to incentivize people holding capital to put it to work -- but these people are not putting their own capital to work, they are getting paid to manage other people's money. There is absolutely no justification for them paying tax at a lower rate than someone who has a regular job and gets a w-2. Yet this favorable tax treatment has existed for many, many years, and until recently nobody has made much of it -- my question is, where is the outrage of the taxpayer when it comes to carry -- I can guarantee you that, in terms of dollars and fundamental fairness, this is a much more significant issue than the estate tax. Fortunately, it looks as if President Obama is going to throw his support behind some recently introduced legislation that would cause carry to be treated as ordinary income -- but since it is supported by President Obama, I suppose we should expect it to be opposed by people like Mr. O'Reilly.
2. the social security tax -- FICA is the most highly regressive tax in the developed world, yet where is the outrage? People seem to have been lulled to sleep by the idea that their "contribution" to social security is being set aside for their old age, but this is a total falsehood. Every dollar that goes into social security comes right out to meet the current expenditures of the federal government, meaning the amount we pay in FICA is just a tax, like any other tax, except that nonsensically, it is imposed on the working poor and middle class, and phased out for workers earning higher wages. What could possibly be less fair than imposing a FICA tax on someone struggling to make ends meet, so that you can turn around and make payments to retirees, many of whom are independently wealthy and have no need for the additional cash? This is a perverse system of taxation, yet again where is the outrage?
I have to go now, sorry for the long winded comment. Interesting blog, Ricky.
Don Carden
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