Engage an old leftie in political conversation, and he'll eventually resort to one of his favorite clichés....
"Libertarians just want to turn back the clock to a time when....."
Insert:
Black people were slaves. Women were cattle. The Lord Of The Manor had a right to your wife's virginity on the wedding night. The Koch brothers could hollow out a volcano and plot to destroy your bibles with a death ray.
Here's how I've responded to that line.
You're damn right I want to turn back the clock.
LBJ famously declared War On Poverty fifty years ago today. If you've read this blog for any time at all, you know that poverty was dying nicely without government help, but poverty made a full and complete recovery as soon as government tried to kill it.
So yeah, we want to turn back the clock on this debacle to 1964 and start over. (I don't think anyone has charted the depths which poverty has hit in the later years of the Obama administration. Too depressing.)
Speaking of taking a mulligan, how much do you owe? I'm not talking about your debt on your house or your Amex, or your car, or your student loan bill.
How freakin' huge is your share of what Obama is spending? If you're a smart person and not even bothering to work any more, your share of the government's fifty-year spending spree is only around $50,000.00. If you're one of the dwindling number of net taxpayers, your share is around $100,000.00.
Would you like to turn back the clock and make a few changes in this? (BTW, the debt is now close to 17 trillion. Remember the good old days shown here, when it was only 10 trillion?)
Let's move on. would you like to earn a dollar and be able to keep the dollar for longer than a few minutes without it losing value?
The Federal Reserve was given the job of stabilizing the money supply way back in 1913. Here's what has happened to the value of a dollar (as determined by the money supply) since 1971. The red line represents the inflation rate - AKA the increase money supply.
Want to invent a time machine, turn back the clock, and for the sake of everyone on a fixed income tell Tricky Dicky Nixon to leave us on the gold standard?
Let's move on to Nixon's dirty little War On Drugs, and what it's done to the incarceration rate. (BTW, a white woman has a one in 111 chance of going to jail at some point in her life. But for a black dude, it's a one in 3 chance.)
Want to turn back the clock and convince Nixon that his War On Drugs is a bad idea? Or is wanting to turn back the clock, under any circumstances, a sign that someone is a racist reactionary?
Let's dive into that one a little further. Here's a chart of the drug addiction rate vs the amount of Drug War spending....
Has it worked?
No.
Are we going to keep doing it?
Well, do Barack and the Democrats rely on Narc, Jailer, DEA, Homeland Security, Torturer, Prison Contractor and Police Force votes to get elected?
Yes.
That's why we're going to keep doing this crap. But check out the chart....
Speaking of wasted money.... Spending on public education has tripled since the early 1970's, and test scores are still flatter than the Global Warming trendline.
Yes. I'm guilty.
I want to turn back the clock to somewhere around 1970 and say NO. Please do not do this stupid crap. Let people keep their own money because government will waste it.
I'd rather see the money burned than see Washington D.C. misuse it for wars, bureaucracy, red tape and social programs that have done more harm than good.
Don't burden people with your social engineering schemes, because they're not going to work. You bureaucrats really aren't that smart.
Libertarians want to turn back the clock.
Do you?
