Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Anti-colonialism

Dinesh D'Souza talks about Obama's anti-colonialism, inherited from his father. The idea is that imperialist (or colonialist) countries exploit the rest of the world for their resources, enriching themselves and ruining the colonies.

The United States steals oil from the middle east, timber and cattle from South America, cheap manufacturing from southeast Asia, and so on.

Now the United States needs money, so Obama "borrows" it from China. How do we pay it back? Is there a plan, or did we just exploit China?

[...A Clarification]

I insinuated we have no plan to pay back China, and that probably deserves some explanation. We might try to pay it back with inflated dollars, thus shortchanging China. Or, we could try to increase tax revenue and pay them back without inflation. Right now the government is preparing to tax wealth creation, which means there will be less of it, which leads to the inability to pay at all. Funny how we tax tobacco for the stated purpose of its elimination, but we deny that taxing free enterprise will stifle it.

4 comments:

tim said...

A plan? You give him too much credit.

philmon said...

You know, I think there may be a plan, just like one who over-charges on one's credit card has a "plan" to pay it back -- that is, they don't intend not to, they just don't worry about when or how.

These people, though ... I have heard this talked about. The paying back in inflated dollars -- I'm certain its occurred to them, and may actually be "the plan", such that it is.

This is why focusing on principles first rather than on scholarship first is so important.

Pragmatism detatched from principle leads to all kinds of bad stuff. Gulags. Gas chambers. Mass graves. Forced wealth redistribution ....

philmon said...

Funny how we tax tobacco for the stated purpose of its elimination, but we deny that taxing free enterprise will stifle it.

Excellent point, and probably most irritatingly unwelcomed in the "taxes are patriotic" circles.

tim said...

Philmon,

Good points all, but I was being slightly flippant, I think these clueless, armature clowns are just winging some of this stuff.

The only other choice, and it’s plausible, is they are intentionally dragging us down. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest it.

Either way, we’re screwed, for years to come. November will only be a small Band-Aid on a gaping wound.