Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Sarah Palin The Socialist?   [Jonah Goldberg]

Marc Ambinder writes:

Palin is going on about Obama and wealth redistribution.
Palin taxed oil company profits and cut $1200 checks for every Alaskans.
That's spreading the wealth. Redistributing some money.
The McCain campaign talks about Palin's executive experience.
So Obama might have socialistic inclinations... Palin's gotten it done.

 

Me: That's cute and kind of funny. But, Obamaphiles who send it to me as if Ambinder's making some great point need to calm down just a little bit. Let's leave aside the fact that you don't actually condemn spreading the wealth around so this whole thing is a mere low-rent political hypocrisy complaint. In Alaska, the people own the oil as opposed to in Ohio where the people don't own Joe the Plumber. That's the system that Sarah Palin inherited. It's also the system that produced a lot of political corruption, which is the logical result of the sort of corporatist policies favored by Barack Obama. Sarah Palin did much to clean up that corruption. Obama never dreamed of doing anything comparable in even more corrupt Chicago. The tax increase on oil companies in Alaska may or may not have been well-advised (my in-laws have very strong feelings on the matter). But as a philosophical matter comparing Barck Obama's argument that we should soak succssful small businessmen to spread the wealth is really not comparable to the steward of a resource owned by the citizens of Alaska in effect renegotiating the deal to more favorable terms for the owners.

Update: A reader makes an excellent additional point I should have made. Palin didn't pick winners and losers:

You said: "But as a philosophical matter comparing Barck Obama's argument that we should soak succssful small businessmen to spread the wealth is really not comparable to the steward of a resource owned by the citizens of Alaska in effect renegotiating the deal to more favorable terms for the owners."


I Say: "...Furthermore, the tax revenues gained through the resource were distributed equally to the owners (citizens) without identifying preferred groups and sub-groups for greater/lesser shares, unlike the manner of wealth redistribution espoused by Barack Obama and his fellow ideological travelers Marx, Engel and Pelosi. A sort of "From the ground according to its capacity, to each according to his citizenship."

10/22 04:44 PMShare