United Liberty
My Humble Apologies to Occupy Wall Street
Tue, 11/22/2011 - 12:32pm | posted by Louis DeBroux
I need to offer an apology. For the last couple of months I’ve been highly critical of the Occupy Wall Street movement, accusing them of being violent, misbehaved, clueless social malcontents. However, in light of recent events, I’ve concluded I was wrong, and we should embrace the philosophy of government enforced equality for all. No more disparities in anything we do or have, just an equal distribution of everything to everyone.
I had this epiphany a few days ago while watching ESPN and coverage of the NBA lockout, now nearing its 150th day. What it boils down to is multi-millionaire owners and multi-millionaire players arguing over who gets the biggest piece of a multi-billion dollar league revenue pie. I realized that all of this bickering could be resolved by implementing the demands of equality espoused by the Occupy Wall Street protestors.
So here’s the deal…since President Obama wants to increase taxes on “the rich” who need to “pay their fair share” so that we can “spread the wealth”, we simply set the maximum NBA player salary at the level Obama defines as “rich”, which is $200,000 for an individual. That is $50,000 more per year that what it takes to be in the Top 5% of income earners in this country (a threshold which starts at just under $160,000). In fact, that will be the salary for EVERY NBA player, because it is immoral to discriminate simply on the basis of talent, productivity or some other performance-based metric. Just because one player was not born with the natural talent of another player, or refused to succumb to the oppressive dictates of some evil corporation (after all, the NBA is basically a big corporation) with its constant demands to maintain physical fitness and practice all the time, doesn’t mean they should be punished.
In addition, owners should only be able to charge an amount for tickets and merchandise which covers their costs, plus a $200,000 salary for themselves. After all, that is only fair, right? Just because they invest and risk their own money to build an industry that creates thousands of jobs directly, and even more jobs indirectly, doesn’t mean they should be able to get rich on the backs of the poor, downtrodden fans.
This new equality should not be limited to just to salaries though; it should extend to the basketball court. While winning is fun, losing just stinks. It makes the losers feel like, well, losers. Sometimes players even cry when they lose. It hurts their self esteem and makes them feel inferior to the winners. To solve this horrible injustice, I propose that at halftime of each game, the total points scored by that time be redistributed equally among the players of both teams. Then, with one second left on the clock, just before the game ends, the head referee will call time out and the official scorekeeper will once again redistribute the points evenly among the players of both teams.
Think how great this would be! Everyone that plays will be the high scorer. Never again will an NBA player experience the sadness of losing! Every team will be the L.A. Lakers or Boston Celtics, and no team will have to feel like the Washington Wizards or Toronto Raptors. Every team will go 82-0, and every player will be an MVP! It’s perfect! Just like PC-kiddie-soccer leagues, everyone is a winner and everyone gets a trophy. Isn’t this awesome?
This will set an example for the rest of society, and soon everyone will see the wisdom inherent in such equality of outcome. Never again will anyone feel depressed or unworthy simply because they were unable to achieve a goal, because results won’t matter, only the fact that you tried. And how hard you tried won’t matter either, because it is wrong to make someone work as hard as someone else. We would feel just awful if we were to cause stress by demanding someone work harder than they want to. Never again will childhood dreams be shattered simply because of a lack of ability, ambition or work ethic.
Granted, as a society we will have to accept that there will be a small price to pay for this newfound parity. We may lose a billion dollar spacecraft here or there when little Johnny, who always dreamed of being an astronaut when he grew up, dies a ghastly death when the ship burns up upon re-entry into the atmosphere because poor Johnny never mastered the finer points of astrophysics and geometry, so was unable to bring the spacecraft in at the correct angle to keep himself from turning into a human bacon bit.
There might be the occasional sacrifice that hits closer to home when little Sally, who always wanted to be a surgeon but could never quite remember the names and anatomical characteristics of the various human organs, accidentally mistakes the aorta for the appendix and snips that sucker right out of there. Oops! That’s gonna make a mess! Alas, poor mom, we loved you and will miss you, but the loss of your life was the acceptable price for keeping Sally’s self-esteem intact by letting her become the surgeon she always wanted to be, even if she never quite mastered the minutiae of performing surgery.
Of course, we’ll also have to accept a drastic slowdown, if not an outright cessation, in technological innovation. These last two decades have seen an explosion in the quantity and speed on new technology. Twenty years ago if you were on the go and needed to contact someone, you pulled into the parking lot of a gas station and used the pay phone. If it was urgent but the person you were trying to contact was not at the place you were calling, you may have to sit there and wait for a little while until they finally answered, or spend a few dollars worth of quarters calling around until you found them. Today we have smart phones, where you dial a number and it connects with a satellite in space and beams a stream of data back down to earth which connects with the other person’s phone, regardless of whether that person is sitting at home or traveling 85MPH down the interstate (in metro Atlanta, if you drive less than 70MPH you had better be in the turn lane or risk getting run over).
We’ll likely never again see innovations like MP3 players, lap tops thinner and lighter than a paperback novel, 3D television, streaming movies, MRI machines, robotic surgery, 3D ultrasound, Facebook and text messaging, commercial space flight, internet search engines, cars that get 50MPG, or who knows what else. Literally, who knows what else? We can’t predict these inventions because they are the product of the ingeniousness of the human mind.
On the other hand, it is well worth giving up these life-saving, productivity increasing technologies that make our lives easier and longer, more efficient and leisurely, as the price for government enforced universal equality. The people that created these inventions were willing to risk their time and capital for the chance of getting rich. Often they were funded by evil corporations seeking to make a profit! It’s doubtful they’ll take the risk with so little reward, but that’s okay, right?.
So here’s to a long (although not as long as it would have been with new technologies and skilled men and women bringing us life-saving inventions) life of stress free, universally enforced mediocrity, where no one is exceptional because we are all exceptional. Call 1-800-IMA-WINNER to order your first place trophy.
Occupy wallstreet isn’t about government enforced equality. It’s about government enforced equally.
Wow, just wow. I cant believe you typed this opinionated crap and thought it was good. First off, look up the term moral hazard. Second, even the rich are saying they are not taxed as much as they should be. When someone is able to be taxed less than their administrative assistant, who makes a fraction of what the rich person makes, there is something wrong there. The rich were taxed 91% back in the 1940s but hey, lets just tax the middle class more until they no longer exist and its just the poor and the rich. Lets look at the fact that back in the 40s a factory worker could make enough money to own a car, house, and support their family.
But hey, at least you support wall street driving the economy into the ditch, even if it means that the “talented” CEOs of these companies got lavish bonuses on the tax payer dollar. Last I checked, I screw up in my job I get no bonus or worse fired, without severance (aka golden parachute).
Just like politicians people need to have risk of when they dont do their jobs right that there is a consequence. The fact you dont understand this is proof of a fundamental problem in this country. You could argue that a CEO who is afraid of risk will do the company worse than someone who takes risk, but there is informed risk, not just doing it and hoping it works.
Lets not also forget that Wall Street has influenced the government to repeal laws that were put in place to protect the population. Lets look at the energy bill passed in 2005 that protected natural gas companies from the safe drinking water act. This change has caused people’s drinking wells to have chemicals in it that would catch fire if you put a match near their faucet.
But hey, you’re all for the present system where the people who actually work hard get crapped on by corporations, just so they can make more money without consequences.
Good piece of satire.
Fair enough, but the headline to this page is “free market, individual liberty, limited government.” Quite frankly, quite little about wall street meets any of these criteria, and that’s why OWS exists. We can bitch until the cows come home about the problems which you are grappling with, but that doesn’t change the fact that these banks and institutions are able to actually just destroy your money and turn a profit out of it because of the relationship that these banks and institutions have with the government. If we’re out to defend the capitalists and the innovators, I’d just as soon defend the ones that turn my money into something important instead of setting those up that are good at losing it in credit default swaps that the government (and me) foots the bill for on some type of uncriticizable pedestal.
We’re not out to destroy the Steve Jobs’ of the world or anything like that, we’re here to demand a degree of accountability from our government and our financial institutions, and I think it’s kind of silly to conflate the one with the other.
“Government enforced equally”? That must be why many of them are demanding forgiveness of their college tuition loans, or why many are openly calling for us to move towards a socialist/communist society.
The “rich” are not calling for their taxes to be raised. A few hypocritical billionaires are calling for INCOME taxes to be raised, fully realizing that only a tiny fraction of their total wealth is tied up in what is legally defined under the Internal Revenue Code as “income”. Pass a law which takes capital gains tax rates up to the same level as the highest income tax bracket, and see how quickly they scream. BTW, the top 1% is a bracket that starts at about $340,000, and includes millions of small business owners like myself, organized as LLCs or Subchapter S’s that declare gross business revenues on their personal tax returns. You increase taxes on the people and all you do is guarantee continued high unemployment.
Let’s also keep in mind that, according to the Treasury Department, the top 1% of income earners account for about 19% of all earned income but pay just under 40% of all income taxes. By contrast, the bottom 50% of income earners pay only 2.7% of income taxes, and the bottom 47% pay NOTHING!
I am not defending corrupt corporate CEO’s. But you know what? If you stop having government bail out corporations that donate lavishly to their campaigns, and let corporations succeed or fail by their own merit, then this isn’t an issue is it? If the board of directors and the stockholders want to offer lavish compensation packages, what business is it of yours? It’s not your money. If CEO’s wreck companies and still get huge payouts, then shareholders will demand an end to it.
I’ve seen the burning tap water videos too, and actually did a little research. It turns out that many of these cases have nothing to do with fracking, and were caused by naturally existing pockets of underground methane.
Just to be clear, you are incorrect about your assumptions of what I believe (though that is hardly surprising since you seem to have made an art of erroneousness). I am NOT for the current arrangement. I want to see the federal government reduced to only those powers and functions explicitly enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. We long ago lost any semblence of a true free market in this country. Big government and big business are in bed together, and it is small businesses and taxpayers who are getting screwed. I want drastically reduced regulatory and tax burdens, and a market in which businesses succeed or fail on their own.
Craig,
Thanks. I am no Jonathan Swift, but I’m working on it.
Angels,
You’ve spoken more eloquently in that paragraph than all the OWS protestors combined that I’ve heard. If your position was the position of the entire group, then OWS and the TEA Party would be combining into a single super-protest movement. Unfortunately, most of the morons in OWS don’t understand the we are operating under crony capitalism and not a true free market, and that the answer is NOT socialism, but a return to a true free market.
This is very amusing and really addresses a philosophical point which seems to be lost on the extremists in the Occupy movement.
However, it misses the overall point. Firstly, as silly and even repulsive as some of the Occupiers may be, is there any other quadrant of our society that is actually mobilizing to do something about the fact that our government is effectively owned by entities other than the citizenry of the country?
I love some corporations and think they are a great and vital part of our society, but I do not want them controlling my government, any more than I want the Catholic Church, the NEA, or the Teachers’ Union controlling it. I want myself and my fellow citizens controlling it, by virtue of our votes and not our “influence” or our buddies on the Supreme Court.
Corporate influence is a de facto threat to our right to self-government. It may be embarrassing to admit it but the OWS people have this right and we shouldn’t be making fun of them.
First of all, thank you. I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for someone to write an article like this. Its about time someone brought to light the other side of this whole “Occupy” thing. I’ve been waiting for a chance to illustrate my point to my friends and I think this will do the trick. I mean, what better way to show everyone the dangers of a fallacious “Slippery Slope” argument than this. Thanks again.
Yes, there is another citizen contingent…the TEA Party, which is actually calling for reducing the scope of government power in our lives and a return to a true free market. Without the active complicity of government, corporations can’t control anything other than their own standing in the market, and then only by providing a superior product or service at a price point people are willing to pay. Corporate influence only exists to the extent that it does because the federal government has grown to invade every aspect of our lives, and uses the tax code as a form of social engineering and influence peddling. Take away that power from government, and corporations won’t spend money to buy off politicians. The only thing OWS has right is that corporate influence in government needs to be addressed. Everything else they have dead wrong, including their use of violence and intimidation to get their way.
Entertaining read - especially the part about little Johnny and little Sally - but shamefully off-base. Never mind that Occupiers are seeking nothing anywhere close to the tolerance of ineptitude you suggest; but your story seems to imply, quite blindly, that our existing socioeconomic system functions properly.
More realistically, you might include a present-day scenario where little Kenny wants to run a major corporation, but can’t seem to keep the darn businesses profitable; in order to keep up appearances (and stock prices) he and the other senior managers innovate convenient, fraudulent ways to hide the losses. Oops! The truth comes out, but luckily they escape with golden parachutes as the whole thing comes crashing down. Alas, poor employees and investors, you will surely miss having a job and a nest egg, but your loss was an acceptable price for insulating America’s elite from the catastrophic risks they habitually create and helping them fulfill the dream of unimaginable wealth regardless of actual results.
We see this kind of thing happen over and over again, and the thousands of hard-working Americans whose lives have been destroyed by such selfishness would argue it’s more tragic than either of the the vignettes you created, not the least because it’s such a common story.
Charlotte,
I guess the level of tolerance for ineptitude is in the eye of the beholder. Of course, it is not just ineptitude, but a share of the spoils of plunder that OWS seeks. As far as any implication that our current socioeconomic system is working, if you’d please point out where I implied in the slightest that to be the case I will immediately correct it, since I would never have knowingly implied any such thing.
Perhaps a perusal of previous articles would clear up that misperception. I’ve made quite clear that I do not feel we have a true fre market anymore; instead it has been replaced by crony capitalism in which government bureaucrats and politicians in positions of influence collude with a relative handful of well connected corporations to rig the game in their favor. That is why I repeatedly call for the federal government to be reduced in size and scope to only those functions explicitly enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Right now big government and big business get in bed together and the taxpayers and small businesses end up getting screwed.
I’ve also written repeatedly on the very corporate fraud you talk of, and point out that it is only because of protectionism by their political sugardaddies that corporations defraud for the duration and scale that they do.
Hopefully you now understand better my position, and will join me in calling for the phasing out of unconstitutional or extraconstitutional programs or agencies, like Medicare, Medicare, Social Security, ObamaCare, TANF, the Departments of Education, Interior, Commerce, HUD, and many, many more.
Charlotte,
I guess the level of tolerance for ineptitude is in the eye of the beholder. Of course, it is not just ineptitude, but a share of the spoils of plunder that OWS seeks. As far as any implication that our current socioeconomic system is working, if you’d please point out where I implied in the slightest that to be the case I will immediately correct it, since I would never have knowingly implied any such thing.
Perhaps a perusal of previous articles would clear up that misperception. I’ve made quite clear that I do not feel we have a true fre market anymore; instead it has been replaced by crony capitalism in which government bureaucrats and politicians in positions of influence collude with a relative handful of well connected corporations to rig the game in their favor. That is why I repeatedly call for the federal government to be reduced in size and scope to only those functions explicitly enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Right now big government and big business get in bed together and the taxpayers and small businesses end up getting screwed.
I’ve also written repeatedly on the very corporate fraud you talk of, and point out that it is only because of protectionism by their political sugardaddies that corporations defraud for the duration and scale that they do.
Hopefully you now understand better my position, and will join me in calling for the phasing out of unconstitutional or extraconstitutional programs or agencies, like Medicare, Medicare, Social Security, ObamaCare, TANF, the Departments of Education, Interior, Commerce, HUD, and many, many more.
Bull! No one has said we want a communist state. Just that some redistribution of wealth to the neediest needs to occur. How many people would be able to go see these games is cities did not provide facilities and change laws so that these massive stadiums could be built. Who could get to the games if the government infrastructure like road where not in place. How safe would it be to go to these events if the police force did not put safety precautions and measures in place to ensure public safety. I personally do not require any of this type of support but a higher percentage of my income goes to taxes than these people.
With greater wealth should come greater responsibility. That wealth was not obtained in a vacuum.
gbeisel,
Your first two sentence are truly stunning in their cognative dissonance. Surely you cannot be so clueless. First of all, it takes nothing more than a quick trip to YouTube to see footage of OWS rallies with protestors cheering on leaders of the Communist Party calling for the exact same redistribution of wealth that you are yourself calling for. The funny thing is that you don’t even seem to realize that you yourself are a Marxist by your own admission. Your call for wealth redistribution perfectly aligns with Marx’s slogan from his “Critique of the Gotha Program”; namely “Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!” (From each according to his ability, to each according to his need). This philosophy is at the heart of his ten planks of the Communist Manifesto.
Maybe you are also uninformed about the hundreds of billions of dollars confiscated from the productive taxpayers annually and lavished on the largely lazy in the form of government welfare, food stamps, earned income tax credits, home heating oil assistance, 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, government housing, etc.
To continue your error, you talk about who would pay for police and roads, both functions which are constitutional roles of government. Who is arguing that we should not pay taxes for those things? Not me!
Wealth was surely not obtained in a vacuum. It is (in a true free market) obtained by the free exchange of goods and services by sovereign individuals. Wealth is created when we produce goods and services that our fellow man values more than they value their money. Hundreds of millions of Americans freely engage in billions of financial transactions each day of their own free will, and without the use of government force. What you are calling for is for government to use force to take from the producer and give to the politically favored in the name of charity and compassion. I would remind you that, by definition, charity is an INDIVIDUAL endeavor and cannot be done collectively. No one is arguing that we should not come to the aid of our fellow man in need…just that government has no right to force us to do so.
Get off the rich and CEOs back. A CEO is usually in charge of a large group of workers and resources. Think 100-20,000 employees plus countless of other assets. When LeBron James gets paid what he does and the Cavs might not make a big profit that’s the price the owners pay for their “investment”. When Occupy Fav filmmaker Moore gets paid millions to make a movie and it tanks (think Russel Simmion’s businesses, Kayne West Albums- concerts, not every single thing they do makes money) you don’t cry at how much they made. If any of you have any investment in any way in any business you can not tell me you wouldn’t want the likes of a Steve Jobs running it. How much should you pay someone like that 100gs a year? 500gs a year? Remember the 20 million West got for one concert before you answer that….
TC,
Amen and amen.
I feel I need to say “sorry” to OWS as well.
I’m sorry your BA in Philosophy from a liberal arts college isn’t making people flock to your apartment with job offers.
I’m sorry that a lifetime of listening to indie music, drinking Starbucks and playing with your Apple toys while waiting for your monthly check from the family trust to come in has left you with no work ethic and no ability to think and problem-solve more laterally.
I’m sorry that years of pointless inactivity have left you feeling empty and unfulfilled, and dissatisfied with the universe in some nebulous too-hard-to-define way.
I’m sorry that your your youthful idealism and a history of being given what you want when you ask for it now cause you to assume that because your vague, uncoordinated efforts to do something (in spite of having no clue what it is you want,) have thus far gone unrewarded, then it MUST be the fault of evil faceless moneygrubbers that OBVIOUSLY have a stranglehold on all the political and economic workings in the world and are just too big and mean to let you have things your way.
I’m sorry that you have no concept of nor experience with doing something you don’t enjoy because the alternative is to go without the things you need, and the experience may help you find something better later on.
I’m sorry you have no concept of the distinction between need and want, and have never had practice prioritizing.
I’m sorry you’re too stupid to think of more productive ways of actually working (there’s that word again!) towards any real kind of social, political or economic change, such as volunteering for programs, starting foundations, actually rolling up your sleeves and trying to help directly the unfortunate masses whom you claim to represent, and instead are living in filthy tents, popping squats on public parkland, and smelling like the homeless people you’ve tried to resemble for so long.
And I’m sorry that, contrary to all efforts to keep the fires burning, you’ll eventually give up in frustration because, even though tantrums always seemed to work with Mommy and Daddy, you still won’t understand that things work differently out here, and will just go sulk and blame the Man for all your troubles.
Welcome to life, dumbass.
Mkell,
I think your response was even better than the article. That just about sums it up, doesn’t it? Spoiled brats with an unquenchable sense of entitlement.
You cannot make a complaint against her parents,..
And I’m sorry that, contrary to all efforts to keep the fires burning, you’ll eventually give up in frustration because, even though tantrums always seemed to work with Mommy and Daddy, you still won’t understand that things work differently out here, and will just go sulk and blame the man for your troble…
I think your response was even better than the article. That just about sums it up, doesn’t it? Spoiled brats with an unquenchable sense of entitlement.
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