Thursday, February 08, 2007

Politics: Making Atlas shrug.

"The Democrats know what needs to be done. Again, we're working to try to push this agenda forward. The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits..." -Sen. Clinton (Bolshevik, NY)
There you have it: "I want to take those profits."

It's rare that a politician has the sheer stones to come right out in front of a national audience and baldly, openly, and without euphemism say "I want to steal your shit."

Profits, for those of you who fell asleep reading the Cliff's Notes of Wealth of Nations, are what you get in return for working. They are what's left over after all the expenses have been met. They are the reward for doing what you are doing in the first place. If someone can, under color of law, take the very fruits for which you labor in the first place, why work? If they can take your profits, what's to keep them from taking your plant? Or your person? What, at that point, distinguishes you from a slave?

The only difference between Chavez and Clinton is that the former at least openly proclaims himself a socialist and doesn't feel compelled to cover it up with fawning platitudes about the glories of "the middle class". Chavez also seems to have greater respect for following the legal forms and standards of his country.

14 comments:

Unknown said...

Now extend that logic to income tax...

If you can seize a dime from someone's paycheck by force, you're effectively enslaving them. There's no moral difference between a 1% individual income tax and the seizing of the entire 2006 profits from Exxon.

The coffeehouse Trotskyist crowd will be along shortly to explain how that just ain't so.

Anonymous said...

You'll get no argument from me on that, Marko. The theft is the same, whether 1% or 100% of private propery is taken from its rightful owners. The only way it wouldn't be theft is that if people gave part or all of their earnings voluntarily, with absolutely no consequences if they chose not to do so.
DAL357

Anonymous said...

Did you know that Exxon/Mobile is the only truly private oil company of the largest 15 in the world? And, they are not even in the top 10 in terms of size.

The other 14 are run by govenments. So, the next time anyone bitches about gas prices, you can respond, "yeah, damn socialists!"

--sam

theirritablearchitect said...

"I want to take those profits."

Bald face of tyranny, plain and simple.

Anonymous said...

If Mrs. Clinton wants to "take the profit", I loudly suggest that she resign from office, divorce her philanderer, and go on New York welfare.

On the other hand, she can use the money from her & her philanderer's books to buy up Exxon stock. Then she'll have that profit.

Other than that, neither she nor our elected government has no more "right" to that profit than I do. Perhaps she should not have been elected senatrix by the NYC political machine?

3yellowdogs said...

"It's rare that a politician has the sheer stones..."

Stones is one thing that Madame Clinton has never lacked. She's done a remarkable job of moderating her socialist proclivities over the course of her Senate career, fairly deftly rebranding herself as a moderate.

However, it's darned hard to teach an old, er, dog new tricks, eh? Particularly when trying to appeal to the party's far left base in the primaries. To mix metaphors, we'd seen this leopard's spots pretty clearly before, most famously when she tried to approriate about one seventh of the US economy by nationalizing healthcare.

Some things (and people) never change.

theirritablearchitect said...

Oh, and about that stones comment, Tam, I had always suspected that that was the case, thanks for confirming without getting any pictures involved.

Anonymous said...

Linky to where the quote came from?

Anonymous said...

And all these corporations pay taxes...so what is the point

If they make more money the Gov gets more money

If they get greedy and take the rest what will happen to the stock market

Anonymous said...

Almost all of the Oil companies have fled offshore.

Exactly how will Hillary squeeze money from a non-US corp?

They will just split off their US assets, shut down the US refineries, and make and sell finished products outside the US, and sell them to US companies.

They will make even more profits ... and see to it that their US subsidiaries lose money.

Mark said...

"If you have the right pull, this year we may be able to permit you to turn a profit...."

Walkingshaw. Chap with the briefcase. Five rounds rapid. Commence when ready. Fire.

Carl H said...

A few years ago she proclaimed:

"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Like Orwell said, some animals are more equal than others.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39205

Anonymous said...

I've heard that the oil co's profit on a gallon of gas is approx $0.08, that's 8 cents. Gov'ts taxes on that same gal range from 40 to 50 cents! Who's making the obscene profit here?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,

Here's a link for you.

Video of her saying it on C-Span by way of Youtube.