The theme for today might well be H. L. Mencken’s wisecrack: “there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” Eliminate poverty? Increase the minimum wage! Save the Libyan people from slaughter? Remove Qaddafi! Stop Syrian kids from being gassed? Remove Bashar al-Assad!
That each of these solutions will have unintended secondary effects and those secondary effects may overwhelm the intended result never seems to occur to their advocates. That the advocates have no intention of hanging around to deal with the horrible secondary effects of their well-intentioned actions is a lagniappe.
You are on a roll this morning.
I cited the yacht tax the other day. Same thing. The press covered the “tax on the rich.” Reporting on the unemployed yacht makers? Not so much.
Its easy to interview a min wage person gleefully accepting a buck or two more per hour. Ah, yes, a “living wage,” if not champagne and caviar. Those de-employed, future unemployed, denied access to that all important 1st or 2nd job? Not so much.
Liberals: “stick it to the man” (gloat, gloat) ………..then express disbelief about unemployment. (No doubt, to be “fixed” by another government idea.)
In reality, who gets stuck……..and where and with what?
You could, and many do, make this argument against nearly all liberal policies. But then you are a heartless bastard who wants children to die.
“But then you are a heartless bastard who wants children to die.”
So I’m told. But then, why let efficacy get in the way of “caring.”
One of the worst abuses is represented by Amerikan food aid to poor countries. It has the secondary effect of driving their local farmers out of business and making the country dependent on Amerikan largesse.
The fact is that food aid, including domestic foodstamps, represents an aid to Amerikan farmers who are richly subsidized by the taxpayer, causing the secondary effects of flooding the nation’s warehouses with rotting food, and wasting energy, water and land.