Dear "Conservatives":
For decades, I've heard you trash social safety net programs like welfare by insisting that government is simply too bloated and corrupt to be trusted to care for the downtrodden, and that instead we should entrust their well-being to the innate charity and spirit of giving that beats within the heart of more privileged Americans.
If we just stop taxing the wealthy, they will give voluntarily to those in need. Trust the invisible hand of the free market, and watch prosperity flow unfettered into the darkest corners of American suffering.
It's time somebody called bullshit.
[DIARIST NOTE: Link to Schlussel's site removed at ReEnergizer's request and replaced with something I hope you will appreciate.]
3.68%.
Of every dollar Sean Hannity panhandled from the sheep in his flock, he dispensed less than a measly four cents to the children of fallen war veterans, or to wounded veterans in need of aid.
On the other hand, 62% of the money went to "expenses," including $979,485 for "consultants" and an "advisor." Yes, consultant/advisors got more than double what injured troops and the kids of fallen troops got.
And the invisible hand of the free market strikes again.
Compassionate conservatism sure is profitable!
I am a believer in many tenets of capitalism, and many of you are whether you know it or not. A public health care option is a capitalist idea as it is designed to bust oligopoly and cartel pricing behavior among insurance companies and create true competition. I believe that profit, in the context of a reasonably regulated economic framework, can motivate the creation of ideas, products, services and advancements that make our lives better.
But what we have in our country today is not capitalism. It is in fact a gross perversion of the core principles of capitalism, and "Concerts for Freedom" is a spectacular, writ-large example of just how far we have strayed.
Part of it is our fault. The left has done an unforgivably shitty job of defending government as an institution. How many of you know that Social Security dispenses 98 cents of every dollar it collects to beneficiaries? Contrast that with the measly 80% of collected premiums that insurance companies will be required to pass along in benefits under the HCR bill now in reconciliation.
And government is wasteful?
I don't advocate the elimination of private charity. Sean Hannity is doing a fine job of that all by himself. But I will educate myself and take a sandblaster to the mythology that government is incapable of serving this purpose.
In a just society, Sean Hannity doesn't spend his weekends jetting around in a G-5. Sean Hannity spends his weekends in a faith-based prison whose amenities are funded by private charities much like his own, gnawing on green bologna and wondering what the fuck went wrong.
But not before he and his "consultants" pass through every red fucking cent.