{"id":6495,"date":"2016-04-21T05:58:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T05:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/21\/the-opium-of-the-redistributionists-2\/"},"modified":"2016-04-21T05:58:35","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T05:58:35","slug":"the-opium-of-the-redistributionists-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/21\/the-opium-of-the-redistributionists-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Opium of the Redistributionists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">If religion is the opium of the masses, then OPM is the opium of the redistributionist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Bernie Sanders, the superannuated socialist, &quot;and his wife, Jane, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/opinion\/2016\/04\/20\/the-illusions-bernie-sanders-and-ted-cruz\/KwWRGfTGHS3Ftsyq47nJlK\/story.html\">paid<\/a> an effective tax rate of 13.5 percent, or $27,653 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $205,271.&quot; This is for 2014.&#0160; That is less than Mitt Romney paid, percentage-wise, in 2011.&#0160; But Romney paid more dollars and thus did more good than Bernie, if you assume that Federal taxes do good for &#39;the people&#39; and not just for state <em>apparatchiki<\/em>.&#0160; <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">For Sanders, a legitimate function of government is wealth redistribution so that the government can do good with other people&#39;s money (OPM).&#0160; So why did Bernie take so many (legal) deductions?&#0160; Why didn&#39;t he pay his &#39;fair share,&#39; say, 28% of his AGI? Why didn&#39;t he fork over 50%?&#0160; Surely an old man and his wife can live on 100K a year!&#0160; Why doesn&#39;t Bernie practice what he preaches?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Because he smokes the opium of OPM: it is the other guy&#39;s money that is to be confiscated, not his.&#0160; By any reasonable standard, Sanders is a &#39;fat cat.&#39;&#0160; But he doesn&#39;t see himself as one.&#0160; And no doubt he thinks he <em>earned<\/em> his high senatorial salary when he produced nothing, but merely spouted a lot of socialist nonsense while acting the pied piper to foolish and impressionable youth.<\/span><\/p>\n<fieldset class=\"zemanta-related\">\n<legend class=\"zemanta-related-title\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Related articles<\/span><\/legend>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0; padding: 0; overflow: hidden;\">\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2015\/04\/harry-reid-on-burden-of-proof.html\" style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/335543388_80_80.jpg\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2015\/04\/harry-reid-on-burden-of-proof.html\" style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 80px; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px;\" target=\"_blank\">Harry Reid on Burden of Proof<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2014\/04\/harry-reid-latter-day-mccarthyite.html\" style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/266307812_80_80.jpg\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2014\/04\/harry-reid-latter-day-mccarthyite.html\" style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 80px; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px;\" target=\"_blank\">Harry Reid, Latter-Day McCarthyite<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0; background: none; list-style: none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/opinion\/ci_29627432\/samuelson-primer-soaking-rich\" style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/366926162_80_80.jpg\" style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; border: 0; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/opinion\/ci_29627432\/samuelson-primer-soaking-rich\" style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 80px; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px;\" target=\"_blank\">Samuelson: A primer on soaking the rich<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If religion is the opium of the masses, then OPM is the opium of the redistributionist. Bernie Sanders, the superannuated socialist, &quot;and his wife, Jane, paid an effective tax rate of 13.5 percent, or $27,653 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $205,271.&quot; This is for 2014.&#0160; That is less than Mitt Romney &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/04\/21\/the-opium-of-the-redistributionists-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Opium of the Redistributionists&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-money-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}