Guest Post by Walter E. Williams
Jonathan Gruber, MIT economist and paid architect of Obamacare, has shocked and disgusted many Americans. In 2013, he explained to a University of Pennsylvania audience: “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure (the Congressional Budget Office) did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” He added that the “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.” Most insulting were his previous statements that “the American voter is too stupid to understand” and his boast of Obamacare’s “exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”
We recall that back in 2010, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi infamously said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” That comment was just as insightful as her response to a CNSNews.com reporter who asked, “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” Unable to respond intelligently, Speaker Pelosi gave her best political response: “Are you serious? Are you serious?” When asked recently about Gruber, Pelosi said: “I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill.” She was quickly caught in a lie because during the 2009 health care debate, she mentioned Gruber’s analysis at a news conference.
One little-noticed feature of Gruber’s speeches was the type of place where he felt comfortable talking about the use of deception and mocking American intelligence. His speeches took place at the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Rhode Island. Universities are home to the academic elite — people who believe they have more intelligence than and superior wisdom to the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Gruber and his fellow academic elite have what they consider to be good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. But every tyrant who has ever lived has had what he considered good reasons.
America’s elite found on university campuses, in news media and in political office are chief supporters of reduced private property rights and reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion by the state. Their plan requires the elimination or attenuation of the free market and what is implied by it — voluntary exchange. Their reasoning is simple. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrants think they should do. Therefore, tyrants want to replace the market and voluntary exchange with economic planning. Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people’s plans by the powerful elite backed up by the brute force of government.
In a 1991 speech, Yale University President Benno Schmidt warned: “The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses. The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind.” I watched the videos of Gruber’s speeches. Academics raised little concern as to either the dishonesty of Obamacare or the claim that Americans were too stupid to understand.
A study by my George Mason University colleague Daniel B. Klein, along with Charlotta Stern of the Swedish Institute for Social Research, titled “Professors and Their Politics: The Policy Views of Social Scientists” (http://tinyurl.com/qxne3db) concluded: “The academic social sciences are pretty much a one-party system. Were the Democratic tent broad, the one-party system might have intellectual diversity. But the data show almost no diversity of opinion among the Democratic professors when it comes to the regulatory, redistributive state: they like it. Especially when it comes to the minimum wage, workplace-safety regulation, pharmaceutical regulation, environmental regulation, discrimination regulation, gun control, income redistribution, and public schooling.”
Focusing only on Professor Gruber’s arrogance, we ignore the more important fact that he is highly representative of the academic mindset — the people who are brainwashing our youngsters.
Whats worse, the brainwasher, or the brainwashie?
One side of my family is full of liberal college ejumacated brainwashed brain dead fucknuts and are only capable of parroting what they have been told to think and how to reply to free thinkers. Which is basically to shout any other opinion down, or quickly pull out the racist card.
The other side learned from the school of hard knocks, we thrive on open dialog and accept the differences amongst us as simply differences that can never be changed by a law, we never sing kumbaya and never play cards unless there is money involved. We drink a lot too, a lot.
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
Edmund Burke
Gibbeting: Gibbeting was a common law punishment, which a judge could impose in addition to execution. This practice was regularised in England by the Murder Act 1751, which empowered judges to impose this for murder. It was most often used for traitors, murderers, highwaymen, pirates, and sheep stealers and was intended to discourage others from committing similar offences. The structures were therefore often placed next to public highways (frequently at crossroads) and waterways.
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Just sayin’…
Learn something new everyday. Thanks Billy.
Bob.
Gibbets and crows….
It has a certain appeal… but then, hurling them off the top of the Tower of Barad-dûr has a certain appeal as well…
They were kind of right. A certain group was stupid enough to vote for it.And certain people still think Obamacare is the best thing since sliced bread
I dealt with arrogant, condescending elitists, like Jonathan Gruber, for decades. All my contacts were at a local, county, and state level.
It took me years to figure out how to get the better of the smug snobs. I never found a how-to-do-it manual. All my education was by trial and error.
Here are a few suggestions …
1. You’ve got to be better with words and wit than they are. That means constantly working on the skills. Fortunately I had a demanding people job which helped. If you’re luckly, you’ll have one too. Also, I have an interest in language and rhetoric. That, too, has helped. Still, for me and you it’s got to be mind and mouth practice all the time to be able to hold your own or do better with anyone under any circumstances. Acquiring the skill is worth the time and effort spent.
2. You have to know how to think and argue logically. My experience is that almost all, elites included, can’t do it. You are probably one of the few who can, but do be unsparing when you evaluate yourself.
3. You have to have confidence in yourself that comes from #1 and #2 and not from blind belief, a loud mouth, or a pushy manner. Remember wit, not thuggishness, wins.
4. Be a gentleman at all times. Manners are important; good will is infectious.
5. Avoid tv, video, computer, and other similar entertainment. They are mentally enervating.
6. Read, think, and create. In other words, create yourself, don’t let others make and define you.
Elitists of Gruber’s ilk are haughty and dismissive of the masses because they think they own us. They know they have control through institutions whose values people blindly accept, the MSM, and a myriad of entertainments which people crave.
There are two ways to quit be an object of elitist control and contempt. One is to keep their thoughts out of your mind. Bye, bye tv, video, papers etc. Wean yourself. The only electronics permitted is internet research. Secondly, you have to be able to stand up to the elites with a better mind, a sharper tongue, and a more compelling manner than they have.
Question authority; kick the hedonistic habit; create yourself; learn to stand up to people like Jonathan Gruber; feel confident and proud; and above all, as a person, set a good example for your family, your friends, and your community.
it’s perfectly understandable why “they” are so contemptuous of the public
ever been to The People of Walmart site ???
ever see those man on the street interviews where people don’t even know the name of the
VP of the United States?
can’t name their Senator
or even one member of the Supreme Court?
or don’t know who won the Civil War
or even that there was a Civil War ?
can’t name a single country starting with the letter U ?
hint-the United States you idiots
Black Friday fighting over dvds and cheap underwear ???
etc etc etc
I’d be contemptuous too
Satori–you mean like Watter’s World?
As for the guy who wrote this guest column, Walter E. Williams ………
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Admin, I have to thank you for this. This is the best commentary I have read on “the Gruber issue” since it broke.
For that, even tho I am a lowly dishwasher atm getting minimum wage, you really deserve $10 out of me on your next fundraiser (hint–having a thermometer bursting out the top of your $10k campaign doesn’t invite further fundraising).
Having read this, it explains why my workplace practices are what they are. I have had to interface with the 1%ers on a few occasions, and why I am supposed to *act like a slave* (speak only when spoken to).
A month or so back, I heard this member telling his guest all about all of the different “bowls” he had been to, including the Rose Bowl. I was disgusted. It got worse. The bartender who I chatted with later know who the member was, and the dude was a hockey fan, didn’t care for football at all. He loves hockey. Realizing that this idiot probably blew a quarter million on attending football “bowls” that he wasn’t even interested in…. “Unpriceless?”
As for some other comments in this thread that I wanted to throw a bit at…
card802: Agreed.
Jackson: #2, #4 and #6 are spot on. #5 is sort of like telling one to avoid drink (It’s just best to try and avoid letting entertainment influence you too much). As per the rest of your comment, I have to disagree. Monitoring the road apples coming from the MSM is a way to monitor what those who “think they are in control” want “the rest of us to think” and by deduction, “where they want to take us”. Trust me surveillance is the key to victory.
And wow, for once I have to agree with a comment by SSS.