I just wanted to revisit all this redistribution talk with some comments around blogland…

Jonathan Chait

Need I point out that literally having every any government at all involves taking somebody’s money and giving it to somebody else? Even the more restrivtive definition of redistribution — using government to create a less unequal distribution of wealth — has been going on for a century. If McCain is really opposed to redistribution, then that means he thinks the rich should get back a dollar in spending for every dollar they pay in taxes.

Hilzoy

Some cities and towns are richer than others. Those cities and towns will be able to provide much better schools for their kids. And this means that kids from poor towns will be likely to have many fewer opportunities than kids from rich towns. If you care about equality of opportunity, you’ll probably think that this is a problem. One natural solution would be for states and the federal government help to fund education: in this way, funding levels for different school districts could be made more equal. But this involves, horror of horrors, redistribution: money from taxpayers who live in richer communities is being given to school districts in poorer communities.

The thing is: that’s what Obama is talking about. He’s not talking about cutting checks for the poor; he’s talking about trying to equalize funding across school districts. And his reason for doing this is specifically to “create equal schools and equal educational opportunity”, not to equalize wealth.

Andrew Sullivan

A simple question. I’m a flat taxer, because I don’t believe the government has any business punishing people for getting richer. But I don’t think that people who support the kind of punitive taxation that Obama does or Cameron does in Britain or Reagan did in 1986 is a “socialist.” Is it now the McCain campaign’s assertion that anyone who isn’t for a flat tax is socialist? I should add that if Obama is a socialist, Richard Nixon must have been a commie.

Sarah Palin

We’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.

John McCain

This whole argument is just pure garbage.  Garbage.  And quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of it.  The McCain campaign had a better argument when they were attacking Obama over Ayers.  That’s how stupid this “closing argument” is.  Obama = Socialist is quite possibly the dumbest political argument ever assembled.  I mean, this type of stuff is supposed to be relegated to the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world.  When did this wingnut crap end up on center stage?

Well, I guess it took a maverick…

He is a closet-socialist.  He said redistribution of wealth, right here!

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy and the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples…but the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, as least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted and I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court focused. I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that. [...]

You know, maybe i am showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but you know I am not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way. Just look at the very rare examples where during the desegregation era, the court was willing to, for example, order changes that cost money to a local school district and the court was very uncomfortable with it. It was hard to manage. It was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that is essentially administrative and take a lot of time. The court is not very good at it and politically it is hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard. So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts. I think that as a practical matter, our institutions are just poorly equipped to do it.

See!  He’s a socialist!  He said redistribution like 5 times!  And he was talking about crazy redistributive things like funding schools in poor districts with some of other people’s money!  Let those poor folks pay for their own schools, dammit!  I want my school in my rich neighborhood to have a turf football field and chandeliers, while those lazy poor kids learn math without math books!  But worst of all, he’s arguing…against(?)…judicial activism.  And he wants us to enact these socialist policies through…um…democratic institutions…like the legislature…which we kind of already did…a little…whatever.  He’s still a socialist!

Btw, on a more serious note, this interview displays the more serious side of Obama-as-constitutional-law-scholar, which is a whole side of him that you rarely see on the campaign trail (it’s elitist to know a lot about constitutional law).  As a law junkie, I love it.  I mean, can you imagine Bush or McCain speaking substantively about the role of the Warren Court in the segregation era?  Yeah.  Thought so.

Ridiculous.

ACORN? Check. “Spread the wealth around”? Check. Marxist? Check. Socialist? Check.

Sign her up.

Rep. Michelle McCarthy Bachmann (R-MN) calls for a “penetrating exposé” on who is and is not anti-American.

Let’s just bring HUAC back.  That worked out well last time.

Conservapedia:

The odds of Obama being truthful in his claim that he converted to Christianity are less than 100 to 1 against it, as fewer than 1% of Muslims convert to Christianity.

No words.

This is the first in an ongoing series of factual counter-claims and/or debunking of right-wing attacks on Democrats and/or progressive principles.  These attacks are typically confined to the right-wing echo chamber, and may or may not leak out into the mainstream-media.  They tend to only peak out of hiding when you encounter a conservative on the street, at which point, having never heard the claim to begin with, you most likely will not have a response, thus allowing the conservative to “win” the argument.  I intend to change this imbalance of power by confronting these claims head-on, as they occur, no matter how ridiculous.

(more…)