Oil is $100 a barrel and there are food shortages in Venezuela. That is all you really need to know about socialism.
"Zimbabwe On the Caribbean" indeed! (HT Instapundit)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Rhetorical Flourishes!
Our Motto!
"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves"
Disclaimer!
Everything I say here is my own opinion and not the opinion of my employer, any organization I belong to, the Roman Catholic Church, and (especially) my wife!
Read it at your own risk.
Read it at your own risk.
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(254)
-
▼
January
(31)
- Stimuli!
- Florida!
- The State of the Union
- What will it take for Catholics to find their voice?
- Viva Chavez!!!
- The Pope's Undelivered Speech
- Pope Benedict, Faith, Reason, and the University o...
- A Quote I Like
- Fred's Last Stand?
- "Give the People What They Want!"
- The Ron Paul Affair
- One Third of my Third Worst Fear
- The Anchoress Asks -- "Who do you Trust?"
- Tim Blair -- Prayers and good wishes, but no head ...
- Welcome to Naples
- I really shouldn't be enjoying this as much as I am
- But Then Andrew Jumps Anyway
- The Water Board Right
- My Third Worst Fear
- MAC Really Is Back!
- Jack Kemp endorses McCain
- So why John McCain?
- I really need to pay attention to debates
- The MAC is back!
- Onto New Hampshire!
- Obama!
- It's Huckabee!
- Early Results
- Richardson
- Let's Write Hillary's Pre-election Post Mortem!
- IOWA!
-
▼
January
(31)
Email me
thecatholiclibertarian -at- yahoo.com
Posts
11 comments:
Food shortages are a problem of distribution, not of production. Oil is pumped in a few locations around the globe, and shipped everywhere. Food should be the same. If you have oil, you should never lack food. In that sense, you might just as well have written "Oil is $100 a barrel, and there are food shortages in Appalachia."
In the sense that enough food is produced globally to meet global demand, Rodak, that is true. However, in this particular instance the illegitimate Chavez regime is offering less than the cost of production to those who have food to sell in Venezuela.
(Found this at VodkaPundit, by the way, from a pointer at Geek With a .45).
Oldsmoblogger--
The point I was trying to make is that the original statement is essentially a non sequitur. It appears to, but doesn't really, make a statement about "socialism."
Then, to the extent that it makes a statement about the Chavez regime, it makes that statement out of context.
Finally, if there is real hunger happening in Venezuela, food should be given gratis until the crisis can be corrected. I have been sickened throughout my life at seeing food withheld for the political purpose of discrediting unfriendly regimes.
How about food withheld on the principle of "the worker is worthy of his hire?" It goes as much for farmers as anyone else.
How about food withheld on the principle of "the worker is worthy of his hire?" It goes as much for farmers as anyone else.
So you buy the food from the farmer at the market price and give it to the starving people gratis, because need creates obligation.
Nobody is asking the farmer to bear the burden.
So you buy the food from the farmer at the market price and give it to the starving people gratis, because need creates obligation.
Please amplify your last, if you wouldn't mind, because it can be taken two ways: Does need create obligation on the part of the recipient to the provider? Or is the have obligated to the have-not?
The former is a tactical calculation (and morally questionable), while in the latter case I agree there is a moral obligation, so long as there is no coercion. Where there is coercion, there is no charity; there is merely deciding who is owed a living, and who owes it them.
In any event, the illegitimate Chavez regime is pretty clearly doing nothing of the kind; the original article specifically mentions price controls on food.
The have is obligated to the have-not. Nobody is owed a living. But any person who is hungry must be fed by him who has the means. And this is unconditional. The hungry man does not need to "deserve" to be fed.
As for Chavez, if he has hungry people on the one hand, and oil to sell to buy food, on the other, and he does not do so, then he is no socialist.
My point has never been a defense of Chavez.
As I heard our Fearless Leader, Dubya, echo my proposal of January 28, 2008 3:43 AM (see above) in his State of the Union speech last night, I recognize that I must have been wrong; very, very wrong. Mea culpa. May I please be forgiven?
Happens to the best of us. ;-)
My point Rodak is that Venezuela under Chavez claims to be a socialist country and to serve teh poor. And given teh amount of hard currency they are earning with oil at $100 a barrell, they could buy up the crops of entire rural states and dsitribute to the poor free if they had to.
But even with all this oil money flowing in, Venezuela is reporting food shortages.
Anthony--
And my point is that Chavez, ergo, is not a socialist. So don't state that the Chavez regime tells me "everything I need to know about socialism." It doesn't.
Post a Comment