Completely speechless...

Thursday, June 19, 2008

I recently blogged about how Tiger's performance last weekend pretty much left me speechless. It was an unbelievable effort by one of the greatest competitors of all time. Yet, as much as I love it, it is just a game and even an almost super-human effort by one of its greatest players failed to leave me as shocked, as horrified, as dumbstruck as what I read last night.

In a speech given yesterday, Maurice Hinchey (Democrat - New York), a relatively powerful member of the House of Representatives, issued the first call for the nationalization of oil refineries in the United States.

I actually found the speech on youtube - http://youtube.com/watch?v=1vhft39_gkc I wanted to see it with my own eyes because I just couldn't believe it.

He stated that if his Republican collegues are serious about doing something about the number of refineries then "...maybe they would be willing to have these refineries owned publicly, owned by the people of the United States, so that the people of the United States can determine how much of the product is refined and put out on the market. To me, that sounds like a good idea."
Mr. Hinchey, along with others who support the idea, present it as 'the people' owning the refineries and 'deciding' how much oil to refine. Oh, how wonderful. If we didn't have to worry about all those greedy oil companies making so much profit things would be so much better! Let me take a few minutes to explain exactly what this asshole is really saying.

When he says "the people" he really means the U.S. government. Nationalization means that the government shows up at your place of business and takes over. Immediately. You have no choice. Either cooperate or go to jail. Oh, and it isn't just the CEO that gets screwed - all of the shareholders that own stock in 401(k)'s and everyone that has a pension plan that owns shares and everyone that has invested a little of their extra money - all of your stock is now worthless.
What is really sad is that it is not like this is some new idea, some new way of thinking. It has been offered as a solution and tried before, by some very famous people. Here are a few names you will probably recognize - Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung and Mao Zedong.

Here are a few more interesting facts about those guys - they were all GREAT speakers with lots of charisma and personality. They also all believed in nationalized medicine, nationalized education, limited ownership of firearms by private citizens and restrictions on free trade to prevent 'profiteering', to name a few among many.

Wow, that sounds an awful lot like a guy currently running for President of the United States.
And while we are pointing out similarities, how about a few more - 20 million, 65 million, 1 million, 2 million, 2 million, 1 million, 10 million, 2 million. Those are educated approximations of the number of people killed by the governments of the men who have tried this idea before. That is over 100 million people - almost all of whom WERE CITIZENS OF THE COUNTRY THAT KILLED THEM - either directly through mass murder or indirectly through the implementation of this same failed policy. All in the name of doing what is best for the people.