Hendrik Hertzberg, on Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin’s assertion that Mr. Obama is a socialist:
The state that [Palin] governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields.
The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269.
A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of [the New Yorker]—that “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.”
Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it (“collectively,” no less), but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist.
[From Like, Socialism: Comment: The New Yorker] (via BoingBoing)
I just read this piece and it sent my blood pressure up. The whole “socialist” smear is so ridiculous. They are really running out of ideas.
I gotta tell ya, I spent several happy minutes today exploring http://stumptown.typepad.com/ and Strong Silent Type. Your print work intrigues me, your photography has me admiring your eye, and your posts give me great peeks into a part of Atlanta I don’t know much about. Thanks for stopping by — and for the work you’re pursuing.
M.