Capitalism: A Love Story Shows Michael Moore As A True Hypocrite

Advertisement:

Michael Moore, self proclaimed champion for the “common” man, brings his latest skewed vision of reality to the big screen with “Capitalism: A Love Story”. The film is “completely nonpartisan… I was stunned by it”, said Jay Leno to his audience when interviewing Moore earlier this week.  I do applaud Michael for finally throwing away his obvious partisanship. Now if he could just let go of his hypocrisy. “Capitalism” is intended to show how large corporations and wealthy individuals are destroying the “common” man. Mr. Moore IS one of those people. If Mr. Moore wants to see what one of these so called “evil people” look like then he should just go to the nearest mirror.

Moore’s recent comments about Capitalism tell of his true hypocrisy. “The movie is about how people make their money — and specifically criticizes the beast, our out-of-control economic system . . . and for those folks who make their money in ways that don’t exploit or hurt others — then they should be giving a lot more back in tax dollars to help support a more just and fair society,” Moore said. “People like John Malone, myself and others who have been blessed, we all ought to be in a 70% tax bracket with the money being used to provide such important services as a real universal and affordable single-payer healthcare system.”  On the surface, this comment seems very true. People who have made millions of dollars should be willing to give back more to help out society. There is a sinister twist to this statement that Michael Moore doesn’t want you to know.

FACT: If we taxed all millionaires 100% of their income they would still be millionaires tomorrow. Taxing people, who the Government decides are rich, 70% of their income, as Mr. Moore suggests, would only help to keep the elite on top and hurt others who are trying to get wealthy. Millionaires pay mostly “capital gains” tax. It is not considered income tax. Mr. Moore knows that he will still be making a lot of money from the millions he has stashed away already.

There are many millionaire politicians and wealthy people going around on the band wagon crying “the rich need to pay their fair share”. I will make an honest challenge here that not one of those people are giving the government any more money than they absolutely have to give. Mr. Moore and all the others can give as much extra to the government as they think is fair for them. Not one of them is giving a dime extra and I challenge anyone to come forward to prove me wrong.

Arianna Huffington got it right when she wrote: “In the film, Michael describes capitalism as evil. I disagree. I don’t think capitalism is evil. I think what we have right now is not capitalism.”

She also hit the nail on the head when she wrote: “In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn’t get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It’s welfare for the rich. It’s the government picking winners and losers. It’s Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It’s socialized losses and privatized gains.” She just doesn’t take her comment far enough.

It is not just corporations who were greedy but people also. People bought houses that they could not afford by betting that the values of these properties would always be increasing and never looking at the details of the contracts. Nothing is ever a sure bet in life. Our government promoted the “you deserve it now” attitude that has caught so many people in this economic catastrophe. The people themselves spent recklessly without a care for what would happen if a recession hit us. It was a fantasy that many bought into. I will issue this challenge that for every person who Mr. Moore shows in his film as an innocent victim, I will produce another person who was taking advantage of the system.

My parents grew up poor. My grandparents went through the depression. They tried to instill in me the value of only buying what you could afford. I don’t have a “right” to a new big house if I cannot make the payments. I am responsible for knowing the details of any contract I get into. It took me a while to learn these lessons and I made mistakes along the way. Bailouts, whether for corporations or individuals, only help to insure that corporations and individuals will make the same mistakes again. Just like corporations, people need to be allowed to fail also or they will never learn from their mistakes.

As far as a national health care plan goes, for every person that you see our President and others show you, that died or almost died because they have no health care, I will show you a person that died or almost died BECAUSE of a national health care system. The debate has two sides, both should be presented equally.