Too True

[yendi]

If it is Marxist tyranny when government forces people to buy health insurance for themselves, as many in Cobb County no doubt believe, what do you call it when government forces citizens to contribute millions of dollars in property taxes, year after year for 30 years, to the bottom line of Liberty Media, the Colorado-based owner of the Atlanta Braves?

Cobb County has long been one of the seats of hypocrisy in this country, but the Braves deal has really shone a light on it.

Comments

[swashbucklr]

"Is that "running government like a business"?"

No, it's running government like a way to give handouts to their friends, and they get mad when they have to give money to Those People instead. I'm tired of being nice to this kind of hypocrisy, and just going to start calling it like I see it. I don't think the poor are the real moochers, here.

[ron_newman]

So much I don't understand about this. Isn't Turner Field considered a success and a pleasant place to play and watch baseball? And it's only 17 years old, too. The Braves have made the playoffs in 12 of those 17 years. What exactly is wrong with the status quo?

Demolishing Turner would set a terrible precedent for all of the other teams whose ballparks were built in the 90s and 00s.

[ckd]

I was informed by my seat-mate on a recent flight that airlines are socialist, apparently because they are bad and so is socialism and therefore the two are equivalent. Or something.

(This guy also thinks that Benedict Arnold was executed for doing "less than what Obama's done so far".)

Needless to say, that's when I put my noise-canceling headphones on and started watching episodes of Air Disaster.

[ron_newman]

- This guy also thinks that Benedict Arnold was executed

news to me?

[ckd]

Yeah. I wasn't interested in discussing historical facts (or anything else) with the guy at that point, for obvious reasons.

[captain18.livejournal.com]

Hah.

I once had a customer on the phone who objected to the shared risk pooling that happens with car insurance.

"That sounds like Communism," he said.

I was so done with the guy that I spontaneously remembered a cheesy handout we were given on our first day of training which connected car insurance with Ben Franklin's fire insurance policies of yore.

"I'm sorry you feel that way sir," I said, "but this is the modern insurance industry as envisioned by Ben Franklin."

A pause, followed by: "Well, I guess that's all right then."

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to remember that one...