To paraphrase Tom Woods, the left, conspiracy theorists and other groups love to use little catchy phrases that can fit on bumper stickers but generally take paragraphs to properly debunk.
1. Pay your fair share
Black economics man strikes again.
2. People not profits
Yes of course people are more important than profits but profits direct market activity to its most efficient use. Without profits people will starve and live worse lives. Without profits the state must direct economic activity and, as the 20th century proved, that leads to misallocated resources, poverty and starvation.
3. Peace
A nice phrase which is just a phrase. Sometimes war is required for long term peace. For example, John Schindler has argued the Korea war caused World War Three to be avoided.
4. Make America Great Again
America is already great but if it was not Donald Trump could not make it great again. He rejects the basic ideas of constitutionalism, liberty, limited government and other ideas which made America great in the first place.
5. Profit is Theft
No, no it is not. Value is subjective and even if value was objective, in accordance to Marxist Labor Value Theory, it would still not be theft. The worker still voluntarily entered a exchange where he lost more than he gained. In truth, because both sides would not enter into a agreement unless they perceived gain value can only be subjective.
6. Love it or Leave it
This phrase implies that you cannot criticize America which I hope we all can we can agree we should.
7. Coexist
8. Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams
No one says jet fuel can melt steel beams (under normal conditions) and there is zero, none, zilch absolutely no evidence that any steel melted on September 11th.
9. Governments Subsidize low wage employment
Two problems and both show why it is the other way around. If the low wage employer stopped employing the employee their welfare use would rise while if their welfare ended their wages would not rise.
For the second point I will quote the Meme Police, “When we take a deeper economic view of the issue, we see that welfare programs actually decrease labor supply, which puts upward pressure on labor prices (i.e. higher wages). In other words, employers would prefer less welfare programs, at least as it relates to hiring low wage employees.”
10. Like the weekend? Thank a Union!
No. According to an article from the National Economic Historians Association, “High unionization and strike levels reduced hours to a small degree.” Here is an episode from Tom Woods on this subject.
11. The polls are rigged!!!
No, no the polls are not rigged. This argument comes in two forms, over sampling and media bias. Over sampling is not an evil conspiracy by pollsters to deflate Trumps turnout. The only person trying to deflate Trumps turnout is Trump with his talk of a rigged election. Over sampling is a common technique done by pollsters, including reply Republican pollsters, to get accurate information on subgroups. While a representative raw sample would give accurate information for the whole population it does not give it for small subgroups. For example, if you were polling who liked what type of music and wanted to also get accurate information on what music people in Montana liked you would over sample people in Montana. On order to fix this you would weigh your raw sample. This is what happens in political polls. In order to get accurate information on subgroups like millennials, African Americans or Hispanics (which tend to by democratic) pollsters over sample Democrats but weigh the raw results to get a accurate number. If pollsters wanted to be corrupt they would just lie about what people spent instead of spending more money making extra calls. When it comes to media bias, while they are the polls are done by independent forms which have a reputation of accuracy and they need to protect that reputation to stay in business.
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