My Facebook friends are solemnly mourning the death of John McCain, a man whose presidential bid they opposed in 2008 (they cheered when Madonna compared McCain to Hitler (US News)). Here’s an example post (from a woman who is not in her “first youth”):
Greatest human being of all mankind. Thank you for many years of service. Rest in peace, Senator McCain.
Much of this seems to be based on McCain voting against an advertised “repeal” of Obamacare. Yet this vote to continue pouring tax dollars into the health care industry did not cost McCain anything personally. Most of his wealth was based on the $350 million beer distributorship founded by his second wife’s father. The profits from this corporation are distributed directly to owners and don’t go through the Obamacare 3.8 percent tax on dividends (see this 2008 nytimes article, which notes that the distributorship is an S Corp (also that Wife #2 for McCain got a prenup to guard against paying a Wife #3)). So McCain had nothing at stake personally and voted to spend other folks’ tax dollars on an arguably worthy program. If that qualifies him for “greatest human being of all mankind” then plainly there is no hope for a fiscal conservative in our national pantheon!
[McCain did vote for the Trump 2017 corporate tax bill (nytimes), which cut McCain’s personal tax rate on pass-through income.]
This seems to be a bipartisan phenomenon, as evidenced by “The Forgotten Man, Ted Kennedy, and Warren Buffett“:
I thought about this the other day when a friend’s wife was praising Ted Kennedy as a paragon of charity and good will towards America’s young and unfortunate. It occurred to me that voting to spend other folks’ tax dollars is not necessarily an indication of personal virtue. A politician in a liberal state such as Massachusetts might do that merely in order to get votes and not out of any sympathy for the common man. As Ted Kennedy has spent virtually all of his personal wealth on personal consumption of mansions, private jets, women, booze, etc., any help that he has provided to Americans has come at the expense of the “forgotten man” paying taxes. Ted’s own contributions to charity have been minimal (source).
Calvin Coolidge was never called a hero for vetoing an expensive farm subsidy bill. Grover Cleveland (a Democrat) was not a hero for vetoing dozens of spending programs.
Are we pretty much doomed to deficit spending if the American public swoons with grief at every death of a politician who voted to bury our country a little deeper in debt? Homer chronicled how ancient Greeks were motivated to fight and die for kleos. When earning kleos is as simple as voting to spend money that someone else earns, who could resist that?
Related:
- “Why do women love John McCain?” (“Why would these women celebrate a guy who divorced his crippled-by-a-car-accident wife to marry a rich woman 18 years his junior?”)
- “Can we congratulate ourselves for U.S. Government aid to Haiti?” (“If I borrow your car and donate it to charity, does that make me a charitable person?”)
- “Wile E. Coyote tax and tariff policy” (“How about McCain? His [2008 Presidential Campaign] economic plan starts off with a section by Wile E. Coyote. He is going to cut gas taxes. He wants to tax renters to help homeowners. He wants to put more money into student loans (most of which ends up inflating the cost of attending college). He wants to tax people who suffer from infertility to give big tax credits to parents blessed with a bunch of children (combined with the gas tax holiday, that family of six can finally help boost the economy by buying a 7-passenger SUV). Buried after a couple of pages is a section that Ronald Reagan might have written, proposing to cut taxes in order to generate economic growth. The apparent schizophrenia is not addressed.”)
We do have a president who is working for free!
I am not mourning. I flew the flag at FULL MAST.
@ toucan sam:
Trump DOES NOT work for free. He gets $1.
NBC had the most fitting tribute to this wanker:
McCain was a destructive anti-American traitor, which accounts for his popularity with the anti-American media.
We expect modern liberal Democrats to work to abolish America. So Nancy Pelosi is an ordinary hero to the media, like Moshe Dayan is an ordinary hero because we expect Israeli Jews to fight for Israel. But an Arizona Republican would be expected to at least have pity on his constituents who have suffered greatly from the unending flood of illegals that he aided and abetted, but McCain defied expectations and did everything in his considerable power to destroy America, holding key positions on most issues indistinguishable from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. By violating expectations McCain transcended mere heroism and ascended to anti-American sainthood: he is the Corrie ten Boom of anti-Americanism.
(it’s also been written that he was shot down 4 times, mostly due to being a hothead and violating orders…one wonders if he would have been forced out of aviation sooner if his father had not been an admiral)
Reading on McCain’s flying background, it sounds like he was a complete screw up and a danger to everybody.
“He tried to fly his propeller-driven A-1 fighter-bomber under a row of pylon-supported electric power lines. ”
“By his own admission, then, McCain failed to follow instructions in combat. He did not try to evade the missile.”
http://www.pythiapress.com/wartales/McCain-Shootdown.htm
McCain distinguished himself early in his life by his character in particular his record as a POW and later in his life by being a thorn in trump’s side. The Liberal Lion also distinguished himself by being born into a wealthy family and then by his character, first getting thrown out of school for cheating, later drunkenly driving a young girl off a bridge and leaving her to drown while he got political advice.
@dwight looi
Wouldn’t it violate the Federal minimum wage law for Trump not to make at least minimum wage? And aren’t people like Larry and Sergie, who take a $1 salary, also violating minimum wage laws?
@ RBJ Yeah… now that I come to think of it, Trump paying himself $1 is illegal. IMPEACH!
John McCain is a warmongering TRAITOR who betrayed everything he ran on. This is the scum who prevented the repeal of Obamacare. This is the dickhead who refused to resign after he is physically incapable of serving in the Senate. This is the moron who crashed two planes before he even got out of flight school. This is the idiot who burned the super carrier Forestall to the ground. This is the retard whose greatest accomplishment is to be shot down. This is the asshole who championed every foreign war however retarded the objectives. I have NO RESPECT, NO SYMPATHY and NO EMPATHY for John McCain. His illness and death will not change that. The USA is better off with his demise. I stand by this statement.
Dwight: Can’t he be somewhere in between “Greatest human being of all mankind” and “warmongering TRAITOR”? In fact, isn’t it probable that, like most of us, he actually does fall somewhere in the middle? A motivation to gain fame and adulation by spending other people’s money is a recognizably human characteristic.
Dwight Looi
Did you forget your meds today?