Examining Right Wing Rhetoric in Memes

How accurate, or true are Right Wing memes?

Regardless of one’s political beliefs, party affiliation, or ideological inclination, it’s always good to consider the truth of statements in memes that – like flotsam and jetsam – are dispersed throughout the Internet… particularly upon Social Media sites such as FaceBook, and Twitter. And unfortunately, in many cases, they are the veritable garbage, the effluent detritus of communication.

So… let’s examine some of the argument in the meme seen here, and see if it still holds water.

Government has necessary services, and provides the same.

Consider road construction as one example.

To create & build roads (which themselves increase opportunity) government must purchase things – raw materials, and manpower, among them.

Now… exactly where is any “government factory” for that, eh?

That’s correct – there is NONE.

EVERYTHING “we the people” by and through our government – at ALL LEVELS, Federal, State, and Local – purchase comes from the Private Sector!

EVERYTHING!

Consider also what may be the greatest example of the same as evidenced by the “Alphabet Agencies” created by FDR during the Great Depression – notable among them (for purposes of this illustration), the TVA, and CCC.

Creating the TVA brought Rural Electrification to the impoverished Tennessee Valley, which also improved health, increased commerce, provided jobs and opportunity within and without. The Civilian Conservation Corps brought income to the men and women it hired…. money in the pockets of  people and businesses.

Now, you tell me: Did that provide Jobs, and Opportunity, or not?

The OBVIOUS answer is “YES,” it did create wealth.

Show me one business or individual whom would turn down a Government Contract – for either Federal, State, or Local Government. For example, in Huntsville, Alabama alone, there are NUMEROUS Federal Contractors – Private Businesses (some Publicly Traded on Wall $treet) – which very existence is exclusively predicated upon Government Contract.

However – and to be certain – it is misguided to assert that is an exclusive role of Government, or that it cannot be done without its help. It is merely one adjunct function.

Archives screenshot of The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, IA, showing David Lienemann’s photograph of the wrecking ball destruction of a Beisser Lumber building in Coralville, Iowa in 2006. The image was used in a meme by the “Bastiat Institute,” (Bastiat Institute FaceBook page) an organization promoting extremist right-wing ideals.

NOW… here’s something REALLY interesting!

David Lienemann, the photographer who made that image of the wrecking ball demolition of the Beisser Lumber Co. building in Coralville in 2006 for The Gazette is now the is Vice President Joe Biden’s Official White House Photographer.

I wonder… did the “Bastiat Institute” use the image with permission, or did they steal it?

“Workers from Peterson Contractors Incorporated out of Reinbeck, Iowa use a wrecking ball to demolish the Beisser Lumber Company building along Highway 6, in Coralville, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2006.”