I’ve heard of fear-mongering before but this latest example from Vice President Joe Biden takes the proverbial cake:
If the Republicans don’t pass this bill, then rape will continue to rise. Murder will continue to rise; rape will continue to rise; all crime will continue to rise.
This is despicable and cheap.
Think about it. Any congressman could propose a bill today requiring that the federal government spend 20 trillion dollars to hire more policeman and wait for his political opponents to oppose it. And when they do – which, of course, they will because it’s an absurd bill – simply accuse them of wanting to see more women get raped.
It’s despicable and cheap.
Government spending is about trade-offs. We could spend all of the taxpayers’ money on hiring and posting an armed policeman at every street corner in America. Surely, this would reduce crime, including rape, right?
Of course, it would.
But I would be willing to bet fifty corn rows that Mr. Biden would oppose the measure. And when he did, were I as dishonest and mean-spirited as he is, I would simply accuse him of wanting to see more women get raped.
Shame on you, Mr. Vice President. Shame, shame, shame on you.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Cindy Maguire // Oct 20, 2011 at 10:17 am
NO SHAME ON YOU PETE!!! You are spreading a complete and utter lie and you know it. The VP NEVER said that women would be raped if the Republicans in Congress don’t pass the Jobs bill. What he said is that in Flint MI, where the city laid off police to cut their budgets in stead of raising revenue. The the rate of rape has gone up 3 times. Murder, Rape and Burglary are all up significantly in Flint since the layoff. Pete…. you are deliberately spreading a lie, and you should be ashamed!
2 Cindy Maguire // Oct 20, 2011 at 10:19 am
How dare you spread this lie about our sitting VP. You know good and well what VP Biden said. He said ” Murder is up; rape is up; burglary is up”. Where the city of Flint, MI has laid off police officers to cut the budget. Seriously, Pete… this is a disgrace, for you to put this on FB, knowing that the VP never said what you accuse him of saying!
3 Xerographica // Oct 21, 2011 at 5:22 am
The economic term for trade-offs is “opportunity cost”. In a pragmatarian system where each and every taxpayer was forced to consider the opportunity costs of their tax allocation decisions…I wonder what the impact would be of such fear-mongering.
What percentage of taxpayers would seriously fall for such tactics? A fool in his money are soon parted so most taxpayers aren’t fools.
If any women did fall for this tactic…what other public goods would they be wiling to forgo in order to allocate more of their individual taxes to the police?
This tactic is pretty old though. Here’s a passage from Frédéric Bastiat’s essay on opportunity cost…What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen…
“But, by an inference as false as it is unjust, do you know what the economists are now accused of? When we oppose subsidies, we are charged with opposing the very thing that it was proposed to subsidize and of being the enemies of all kinds of activity, because we want these activities to be voluntary and to seek their proper reward in themselves. Thus, if we ask that the state not intervene, by taxation, in religious matters, we are atheists. If we ask that the state not intervene, by taxation, in education, then we hate enlightenment. If we say that the state should not give, by taxation, an artificial value to land or to some branch of industry, then we are the enemies of property and of labor. If we think that the state should not subsidize artists, we are barbarians who judge the arts useless.”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html
Frédéric was arguing against taxes themselves but his concept of opportunity cost also applies to allowing individual taxpayers to directly choose which GOs receive their taxes.
4 Peter // Oct 21, 2011 at 9:37 am
Cindy,
I merely quoted the man.
Not only did he say it, he doubled down when asked if he said it.
Biden wants Americans to think that Republicans care more about beating Obama than whether or not women get raped.
You’re being naive if you don’t think that was his message.
I can’t understand why you’re suprised. Democrats have run actual commercials claiming that Republicans, Paul Ryan in particular, want to toss old women off of cliffs.
These tactics aren’t new.
5 Peter // Oct 21, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Cindy,
Give me a break. You know exactly what he said and what he meant.
Clearly, he was saying that without the Jobs Bill more women would be raped. That was the gist of his point. We need to pass the Jobs Bill to save women from rape. He even said that he wished Republicans knew what it felt like to have a 200 pound man standing over them demanding they submit.
You are in denial.
6 LawStudent // Oct 24, 2011 at 5:41 pm
Cindy,
Quoted from VP Biden: “If the Republicans don’t pass this bill, then rape will continue to rise.”
and then Cindy writes: “The VP NEVER said that women would be raped if the Republicans in Congress don’t pass the Jobs bill[.]”
Do you see the problem with your assertion?
7 Mike Miller // Oct 29, 2011 at 10:15 am
Funny, I recall Obama making numerous disparaging comments about the Republicans using the “politics of fear.” Personally, I think pointing out all the horrific things that will happen if the other guy wins is perfectly appropriate, but if you claim to think otherwise, a little consistency would be nice.
8 Peter // Oct 31, 2011 at 6:37 am
Mike,
That’s my point. Democrats regularly accuse Republicans of fear-mongering then they turn around and fear-mong. That, in my book, makes them hypocrites.
And there is a big difference between telling the American people, as Republicans do, that terrorism is a real threat to this country and telling the American people, as Democrats do, that if they don’t agree with you they are promoting the rape of women or the tossing of old people off cliffs.
Yes, a little consistency would be nice.
9 Glenn // Nov 22, 2011 at 3:37 am
Cindy,
Not only did Biden clearly infer that if the jobs bill wasn’t passed that murders will continue to rise, rapes will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise, but when he was confronted about it minutes afterward, he doubled down on his assertion and reiterated the very same thing once again before his handlers realized he had just committed yet another major Biden gaffe.
Watch for yourself and stop giving people a hard time for accurately reporting what the VP actually did. – http://youtu.be/fxxotkX9ZOo