There’s nothing like a little employer-induced fearmongering to get folks motivated to vote…
The super-rich guy who claims he’s the one who got George W. Bush elected is doing everything he can to make sure Mitt Romney wins in November too.
David Siegel, the founder and CEO of giant timeshare company Westgate resorts, sent an opus-like email to his workers, railing against one-percent bashing and arguing that the president’s reelection would “threaten your job.” In the email, obtained by Gawker, Siegel goes on to write:
If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company.
Westgate Resorts is in big financial trouble, swirling down the bankruptcy drain after overbuilding in Las Vegas. Siegel is trying to take the attention off his incompetent management by blaming Obama for the firms financial troubles. This is typical for rich Republicans, you know, the ones who complain that the rest of us moochers don’t take responsibility for our lives. Just one example:
http://www.lvrj.com/business/troubled-lv-project-co-stars-in-movie-171308621.html
Do a Google search using “Westgate Resorts Bankruptcy”, “Westgate Resorts Scandal” or “Westgate Resorts Consumer Complaints” to get the full picture this timeshare scam that the Republican controlled press won’t give you.
Many of his employees will be losing their jobs regardless of who is elected President or they will be working for the banks that take over his developments.
To justify his position this extortionist perpetuates one of the Jefferson lies so oft employed in legitimizing a Galtian perspective – a perspective that Jefferson did not share. Siegal writes:
“Thomas Jefferson, the author of our great Constitution, once said, ‘democracy’ will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.’
Jefferson NEVER said this. This is subversive distortion from those who would rewrite history. This earliest source for this quote is 1986; it is in none of Jefferson’s writings, letters, or speeches. It appears to be a twisted contortionist mangling of marginalia from Jefferson’s copy of Destutt’s Treatise on Political Economy (which itself has major translation issues, but that’s another story). Anyway, point being Siegal’s quote is WRONG and it is PROPAGANDA.
Jefferson did write this, however, to Thaddeus Kosciusko on April 13, 1811, concerning the preservation of the American republic:
“If it can still be preserved we shall soon see the final extinction of our national debt, and liberation of our revenues for the defence and the improvement of our country. These revenues will be levied entirely on the rich, the business of household manufacture being now so established that the farmer and laborer clothe themselves entirely. The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. The poor man who uses nothing but what is made in his own farm or family, or within his own country, pays not a farthing of tax to the general government, but on his salt; and should we go into that manufacture also, as is probable, he will pay nothing. Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools etc. the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without being called on to spend a cent of his earnings. However, therefore, we may have been reproached for pursuing our Quaker system, time will affix the stamp of wisdom on it, and the happiness and prosperity of our citizens will attest its merit. And this, I believe, is the only legitimate object of government, and the first duty of governors, and not the slaughter of men and devastation of the countries placed under their care, in pursuit of fantastic honour, unallied to virtue or happiness; or in gratification of the angry passions, or the pride of administrators, excited by personal incidents, in which their citizens have no concern.”
Siegel and all those inclined to fall prey to his social extortion would do well to enlighten themselves by noting that one of the principles Jefferson invokes here (taxing excessive wealth for redistributive purposes and for paying down national debt) comes straight from Adam Smith.
Some reminders on Smith:
“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
Like Jefferson, Smith warned against the worshipping the wealthy and heaping honors upon them:
“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise, or at least neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”
Siegal goes to great pains in this letter to paint himself as industrious and one who works so very hard – the typical Galtian burden complex – let it be known for what it is – Siegel is Atlas shrugging NOT NOT NOT an example of Jefferson’s concept of virtuous industry exemplified by common people. Siegal’s vision of government is NOT NOT NOT anything near to resembling Jefferson’s notion of government.