Shalala made an unforced error when she called herself in an October TV interview a “pragmatic socialist,” which her opponent gleefully used in a late attack ad. Shalala clearly misspoke; in the same interview she said, “I’m as far from being a socialist as anyone that you’ll ever meet. I’m a capitalist.” But while it was disingenuous for her opponent to use the truncated clip, if Shalala had a deeper connection with her district, the attack wouldn’t have stuck so easily.Still, if I'd heard Shalala make both those statements, it would take more than the press or her opponent being fair to her to make me think she could be trusted in office. One or the other, if not both, has to be a lie or pandering, if not both.
Is the "Socialist" tag unfair?
I didn't follow the Florida races closely, so I have no idea whether the press or the Republicans callously misrepresented Donna Shalala, as Bill Scher asserts.
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I mean, I wouldn't have voted for her regardless of what I heard her say, because I remember Donna Shalala. You can't talk me into believing you're a different person than I know you to be.
That was the problem Mitt Romney had with trying to get me to vote for him, too. I can see what you've spent your life doing and reason from that. What you tell me you're absolutely committed to doing in the future is of no weight against what I can see that you've worked hard to accomplish.
Or it might mean she thinks the two statements are not incompatible. that would be another reason not to vote for her.
According to Ballotpedia, a couple of things that Shalala supported were
-Expand restrictions on online campaign ads
-Mandate federal approval before some states can change voting practices
Expanding central control of citizens' behavior and what we're allowed to say is a necessary step for socialism.
From her platform:
-COAST Anti-Drilling Act which would ban drilling for oil or natural gas off the coast of Florida forever.
-increase the federal minimum wage
-her Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act of 2019
-supports vastly expanded government spending on health "care" and the nationalization of our health care and health care coverage industries
These are classic government control aspects of socialism.
Further from her platform:
-pushed the 1994 assault weapons ban
-[pushed for] High-Speed Gunfire Prevention Act, and the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019
Government dictating the purposes for which Government will permit Americans to have firearms and otherwise disarming us are further classic entry criteria of socialism.
Shalala was right the first time. When she "misspoke" was when she claimed to be a capitalist. That term doesn't mean what she thinks it means.
Eric Hines
Yes, confusion in her mind is always a possibility. Actually a certainty, but that she's genuinely confused about this particular issue is harder to accept at face value.
Of course, I say that, but the level of public discourse about the economy has become so deranged that I sometimes wonder if people mean anything in particular by "capitalism" and "socialism." For many people, the first means "not very nice" and the latter "warm and fuzzy." Maybe "capitalism" means "letting people who've saved money have a say in what the money is invested in" to some of us and to others it means "pile hatred on laborers." "Socialism" to some means tyrants who will starve their people before they admit their system destroys prosperity, while to others it means "bridal shower (where I'm always the bride)."
Of course I always say that price signals are the essence of capitalism and are very useful for long-distance communication among strangers of important information about scarce resources with alternative uses, while socialism can dispense with formal price signals as long as it's practiced in a small, cohesive group with high levels of trust and enough mutual affection that everyone genuinely wants the happiness of the others as much as he wants his own. The question is which of those two fact patterns best describes a town, let alone a country.
the problem Mitt Romney had
HAS.
Donna Shalala turns 80 in 3 months. That is reason enough to not vote for her. She is of Lebanese ancestry. As there is a VERY strong entrepreneurial tinge to the Lebanese in this country, that would support a pro-capitalist orientation. Her 50 years in academia and in Democrat administrations, including 2 years as President of the Clinton Foundation, indicate to me that she is going to follow the Democrat agenda 100%.
Here is some disturbing information about her time as Chancelor at U Wisconsin-Madison. (1988-1993)
Under Shalala's chancellorship and with her support, the university adopted a broad speech code subjecting students to disciplinary action for communications that were perceived as hate speech. That speech code was later found unconstitutional by a federal judge.[20] Also while chancellor, Shalala supported passage of a revised faculty speech code broadly restricting "harmful" speech in both "noninstructional" and "instructional" settings. The faculty speech code was abolished ten years later, after a number of professors were investigated for alleged or suspected violations.[21]
No one who foists a "hate speech" code on a university has my support. She paved the way for the speech tyranny endemic in universities today. She is just one more hyper-regulatory Democrat who believes that each government regulation brings us closer to Nirvana.
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