Ocasio Cortez – Billionaires Immoral Because Jock Itch

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• And ring worm existed for thousands of years prior to there being a system which allowed billionaires, or Alabama, to exist. So I wonder what caused it back then?

  • Same forces that caused climate change before SUVs.

• Oh, Mr Worstall! And you were doing so well....

  On the web you will (occasionally) find serious discussion of divergent points of view. And you will also (often) find mindless intentional misunderstanding of opposing viewpoints designed to raise a cheap laugh at your opponents expense. This item is an example of the latter.

  Miss Ocasio-Cortez did NOT say that that a system which allows billionaires to exist is immoral because of ringworm. Nor did she 'mean' this. What she said was that a system which allows billionaires to exist while other people do not have access to basic health services due to poverty is immoral - using ringworm as a typical example of an easily preventable disease.

  Now, there are many reasonable responses which can be made to that assertion - which is a common argument for socialism.. There are issues of freedom and of practicality to be made. There are counter-examples of systems which try enforce levelling of income but which fail, and examples of level-income systems where ringworm and other avoidable diseases are still prevalent. But you did not make any of those. Instead, you misquoted her words in an attempt to characterise her, and her supporters, as mindless.

  There are so many things wrong with this approach I am not sure where to begin to describe them. it fosters an 'us and them' mentality, which is not conducive to rational thought. It encourages opponents to reply in kind, and lower any sensible discussion to a shouting match. It allows Miss Ocasio-Cortez to present you as an uncaring supporter of extreme privilege - by avoiding answering her point you have ceded ground to her. Worse - lowering the rationality of the argument to an exchange of invalid insults diminishes the impact of anyone who wants to engage in sensible debate.

  • Ringworm isn't an easily preventable disease. It's an easily treated and very common infection. It's athletes' foot for goodness sake. People get it from wrestling competitions as well. It's also entirely cheap to treat. Off prescription creams costing cents do it. Wibbling about billionaires and ringworm is nonsense. It's like claiming that the existence of Bill Gates causes nits.

    • Please don't compound your error by repeating it. My point was that Miss Ocasio-Cortez did NOT say that the existence of billionaires caused ringworm. She made the common socialist point that society should not have billionaires while people were too poor to afford healthcare - a good emotional tactic. Ringworm was picked to raise the emotional stakes somewhat, but really the particular ailment picked is irrelevant to the point, as is how common or preventable it is. Wibbling about what she did not say is a strawman response, and cedes the point.

      IIRC, didn't you comment a little while ago to someone who complained about food wastage that in reality the market driven food provision system we have is a paragon of efficiency, and any attempt to improve it would almost certainly make it worse? That is the sort of reply which addresses the issue squarely and points out the fallacy inherent in much of the idealism of socialist thinking. And not responding in that way leaves your opponent in possession of the field.....

      • Would getting rid of billionaires get rid of tinea?

        Did the Soviets get rid of tinea?

        Ms Cortez's contentions don't make any sense to me either, I'm afraid.

        • Then why don't you read them?

          It is quite clear that she is NOT claiming that billionaires cause ringworm. She is making a common complaint about the uneven distribution of wealth in society. This is such a standard left wing point to make that I'm surprised you don't understand it.

          There are a number of reasonable responses which could be made to it; your second point is a good example of one - that socialist societies do not seem to manage to maintain health care any better. I just wish that such a response could have been made initially, rather than just poking fun at her...

• One of the easiest ways of getting jock itch is being diabetic and doing lots of sweaty exercise and not washing the groin area properly. Easily solved by using Sulphur soap or over the counter clotrimazole.

• What is it about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that makes her critics so eager and willing to beclown themselves?

  • Possibly the disconnection between her dicta and reality.

    "Ocasio-Cortez is ideologue. She can’t “lose” and she is not humbled when she cannot answer a simple policy question or is abjectly wrong about a subject, because she thinks ideologically. Her answers, outlook, and attitude are predetermined absolutely, because they are all derivations of an ideology that is utterly shock-proof. There is no experiment, fact-check, or body of evidence potent enough to disarm her, plainly because a person who thinks ideologically will not be allow themselves to be refuted.”

    What is it about AOC that makes her acolytes so eager and willing to be-clown themselves?

    • I mean, come on, this article is really dumb. There's no need for her critics to go down the same path as her supporters with misrepresentation and lowest-common-denominator appeals to our base instincts. If one's complaint is a lack of fact-checking or evidence for her views, then provide fact-checking and evidence -- not this kind of garbage.

      • Are you claiming that AOC didn't specifically mention ringworm, as she is quoted as saying? Because, if she did say it, it seems perfectly reasonable to point out that she doesn't know what she's talking about.