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Why Stalin giving a hockey player a house the other day was not as nice as it seemed

For some reason I was not as enthused about the recent actions of the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin, as the mykhel.com reporter seemed to be:

Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin gifts a house to India hockey player Karthi Selvam on seeing current house condition

Chennai, Nov 30: Rising India hockey player Selvam Karthi has a new abode where he can live with his family. The new house has been gifted to the hockey player by Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin. Stalin recently paid a visit to the Karthi’s house in the Ariyalur district, which is 360 kilometres away from Chennai, and seeing the dilapidated condition of the Indian player’s residence, he gifted him a new house.

I have nothing against sporting achievement being rewarded, but there does seem to be something disturbingly arbitrary about a public servant having the power to give away entire houses to players who have a good debut against New Zealand. Given that Mr Stalin celebrates Social Justice Day, I assume he was not generously donating his own money: the “gifting” was actually done, involuntarily, by the taxpayers of Tamil Nadu. Aside from that, history relates that when sportsmen are lavishly rewarded by political leaders it does not always go well for them in the long run. While I am sure that Karthi Selvam, the young player in question, is happy with his new house, he should remember that what the State giveth, the State can taketh away. I hope for Mr Selvam’s sake that he does not disappoint in his next game.

7 comments to Why Stalin giving a hockey player a house the other day was not as nice as it seemed

  • bobby b

    To each according to his needs; from each according to the assets of those he rules.

    That’s leftism in a nutshell.

  • Mr Ed

    Yet turn up in the UK from, say, France and you get housed and welfare with no searching questions asked.

    Which is the greater entitlement and resourcing problem? I suspect that the UK will collapse economically before Stalin’s State.

    And being head of the Youth wing for 4 decades…. That’s socialism.

  • Paul Marks

    Both main parties in Tamil Nadu are committed to the principle that government exists to “help the people” – they spend as much as they can (never considering the possibility that government spending may be harmful) and pass regulations whenever there is a problem (again the idea that regulations might be harmful is not really considered). But British people should not sneer – for, as Mr Ed has pointed out, the situation is much the same in the United Kingdom. Indeed, government spending and taxation are higher in the United Kingdom than they are in India. And the United Kingdom is also saturated with regulations.

    Lack of respect for private property rights? That was also the case under British rule – and not just under the East India Company (which Edmund Burke spent DECADES denouncing). Even the famous Indian Law Code of 1861 allows government to take land (and so on) whenever it decides it is for the public benefit to do so. This should not surprise us, as the Law Code was inspired by J.S. Mill and the other Philosophical Radicals in Britain (the Westminster Review crowd – James and J.S. Mill, Jeremy Bentham and the rest of the Thomas Hobbes and David Hume lovers) who did not really believe in private property rights in land, or indeed any rights AGAINST the state.

    If one looks at the Constitution of the United States or the Constitutions of the various States they contain Bills of Rights – based on the understanding that rights are prior to government and justly limit governments powers. Thomas Hobbes would redefine the word “right” (destroying its moral content) just as Rousseau (Hobbes in a smiling mask) would, as for Hume, Bentham, the Mills (and so on) they had nothing but contempt for the idea of Natural Law (in the moral sense) or rights AGAINST the State.

  • Paul Marks

    As for debt – the British National Debt is fast approaching 120% of the economy – yes, a fifth bigger than the entire economy. And government spending is GROWING (talk of “spending restraint” is a lie), and the economy is shrinking. Think about that – government spending is going up, and the economy is shrinking, what is that going to do the debt boys and girls?

    The United States debt position is much the same – if not worse.

    So, sadly, we are in no position to sneer at India.

    Private property rights? The new leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives is celebrated for the colour of his skin – but I am more interested in his record, for example his support for “Pacific Park” in his Brooklyn Congressional District – this used to be called “Atlantic Yards” (at least that name got the ocean right – as Brooklyn is thousands of miles away from the Pacific, and “park” is stupid name for a load of buildings) – basically a lot of home owners in Brooklyn had their property stolen and handed over to a Corporation (the daughter of the boss of the Corporation is editor over at the socialist “Nation” magazine – no surprise, Corporate Big Business and the left are not really enemies).

    Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (the son of two government employees – and who was a Corporate Lawyer) supports the project – which even some of the left have doubts about (especially as a leading leftist lost his own home – oh dear, how sad, never mind, perhaps he should reconsider his anti private property rights Huffington Post ideology).

    So, what were we saying about India?

    Nor is any of this new or just confined to the Democrats.

    The person who destroyed so many private homes and business enterprises in Albany (Capital of New York State), turning the place into the mess it now is, was a “Republican” – Nelson Rockefeller, back in the 1960s.

  • Peter MacFarlane

    The chief minister of Tamil Nadu is called Stalin?

    How wonderful.

    Even if the headline did give me a slight frisson on first reading…

  • Steven R

    I think it’s funny. Over there that guy is a national field hockey hero to the point that he gets a house. Here in the States, field hockey is limited to High School and College girls teams and isn’t thought of by anyone.

    But when I read the headline, I figured it was going to be about some guy that they just found living in deepest, darkest Siberia who go a house from a different Stalin for being a hockey star and was forgotten about or something.

  • Paul Marks

    Peter MacFarlane – yes he is. Named by his father – who met Stalin a few days before the new baby was born.

    But both main parties in Tamil Nadu support “Social Justice” (i.e. endless spending and regulations and no real respect for private property rights) – but then so do many political parties in other countries, we in the United Kingdom can NOT justly sneer at India or the State of Tamil Nadu, for reasons I have already explained.

    I would argue that our level of statism is worse (yes worse) than their level if statism – that was NOT true when I was born, but it is true now.