But Obamacare is not really about medicine. It is rather aimed at absorbing more of the private sector—once more, to create a vast new constituency of government workers and beneficiaries, to ensure an equality of result in treatment and access, and to replace private health insurers with public bureaucrats. (I got a taste of the future of the government octopus when I went yesterday to a California DMV office, and noticed that all the state employees at the windows had on purple union T-shirts with “organize” and “solidarity” emblazoned across them.)
I Could No More Disown Van Jones Than . . . Victor Davis Hanson:
When Van Jones talks of the aims of the civil rights movement and its initial minimalist agenda, he references the ultimate desire of ‘redistributing all wealth.’ When one collates that revelation with Obama’s own off-handed “spread the wealth” comment, his ‘fair share’ sermons, and his 2001 public radio interview thoughts on “the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society,” we begin to see a pattern in which one’s income and wealth do not properly belong to the earner, but are seen as illegitimate and thus legitimately can be redistributed to others.
Not even Adam Smith—who was a moral philosopher, after all—imagined capitalism operating in such an ethical vacuum. Bailout plans, new regulatory schemes, and monetary policy moves won’t be enough to spur a robust, long-term revival of American economic opportunity without some renewal of what was once understood as the work ethic—not just hard work but also a set of accompanying virtues, whose crucial role in the development and sustaining of free markets too few now recall.
It’s rare to find reason to praise Newsweek Magazine. But in the July 20 issue, they revealed a little something about the high cost of taking too much from the rich.
Quote: “Trickle-down economics is a despised phrase and concept to many, but it also embodies a harsh reality.” (Note the word: reality.) Continuing: “The rich often play a pivotal role in U.S. economic growth, and if they are enfeebled, then the consequences are widespread.”
The trouble with slowing the engine of the train is that the caboose slows down too; it doesn’t get anywhere faster. The problem with Obama’s plan to send all the bills for his every scheme to the rich is all the collateral damage.
The great issue between the two political communities is how they feel about the nature of American society. With all exceptions duly noted, I think it fair to say that what liberals mainly see when they look at this country is injustice and oppression of every kind—economic, social and political. By sharp contrast, conservatives see a nation shaped by a complex of traditions, principles and institutions that has afforded more freedom and, even factoring in periodic economic downturns, more prosperity to more of its citizens than in any society in human history. It follows that what liberals believe needs to be changed or discarded—and apologized for to other nations—is precisely what conservatives are dedicated to preserving, reinvigorating and proudly defending against attack.