Arthur Brooks, the outstanding president of the American Enterprise Institute (and co-author, with me, of a forthcoming monograph on capitalism and morality), published a Wall Street Journal op-ed on fairness that ends this way:
There is nothing inherently fair about equalizing incomes. If the government penalizes you for working harder than somebody else, that is unfair. If you save your money but retire with the same pension as a free-spending neighbor, that is also unfair.
Real fairness, as most of us see it, does not mean bringing the top down. Yes, free markets tend to produce unequal incomes. We should not be ashamed of that. On the contrary, our system is the envy of the world and should be a source of pride. Generation after generation, it has rewarded hard work and good values, education and street smarts. It has offered the world’s most disadvantaged not government redistribution but a chance to earn their success.
That is true fairness, American-style.
One of the reasons Brooks’ piece is important is because he places economic issues in a moral frame and, rather than running away from the charge of “fairness” – which has been used as a battering ram against conservatives for decades – Brooks takes it head on and turns it to the advantage of conservatives. Brooks’ article helps explain why, in the words of Tocqueville, “equality in liberty” is vastly preferable, both economically and morally, to “equality in restraint and servitude.”
Call it true equality, American-style.
Obama is for oil drilling about as much as the DC city council is for gun rights.
The O-n will find a way to square this circle, Unbelievers.
I have trod close to sacrilege. Make that The O-e.
Banjo — How about “El Unamundo”?
Obama will square this circle with the caveat the Democrats’ Congressional spokesmen keep slipping in on us: REAL “conservation” measures, to go with our zealous drilling.
Not saying he (or the Congressional Democrats) will GET those measures passed. But they’re going to demand them. What will they look like?
I’m guessing the insistence on another national 55 mph speed limit will surface like a brown trout in a sewer. It will be hard to find a lot of other measures that don’t impinge directly on people’s wallets, but you can bet there will be rumblings about everything from “luxury user” fees (e.g., punitive fees to fill your boat’s tank), to remote thermostat controls.
Cap-and-trade, of course, will be a biggie. People have no idea how seriously that’s going to hit them in the wallet, and interfere with such luxury practices as keeping the house warm enough for small children and Granny — or how much it will make luxury goods like gallons of milk and loaves of bread increase in price.
And, of course, keeping the trough for the hogs of “renewable energy” to slop at topped off, courtesy of vous and moi. Betcha the Dems will want to increase the federal excise tax on gasoline. Plus borrow against the fourth generation of our America’s future, to purchase more ethanol, lay out some solar panels in the desert, and put up more windmills.
We will need to keep our surveillance running at max efficiency, against the day when Obama and his cohort square the drilling circle. They’ll try to hold it hostage to Al Gore’s plan for us to be all weaned off fossil fuels by December, or whatever it is.
Senator Obama “would consider” offshore drilling under his terms. In other words, in typical Barry-speak, he is trying to stick his finger in the dike to stem the tide rolling in favor of offshore drilling.
It’s his way of saying, during an upcoming debate, that he is (was) in favor of it while keeping his donors and friends happy (by taxing “big oil”).
We should expect no differ from a race baiting Chicago pol.
Its the same pattern. Obama would be in support of designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, but never voted for it. Also entertaining ideas or large German crowds, but never taking a stand or action for a core belief.
President Bush should stop laboring for his legacy and show a bit of leadership by calling Congress into emergency session to enact an effective energy program. Republicans are allowing a winning issue to slip away. Congress could be retaken and McCain put in the White House if only President Buish and the Republican “leadership” would JUST WAKE UP.
Did you hear an echo of another, returning from Germany, in Obama’s exhortation today to be free from oil IN OUR TIME? Who is writing his speeches? A Hillary saboteur?