Such efforts at commonality are what we are now witnessing with income take hikes, $1.7 trillion dollar deficits, inflationary federal spending and borrowing, along with huge new entitlements. Its extreme form is the European Union, its extreme, extreme manifestations are the failed -isms and -ologies of the bloody 20th century where authoritarian elites broke the requisite eggs for the omelet of “for the people” and in service to “equality.”
The Tragic
Or instead of the therapeutic mode, we get the tragic acceptance of innate inequality combined with the notion of personal responsibility to care for one’s fellow citizen.
That is, in the American version of equality of opportunity, we accept some will always end up poor, some rich, some in-between due to factors both in, and beyond, our control. But rather than sacrifice liberty to use the coercive powers of the state to enforce equality, we set a foundation at the bottom, a safety net to ensure a minimum level of support for the poor, and laws at the top to prevent buccaneering and piratical behavior–in theory.
Then the tragic view accepts that some will be very wealthy, but assumes that the race for individual riches will, first, create greater prosperity for society at large (the much caricatured “trickle down”). And, two, a host of private mechanisms exists to channel individual bounty back for the general welfare: the status; and/or sense of right of giving to non-profits, charities, etc; the shame of living it up to an excessive degree; the patriotic call upon one to invest their riches in the public good; the informal practice of lending and giving to family and friends, etc. In other words, millions risk dying to leave temperate, naturally rich equality of result Mexico to enter the once equality of opportunity United States.
Been there, done that
It seems to me that on three occasions during the last seventy-five years we have someone who really did believe in the therapeutic, equality of result-FDR, LBJ, and Jimmy Carter (Truman, JFK and Clinton proved to be centrists in comparison).
FDR had the rhetorical gifts and personal genius to implement such an agenda; LBJ and Carter tried, but were inept and poor messengers. And now we have a fourth avatar, who, given the current alignment of the planets, has a real chance to complete the FDR mandate-not in the dark days of the Great Depression replete with real want and starvation, but in a recession during the greatest age of affluence in the history of civilization-making both success and failure obsolete, and turning us into a sort of egalitarian polis much like Sweden or France.
I Don’t Owe You Any More
Turn on the radio: ads blare out how to renounce mortgage debt; get out of maxed out credit-cards; short the IRS; be eligible for a subsidized government loan, or new entitlement. Other ‘buy gold’ ads warn: plenty of danger, but no money in passbook accounts, stocks, real estate, as the debtor gains on the creditor, and capital earns little in comparison to protected salaries. To match a $100, 000 government salary (as an upper-level bureaucrat), the despised capitalist, at a 2% interest payout on his stash, would need $5 million in accumulated cash: advantage bureaucrat.
Ironies galore
Obama rather brilliantly counts on two great constituencies (other than the professional Ivy League technocracy whose responsibility is to figure out how to borrow and tax the money, lavish it on constituencies, and do rather well themselves as government overseers). One is the hyper-rich, the Kerrys, the Soroses, the Gateses, and their appendages in universities, government, foundations, and the media. These power players either make enough to be unconcerned with high taxation, or are so well connected politically (cf. the machinations of a Daschle, Dodd, Geithner, Rangel, ) that the coercive state rules simply do not apply.
Instead the hyper-wealthy receive a sort of psychic gratification in helping the ‘poor’, and romanticizing the underprivileged, thereby alleviating the guilt of being blessed, and at relative small cost-and so they quite enthusiastically support the equality of result state.
Again, the poor present no challenge, offer no threat to the hyper-wealthy, but are thankful client recipients of ensured government largess. In contrast, the fellow elites have the necessary taste and education to satisfy the demands of aristocratic society.
And the Upper Middle Class?
But those in between, and especially those of the upper-middle class–the hardware store owner, the dentist, the paving contractor, the successful restaurateur, the real estate agent? These grasping who wish and aspire and may reach a mythical $250,000 salary some day (again, the threshold where one becomes the hated “they”), well now, they are not poor, need no government or private help, and offer no psychological alleviation of guilt to the elite. Romanticize a gardener or farm worker, or even clerk or teacher, but how does one mythologize a successful optometrist or insurance agent?
And yet they are not usually sophisticated in the snobbish sense, not opera- goers, not familiar with museums, not symphony buffs. Their children don’t necessarily attend Stanford or Harvard. In other words, they are near-to-wells, wannabees, without requisite culture, deserving of neither cultural awe and acceptance nor noblisse oblige.
A leftist elitist would always prefer the dubious (and now upscale, tax avoiding) huckster Al Sharpton, Tawana Brawley and all, to Sarah Palin, former mayor of Wasilla and Idaho U. graduate. Joe the Plumber, the Cuban upper-middle class of Miami, the local talk show host, anyone who wants to get ahead, but shows so visibly the scars of the struggle to do so, lacks the refinement and taste of the more affluent, yet is in the crosshairs of the Obama revolution.
The only impediment to our new polis? There are not simply enough of these entrepreneurial dinosaurs to pay the taxes to feed the new $3.6 trillion annual beast. One can take all the income of the $250,000 “them”, and their won’t be enough to pay down the $9 trillion in new debt.
In short, Bush = lower taxes, more spending, and more debt; Clinton = higher taxes, more spending, and less debt;
Obama = more taxes, more spending, and a lot more debt—and the same old dream that we can make everyone equal in the end—or else!
Truer words were never spoken.
This is the best blog.
Interesting thoughts, professor, and a nicely formulated reminder of the different idea of liberty and equality that the US has worked from, compared to the rest of the world.
It really is unique for a people to commit to not writing envy of their neighbors into the law. The idea that what our neighbors have is none of our business, as long as the law treats us all the same — as opposed to trying to MAKE us all the same — has been a tremendous strength of our polity. But it’s one that requires tending. The penchant for pretending that base envy is a form of righteous indignation is a very, very powerful pattern of adolescence that people need training, guidance, and high expectations of their intellectual integrity to overcome.
I am really getting tired, however, of hearing about how Clinton produced “smaller debt.” He didn’t. That’s a false statement. His Republican Congresses produced smaller debt.
They went right on under Bush and embarrassed drunken sailors with their spending, so the point here is not that Republicans are holy and sanctified, federal budget- and spending-wise. The GOP Congresses from 2001 to 2007 should have been horsewhipped — and in 2006 and 2008, they basically were.
But Clinton was a tax-and-spend, constituency-enriching Democrat who would have been happy to spend more on the wrong things if Congress had let him. Someone probably knows when the last time a Democrat-controlled Congress balanced a budget was, but it has been since at least before FDR’s first term. ONLY Republican Congresses have balanced budgets since then, a couple of years under Ike, and (by dint of some accounting tricks, rather than genuinely balancing current revenue and spending) under Clinton.
No one has paid down any of the long-building federal debt since Coolidge. By today’s standard, producing “smaller debt” in a fiscal year is analogous to putting less that you can’t pay off on your credit card this month, than you did the month before. Your debt has still grown, just not by as much. For this feat, neither the post-1994 Congresses nor Clinton is to be congratulated.
And so, as this trees grows to its maximum size, we will live below it and try to feed from its bounty…till it dies and we must then go look elsewhere for our food, etc.
Maybe it won’t grow to max, maybe it will get a parasite and die young.
Maybe we will decide we don’t want to live under this tree.
And maybe we will die before all this comes to bear the fruit of the big promise being offered by that smooth talking metrosexual lawyer from Chicago who went to Harvard but didn’t have a daddy when he was growing up so he took a few other guys as daddies…
Doomed! (Oh yea, G. Bush didn’t help at all with his wonderful con job of compassionate conservatism!)
Oh yea, I almost left this out:
Here, in the Professor’s own writings, comes forth a wisdom which one can seek via the writings of those considered great thinkers, etc. in Western Civilization.
Thank you for sharing!
I like the way you think, a lot. And I suspect there are many, many more who share such thoughts!
Equality once meant equal treatment under the law or equal contribution to the making of laws. In the old liberalism, including 17th century Locke and early 20th century Chesterton, equality refers first to conscience. Everyone had moral laws written in their soul. Equality used to be the means to disprove the inherent superiority of some- no one was born any better than others and therefore no one is especially privileged to make the law. Equality raised everyone morally, not materially.
Now, equality is disfigured by materialism and materialist theories of human nature. Leftist equality is crude redistribution; not even equality of result because there is no earning anything. Everyone is inherently entitled to as much as any other. The logic implodes itself.
Can’t wait to see my taxes next April, given how heavy they were this month. Guess the money spent to have AF1 buzz NYC.
As I read these words and follow what is transpiring in our country daily, I am reminded of the famous quote by VDH and others, “God Help Us All”.
One reason Obama and others before him can get away with the “equality of results” programs is that the poor and the lower middle class foolishly believe that “equality of results” will provide everyone with a solidly middle class lifestyle. And it will–for a few years. After all the wealth has been sucked away from the upper middle class and modestly rich, and our lifetime savings are acquired by confiscatory taxes, the “equality of result” lifestyle will resemble that of our poor people today. In 2012 the working population will have 40% working for the government, 40% working for private companies, and 20% on the dole mooching off everyone else with half of them working under the table.
Turning the US into a nanny-state country with a failed economy, that’s Obama’s promised change.
As always, sir, a very accurate portrayal of the current body politic. However, as one of those that is a marginal “they”, truly on the cusp, I wonder why so many are attacking the tax increase rather than addressing the core of the tax code. I hope I speak for many of “us” when we say that we are not opposed to taxes, even at the rates that Mr. Obama proposes, as long as we are convinced that we are paying our “fair share” and that those we entrust with our governance spend it wisely.
That said – we are not and they are not.
I believe it was Milton Friedman who once said “The amount of personal freedom one has is equal to the amount of economic freedom one enjoys.” The two are inexorably linked. An egalitarian society will result in diminished freedom for all. Soon it will be easier to vote for a living rather than work for one.
Publicly here at PJM, I am not a VDH fanboy. In my home, I have read virtually all his books, check National Review daily, and always look forward to a fresh blog here. Beyond the cogency and insightfulness of his views and analysis, there is another reason I am a fan. He respects people who merit it measured by authentic and traditional standards– whatever their social standing. The above blog entry catches that lovely trait. VDH himself is very much part of the intellectual, academic elite– yet with a difference: he speaks with the thoughts of my immigrant rancher grandparents and my Greatest Generation parents. He speaks for common people I admire and deflates those who posture and pretend or just have a hypocritical and snobbish mean streak in them.
Would that all conservatives could have the clarity, balance, and expressive skills I find here.
“Essential VDH”? More aptly, VDH is essential to my perception of the times I live in.
You said:
“and then health, luck, brains, accident, strength, ambition, character, and a myriad of other factors, some understandable, some capricious, conspire to create inequality”
You forgot to add “karma” to this list…the inexorable law of cause and effect. As in, one’s actions in the past dictate one’s situation in the present.
Sometimes I wish you had turned your academic and passionate attention to Eastern civilization as well as to Western. Your insights would be so much the richer for it!
Professor Hanson:
Deeply grateful for your article. By strange coincidence, last night I was appealing to my dim memory of the sources you are drawing on about the present dilemma, and couldn’t find any. “They” must have thought, imagined and said something about “it,” I kept telling myself.
Yet, it couldn’t have been. With all my thorough and dilligent lectures, I was educated, in my commie homeland, to eschew and despise social and political readings going beyond those testifying to the injustice of the “slave-owning society” (in French-Marxist lingo: ‘esclavagiste’).
Many academic careerists took that path.
The talented rest were driven, out of fear, to focus on abstract metaphysics, epistemology, logic, linguistics and rhetoric. They did so superbly, in many cases. That’s how I’ve been reading my “Greeks.”
Time to go back to the texts, thanks to you.
We all equally stuffed money into the pockets of the financiers and corporate elite while they outsourced our jobs and slashed our pensions plans. We have a tax code no one can understand – except the people who created and administer it. We buy our hardware (foreign sourced) at Lowes and Home Depot not from the neighborhood hardware store. Healthcare is controlled by insurance companies not Doctors and Dentists and one can assume the young people who join the modern phalanx aren’t standing shoulder to shoulder with the offspring of the TARP beneficiaries .
Every American should have the opportunity to succeed or fail on their own merit but the playing field ought to be level as well.
“…while another without natural advantages thrives.”
This is actually fairly common regarding countries. Some have theorized that the Arabs have been hurt by their oil. It allowed them to become lazy and debauched. Russia also isn’t doing so well either.
Feather in your cap, Mr. Hanson. Thoroughly enjoyed this blog.
I must agree with J.E. Dyer’s #2 comment.
The Congress under Clinton and those under Bush II are night and day. The ‘borrow borrow borrow’ mantra is ever-so blatant though with today’s Democratic-led Congress and ‘Truth Commission’ coming soon. Oy..
The other facet of this equality phenomenon is the equality of morality, where the murderer and his victim are equalized, the terrorist and his victim deemed equal. So “engagement” with a murderous theocracy, (Iran) deferrence to the murderers lackeys (Abu Mazen) obeissance to another intolerant head-chopping theocracy (Saudi “princes”) elevation of a local chieftain of a client kingdom (Abdallah of Jordan) and heaping abuse on the head of the only democracy where free speech is practiced (Israel)
I like your little summary/algorithm at the end, because it hits the nail on the head. I also agree that Obama’s left-wing values are not new, what is new, of course, is his left-wing militancy, shady past, and creepy hipster “community organizer” moves. He is not a Christian, according to Bible, but I wonder what religious influences are swaying him the most. His willingness to bow to Islamic leaders is most intriguing, to say the least.
Willie Whitewater was no centrist. Look at the first two and last two years of his presidency. Only when he wanted to be re-elected did Dick Morris talk him into posing as a centrist. That Doc himself stills buys this nonsense only shows Abe Lincoln was right about fooling the people.
Dr. Hanson’s description of the upper middle class (entrepreneurial professionals and small businesspeople), and the “enlightened elites” visceral suspicion of same, reminds me irresistibly of the old Stalinist definition of a “kulak”, or “rich peasant”- someone who had somehow “risen above their proper place” in society, and needed to be slapped down hard, for the “good of the people”.
Rarely have I heard the mindset of the “intellectual” left summed up so succinctly. Thank you, Doctor.
cheers
eon
“Equality”, in my considerations, is a proposal forbidden by existence itself…”Equilibrium” seems the functionalial emphasis of it’s measures…but since the ability to breach equilibrium is proven and possible, then “Equality” can never be and never was the stasis of things….More of a desperate notion called motion…
Not to sound like a doomsayer…but the science of an “absolute equality” is a temporal diagnosis…confounded by relativity and relationship…Otherwise, “existence” would be void of any definition and distinctions of whatsoever manner or perceptible quality….”All men are created equal” I have thought long and hard on those regards and I welcome the discourse of it, the conclusions I draw are this, that beings are all created equally ordained in and by their differences, that all things are their own conscient opportunity..and all beings manifest themsleves uniquely…because existence is circumstancial and relational….that life is not defined by it’s abscences but by it’s endeavors of definition relative to unknowns…Where the big ideas will come from is all we are apt to wonder…but big ideas seem to spring from remote tendencies….not fostered within the ranks of over-circulation.
Speaking of the ranks of over- circulation….”Swine Flu” would be an awesome punk band name…as in, “Catch Swine Flu in your town TONIGHT!”…Oops, little bit of that liberal insensitivity an’ nastiness hidden ‘neath the suface of the agendas leakin’ through there…
“Such efforts at commonality are what we are now witnessing with income take [sic] hikes…”
Was that a typo or terrific subtle humor? In any case, it’s true and it made me think. I always enjoy your insights Dr. Hanson. Thanks.
Thanks Professor for you well thought out article. But I think you missed a valid point. It isn’t so much Barak and his ilk wish to enforce an unrealistic equality on us all. What they want is to destroy the meritocracy that the US has had since the founding, and replace it with a ideological aristocracy where it is not what you achieve that matters, but rather, that you think correctly and mouth the correct words. Words like “economic justice”, “social equality” and of course “capitalism is evil.”
It is highly ironic that George Soros, a great supporter of Obama and redistributionism (except for himeself) has been a great student and supporter of Karl Popper, a philosopher whose Open Society and its Enemies and The Poverty of Historicism so forcefully oppose Obama’s sort of collectivist utopian social engineering.
Very good essay VDH. I like the connection with the French Revolution, which was essentially totalitarian and embodied Rousseau’s notion of the General Will as the basis for coercion in contrast to the American. The difference between “life, liberty and property” and “liberty, equality and fraternity” is night and day, it is the difference between Locke, Smith, and Burke and Rousseau and the Terror.
Obama and his crew read Harrison Bergeron and said to themselves, “What a brilliant idea!”
I expect a new Cabinet position soon.
The core genius of the American economy has always been a thriving middle class. Unlike so many of the European countries with a small, obscenely rich elite and legions of working poor, America has prospered because we had a true middle class that, while not rich by any standard, was productive, comfortable and providing work for fellow citizens.
Today, under the liberal umbrella, we see an assault on that class by Obama and his minions. Using the outcome-based means test Dr. Hanson referred to, they have decided that individual accomplishment is a hindrance to their goals; therefore, they will federalize health, crime and retirement and make private enterprise obsolete.
Over half of all American’s now receive their livelihood, in one form or another, from government, and that dependency means they vote their pocketbooks instead of their freedoms. We are in the process of abrogating our freedom for someone else’s ideal of security – and like Rome two thousand years ago, we have started down the slippery slope toward our own destruction.
Sheila Bair for President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let the Republicans start now.
She is as smooth or smoother than Obama; better educated; more in touch with American values, has political acumen, ran for the House of Representatives (lost by 800 votes), represents sane economic thinking, is a woman, a family person, and does not speak from telepromptors.
When I majored in political science back in the 1950s, I was deeply convinced of the division you describe between two general sorts of political thought. I spent two decades after college working on campaign staffs in Texas, and eventually on the national Presidential campaign staffs of Richard Nixon. In the first decade of that experience I realized that it is not the ideology that destroys the peace, prosperity and happiness etc. of the citizenry. Honest people of both ideologies you describe have useful ideas.
The real problem in elective politics is corruption: cheating, stealing, lying (rough or cool and hip) that takes cover under the ideals of political theory. Professor William McGovern chaired the department at Northwestern University when I majored in political science there. He taught us that there are only two types of government, those where the power comes from the top down and that single kind in which the individual is sovereign so that the power flows upward. The reason America is exceptional is that our founders managed to make the individual sovereign.
Dr. McGovern told us that the opposite of individual sovereignty is tyranny, that can be in the form of oligarchy, monarchy, fascism, communism — and in the guise of socialism, I would say, if we let the present would-be tyrant in the WH continue to run loose.
I worry that your essay implies that individuals cannot hold power in anything but a tragic country. I argue you are wrong about that. The poor are almost always a lot worse off in a tyranny than in a state where individuals compete freely. We need to understand that what we are dealing with in The One is a run-of-the-mill corruption in pursuit of power. To credit BHO’s motives with the ideals of equality does not fit the facts or take into the account the lessons of history. His corruption runs the gamut from the garden variety Chicago stuff to an infuriating use of the genuineness of us white Americans to want the equality of people of color, along with promising bread and circuses to the latter. His changing positions demonstrate that he says what he thinks will increase his power. No idealism or integrity there.
I am very optimistic about the future. As you say, the world is prosperous. Individuals everywhere are emerging into literacy and the economy. Once we get past his dazzle, The One will teach America the folly of too much government (socialism), and that lesson should be a helpful one in the decades beyond. He has already proven that people of color are sovereign individuals in the American democracy, and can elect a President. My guess is that they will be his keenest judges.
anton: Harrison Bergeron should be required reading for every school child. I had both my daughters read it in at about 12 and it made a profound impression on them.
The disdain of the social and political elite for the outsider achiever always becomes greatest when they feel threatened by them and their success.
Hanson’s writing and thinking are refreshing, as are pretty much all the comments on this thread. And so far… no trolls from the Left crapping up the thread!
It’s still Burke vs. Rousseau. In the results department, Burke cleans up. But during the last thirty years or so Rousseau has been winning over the seed corn of the nation. Very troubling. As a former aspiring academic Marxist who left the Left back in ’87, I still cast about looking at what is going on over in my former haunts to see if anything beyond the intellectually stillborn is happening. I cannot see any intellects over there who are going beyond the barriers of argument that the classical liberals have maintained and which eventually won me over. The Left is intellectually arrested, but its activist wing is getting all the mileage it can squeeze out of the post-modernist, deconstructionist camp. Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault are passe and pretty well taken apart. Any student of Aristotle and Aquinas can see that.
The big question is: Can this horde of under-30 voters achieve a modicum of intellectual maturity? They have been severely handicapped by a fraudulent education.
I would take the argument further — these are not even red-diaper baby-type social activists, who had insight from their upbringing by people who had experienced real privation: this generation of “community activists” practice a politics shorn of any notion of equality as a goal — it is all Sharptonesque grievance, all distributing organization-growing resources to political allies, all the raw coalescence of power. There is no commitment to the middle and low working classes.
Clinton’s appeal to the underclass was sheer political genius, and it worked. He alone took their problems and failures seriously enough to spend the political capitol it took to change that strata of society. Bush abandoned this goal, and Obama looks to a dysfunctional underclass as both justification and vanguard.
President Obama has more in common with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, & Kim Jong Il in that he is fundamentally a Statist. Yes, there’s nothing hopeful about Obama’s change; it’s all despair for the sake of so-called forced equality.
you want to smile :
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225151&title=Intro—French-Finance-Minister
#5 Daniel, I share your “equality” explanation as it was ment for the revolutionaires, it is also in that way it is describles in Beaumarchais playswrights “Le Mariage de Figaro”, “Le Barbier de séville”…
Beaumarchais was much more decisive and influent on the french society than Rousseau, because french people were/are fond of theater, the art of words ! while Rousseau was only read by specialists, and more abroad than in France where he is only seen as an exotic idealist ; though I understand that our remnent islander opponents preferred to deride on utopian Rousseauists, they were so serious about ideas of businesses and religion, but they ignored that the French love litterature and theater
hey, some start to update their education :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/jan/06/classicalmusicandopera
As to the French motto of “Liberty,Equality,Fraternity”, it has been misused for over 200 years now. The impossibility of having them applied to all aspects of any society should be obvious to any thinking person. When the attempt is made, bad results inevitably occur. But if one thinks of every society as having a political/legal part, an economic part, and a cultural (religion, art, education, etc) part, then a positive application of these principles seems possible. People should be treated equally under the law, in the cultural realm everyone must be free, and on the economic side, people have to learn to work together. The economic realm must be totally free from government interference so that it can operate in a healthy and undistorted manner. Then people (business leaders, workers, and consumers) will be more likely to work together in this area. Not all problems will automatically be solved, of course, but this would get us on the right track. The trouble has been that intellectual elites tend to think abstractly and have no clue as to what makes people and a society click.
I truly believe that Obama and his ilk do not care one whit for the masses. Democrats figured out long ago that as long as you take from Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s vote. They want nothing more than money and power. They don’t care about anyone other than themselves. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Republicans in the same boat!
Angry White Dude
We can also help mitigate the concentration of money with the hyper-rich by policies that encourage the productive use of money (lower taxes on business-building investment, lower deductions for government bond holders) and by social stigma and reward that encourages charitable giving, even if it is in the form of bequests.
It’s true that a very few, Soros and his like, are immune to social stigma and reward. And it’s clear that he is one of the most dangerous men in the world, given the damage that he is doing to the USA’s blood and sinews. But I don’t have a solution to him, save for publicity. And unfortunately, the Media has bought into the poison his dupes sell as snake oil.
“psychic gratification” of the hyper wealthy in helping poor and underprivileged = false humility and moral arrogance.
VDH, a man with a truly valuable “gift”.
Outstanding essay!
” . . . . and the same old dream that we can make everyone equal in the end—or else!”
Why do I think of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Venezula?
How soon before people who disagree with Obama “disappear”?
Great article, Prof. Hanson.
Sadly, the truth seems to fall on the deaf ears of the Liberals. No matter how many people who have lived through the hell of Socialism speak up and warn the USA not to ‘go there’, people just refuse to listen to facts. The elites drum up the ‘class-warfare’ beat and the unwashed masses boogie blindly to the tune while the government absquatulates with our tax dollars whilst borrowing and printing up ever more to ‘spread’ where it sees fit.
There is no utopia in Socialism to be sure and it always fails and creates miserable people as history has proven time and time again. It is disheartening to see how many people want to go down that slippery slope regardless of the eventual, ugly outcome. :(
#14 touched on a good point, that needs elaboration:
VDH premises his argument on the notion that we have a fair and equal playing field, and that the rich and powerful have earned fairly their positions.
In most of the cases, this is true, and the rich deserve their wealth.
However, we need to acknowledge that all too often, those who hold economic power use it first and foremost to bend and twist the levers of government to block the path of others, and keep themselves unjustly in power.
Examples would be agri-business subsidies, which do nothing for the consumer, and only enrich the priviledged few who already have large agri-busniess corporations- this is not the “free market” at work- this is cronyism, and a corruption of the worst sort.
Other examples would be the Wall St. – Washington corridor of power, where the financiers of Wall Street step seamlessly back and forth between government positions and private corporate position, all the while manipulating the rules and playing field, not to benefit the taxpayers or consumers, but to protect and enrich the entrenched banks and interests of Wall Street.
This is not a Republican phenomenon, or a Democratic phenomenon- it occurs under both parties, and is always given protection and excuse by those braying about the “free market”. It is rightfully called “socializing the risks, and privatizing the profits”.
TARP was the perfect example of this, and fixating on the Left/ Right debate foolishly ignores the underlying rot and corruption of power.
The thing that shocks me the most about the current shift is that the high wealth, optional income crowd: Gates, Dell, and Buffet are all squarely in the equality of results camp. European socialism has always as the good Doctor pointed out had a large group of poor and a minor group of insanely rich; however, it’s purpose appears to me to reinforce the old social standing that existed prior to its institution. Namely to protected the old (inherited) rich from the new (earned) rich. I think a large part of the reason it has not been as successful in the US is that while we have both old and new rich in the US we put a greater value on the new (earned) rich vs. the (inherited) rich. In truth while European countries and theorists have been able to popularize the income inequality gap in other countries is has not been (until recently) a major rally cry except in the leftist circles of academia. Typically in America’s past those who earned fortunes in their own lifetimes tend to be more supportive of others doing so as well now it appears that having made their fortunes Gates and company want to knock the ladder away from the rest of us. One could have hoped that they would be more supportive of the meritocracy that allowed them to thrive and not so keen to institute a caste system.
I just finished ‘A War Like No Other’, beautiful. Here, it looks like you have the makings of another book Victor.
What a terrific piece! Oh that you were every student’s professor!
I learned so much from your article, thank you. Don’t stop, people are starting to get it.
This vivid line slammed into me;
“its extreme, extreme manifestations are the failed -isms and -ologies of the bloody 20th century where authoritarian elites broke the requisite eggs for the omelet of “for the people” and in service to “equality.”
Oh that people would see what’s going on before it’s too late.
Also, your treatment of currency and exposing how and why they manipulate it was terrific, esp. in the historical context. I know the O-team has no intention of balancing any budget or repaying anything–his (their) moment is now for a takeover–he’ll say and do anything necessary. He’s deliberately crushing the nation in order to rebuild it but I thought inflation was just a nasty necessary side effect as it goes down, causing confusion and fear and sets things up for a global currency. Ultimately taking away the very power of any currency via hyperinflation was revelatory for me. It’s sort of like spraying economic Round-Up after they’ve crippled us with unemployment and confiscation.
You wonder why anyone would even adhere to these philosophies since they’ve failed so miserably. Obviously the O-team thinks they can “do it right” this time–talk about compounded arrogance and pride. It’s actually not that innocent. Underlying is the age old struggle of good vs. evil, and who yields to which. To the good it’s obvious. To the evil, “Who are you to judge? Besides, what is good and evil? It’s all relative. In fact, I think you’re a bigoted racist extremist. Now shut up and get in line.”
These people use the story of Cain and Abel as an instructional in how to level the playing field.
Alas, all too true!
48 year old physician seeking new career. So much for controlling my own business, and life in general.
That is one change that is real.
- Maybe not new on the earth.
- Maybe not change I or the American people can live with.
- But maybe, along with what looks like disasterous social changes, an opportunity for conservatives to take back of control of the congress and presidency for the next 4 decades.
Excellent expose, in both Dr. Hansen’s article and in the comments. In fact, every response is so well-rounded that I have nothing to add but my admiration.
Yowza! Dr. Hanson, you’ve hit the ball out of the park once again. You’ve managed to condense the two western worldviews into a succinct and lucid essay. Brilliant, thanks Doc.
Put me down as clearly in the camp of the equality of opportunity, for this is where the many can thrive. This whole the equality of result crap is an unattainable pipe-dream driven by megalomaniacs who use the poor as the pillar to their power.
When this pillar starts to crumble (see Charles Ponzi) – and it always does – look for a bumpy ride ahead. At least some of us can see the forest for the trees.
It is possible that “we” are missing the most ominous portent:
the coming “Wealth Tax.”
That is probably the only effective means to achieve something closer to equality of results, despite inflation being deployed to achieve the same effect – a tax on wealth.
A flaw of inflation for that function is its “side effects,” in
taking something from all; rather than taking from some to give to others (less, of course the rewards to political intermediaries who distribute).
“I like the connection with the French Revolution, which was essentially totalitarian and embodied Rousseau’s notion of the General Will as the basis for coercion in contrast to ”
I bet you like ! the Burke analyse that you learnt in your school days !
though the socialism you’re thinking of, only happened after WW2, and really in the seventies, I never heard that our elites were referring to Rousseau and the 1789 revolution, but more of the unions successes, that were looking towards Moscow
If the fraternity concept heurts you, you should investigates further than the french revolution, it’s origin is in the very Christ’s message, so, I would say that the christian spirit that has shaped the county mentality, even secularists didn’t contest it, but wrote it in their constitution as universal truth, like in gospels, and thus, had a better chance to reach non christians.
Now, Marx, had plenty of christian sources to refer of, the terror was an accident in the revolution process, which was at the beginning a volonty to take the power out of a single class, the nobles ; it turned bad when the revolutionnaires found out that the nobles conspired with the other european monarchies and that they were rising an army to regain their priviledges, which was then considered as a vicious betray. If really the socialism ideas came from this revolution, we should then have experienced such a regime long time before.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 04/30/2009 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.Web Reconnaissance for 04/30/2009
In order to understand where the American and Frenh revolutionaries were coming from it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the social history of France and Britain.
All men (people) were NOT created equal and those not of the elite had no opportunity to better themselves. In both nations (including colonies employment law (called the master and servant law in Britain) that allowed a master to dismiss and employee without notice, without giving reason and without compensation. On the other hand the “servant” could not leave his masters employ without permission. Anybody who just said “I want to quit, I’m giving you a months notice,” could be tried for breach of contract and imprisoned.
So liberty and equality meant exactly the same to the French revolutionaries, the English social reformers and the American colonists.
Sorry Victor, you had a chance to really take Obama apart for his lack of historic awareness here and you have only succeeded in showing you are his equal in ignorance.
Forget that ridiculous Mel Gibson inspired notion of the brave freedom fighters bravely stuggling against the English oppressor, it is as idiotic as Obama’s fantasy that the English engineered the Irish famine for the sole purpose of persecuting his ancestors. In fact if the American revolution had not had the support of a large faction of British people mainly in the more catholic north, the revolution would have been crushed.
The enemy of both the Jacobites in britain and the American revolutionaries was the hanoverian monarchy which was determined to exploit both Britain and the colonies to further its imperial ambitions in Germany and cenrtal Europe.
45. D-wah
“You wonder why anyone would even adhere to these philosophies since they’ve failed so miserably. Obviously the O-team thinks they can ‘do it right’ this time–talk about compounded arrogance and pride.”
Yep! That kind of mentality is about as brilliantly self-defeating as reinventing the ‘square-wheel’ and expecting everyone to buy into the snake-oil.
Very accurate commentary again. What puzzles me is how so many, non-French, people continue to believe in equality at the finish line (instead of equality at the starting line). Anyone with some life experience would agree with this article so what does that say about the President? He has been alive for nearly half a century so why does he believe in nonsense?
Could it be that he himself can only succeed in an environment that pre-determines his winning the race, but he couldn’t make it if he was equal only at the starting line? Who knows?
Another wonderful, scholarly-without-pedantry, well reasoned and beautifully written lesson from VDH, who has been displaying a degree of angst in his missives of late. It is unfortunate the the “brilliant mind” who has recently been vaulted into the White House is unfamiliar with either history or objective reasoning and depends on doctrinaire equality of results formulas.
I believe that a matter you touch on, most Americans innate belief in the superiority of our equality of opportunity heritage, of the validity of our sense of exceptionalism, will prevail aaginst the Alinsky version of neo-communism. The “mddle America” you define does not read what is taking place in our country in the academic terms you use. They have expected an effort to move to the “left” and assaults on the Constitution. But they had not anticipated a full frontal, blatant effort to tear down our capitalistic system and free enterprise and freedom of speech, the obscene profligacy of spending, and arrogance of he assumption of single-party power.
I think that an Exceptionalist Movement, not a GOP revival, will bring down the Egalitarianist Socialism of Obama.
Essential vdh
Historically we all forget not only how America got here but what kind of people got us here.
The most gross illogical comparisons are now made by liberal left wing democrats/socialists/communists “liberal hypocritical and ignorant Republicans about who the rich are, who the poor are, who are the immigrants and why do they want to come to the US.
The liberal left wing socialist/communist focillsfollized playbook that Obama and his functionaries are using as a guidon is the most gross and erroneous description of the course of human development that could be presented.
VDH:
As you know, elections have consequences. No equality of results there. After 100 days of the Obama Regime it should be pretty obvious to all that he’s a different president than the alternative would’ve been. In fact he’s a different president than he promised us he would be.
Since taking office Obama has been fairly brazen about his intentions. He’s not a centrist, and he’s probably not a Machiavellian (He has Reid and Pelosi for that). He’s a garden variety Socialist wannabee with a gift for gab — wanna’ change the world to be more “fair”, we’re to all be egalitarians now….group hug….blah blah blah.
I don’t think Americans will buy what he’s selling for long. They’re not going to find Obama’s government less corrupt, less incompetent or even less egalitarian than that of his predecessor. We’ve already seen some of this in his first 100 days. But the real problem for Obama is his manifest ignorance about “his” own country. That is bound to have consequences eventually. As they say, this won’t end well.
Essential vdh
delete the above for error— spelling only.
The real story would take to much time and truth— maybe that’s why it is no longer remembered. The destruction of the real America will be the result. Not BHO’s America but the real America.
Marie Claude: no serious historian of the French Revolution (other than a Marxist) would take your position – it’s just nonsense. Read your own historians on the French Revolution: Michelet, deMaistre (well, he was anti…), or the more modern Lefevre. As to Burke, you damned well should read Burke, because he got it far more right than wrong. Read RR Palmer’ s The Age of Democratic Revolution on the differences between the revolutions.
Ian Thorpe: I think you seriously misread both French and British 18th century social history, as well as the intellectual underpinnings of the various revolutionaries in France and America. It was in the late 18th century that there arose truly profound differences in thought between the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment and the French – Rousseau never really caught on in England or America, nor did Voltaire as a political thinker. The French, on the other hand, went down that road.
It’s interesting that in English we have two words “freedom” and “liberty” which have similar, but not identical meanings. The French have only “liberte” and no real differentiable word for freedom. The Germans, on the other hand, have only “Freiheit” (freedom) and no corresponding word for liberty.
Fine piece. One caveat:
The “Ivy League technocracy” and the “appendages in universities, government, foundations, and the media” should be counted as either one group or two deeply overlapping groups.
I am also curious to know what percentage of African American in this country are either government employees or “thankful client recipients of ensured government largess.”
Are private enterprise and broad African American achievement mutually exclusive? Is socialism a the only system under which a majority of African Americans can enjoy success? Does Obama see socialism as the only road to racial equality?
Wonder if the sheeple will ever wake up to fact that they are being shoved into SOCIALISM? Just think our grandchildren will be existing under COMMUNISM. Think it’s far fetched,think again.
FEAR MONGERING THE FLU
Team Obama continues to manipulate the public.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-flu-fear-card.html
14: bill
There is no such thing as a level playing field. I don’t care whether the society is capitalist, socialist or whatever. At some point corruption and greed or other manifestations of power, undermine the system. All you can hope to do is navigate through it. At least in the US you have a shot at success (at least you used to)
Obama has shown a tendency to interpret history and philosophy in his own, ultimately self-serving ways. As candidate Obama, he derided the old politics of Washington, even as he was a participating member of that class, who tried his best to avoid rocking the boat with any of his votes. When confronted with the difficult question as to what constitutes torture, he is confident in his own assessment. Much of his rhetoric attempts to divorce himself from history, from the failures of individuals, and worse from the US as a nation.
In an effort to promote ‘change’, has Obama insulated himself from the possibility that history does repeat itself, and he may be on a course to repeat obvious failures of past administrations? Does he believe that different results are possible with similar policies the second time around? Betraying our instincts, we are calmly told to wait for the results…
“Psychic gratification” = risk management…There seems a principle here that involves the strategy of, “give to the poor so they can give it right back”…And you simply arrange your portfolio to reflect those investments, idle pleasures and route sustenence…A company store…Keep your workers working for you by consolidating their choices to do otherwise…All too often I have heard government agency representatives in the last 10 years in the U.S. use that term with me, employment “at will”, with a paricular nastiness endowed in their usage of it… A twist your arm until you say “uncle” regards…
To Daniel in Post #5.
I will be quoting you in the future. Brilliant.
Congratulations Dr. Hanson, you are the beyond compare when it comes to wielding a straw man argument.
no serious historian of the French Revolution (other than a Marxist) would take your position – it’s just nonsense. Read your own historians on the French Revolution: Michelet, deMaistre (well, he was anti…), or the more modern Lefevre. As to Burke, you damned well should read Burke, because he got it far more right than wrong. Read RR Palmer’ s The Age of Democratic Revolution on the differences between the revolutions.
How high is your academic chair ?
Are Taine, Toqueville, Michelet and a Lamartime configurated as communist in your prism ? I can remember how many times I have been called “socialist” by your understanding of France soiety standards, please care that I don’t really feel it that way as far as I am concerned
I have damned read some piece of Burke since I realised that he is the prophet of your anti-french regime
umm, Burke was afraid of any change, kind of pro statu-quo of a man in his ivory tower of privilegieds, that doen’t like “le bruit et la fureur” of the “populace”, whose will was to get more justice ; though he wasn’t French, he lived in a country where parliament was a conter power to the greediness of the nobles, therefore where people were in use to discuss concret laws and projects, while it was forbidden to the French, jansenist religiosity was a gangue that didn’t allow to think other than that of the catholic priests (that Voltaire fought his life long), who also were the best supports of the ancient regime abuses. So no wonder that the ideas went above these tight borders. Suppose Burke was born in France, say, on which side he would have stand ? I bet he would have been more radical than the radical revolutionnaires
It was in the late 18th century that there arose truly profound differences in thought between the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment and the French – Rousseau never really caught on in England or America, nor did Voltaire as a political thinker. The French, on the other hand, went down that road.
uh no, that’s your lecture, besides many historians explain our revolution in the light of their political opinion, and they are not at unisson, (add Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie, as a historian of the climates, that brought a new explanation on the causes).
http://histgeo.ac-aix-marseille.fr/a/cco/d002.htm
Cato, I presume you can read french :
6. VIE ÉCONOMIQUE
Avant
- Droits seigneuriaux pesant sur la terre.
- Douanes intérieures.
- Pas d’unité des poids et mesures.
- “Compagnies à charte” ayant monopole du commerce extérieur.
- Exclusif et “monopole du pavillon” pour le commerce colonial.
- Protection douanière.
- Réglementation du travail artisanal par les corporations.
Après
- Abolition des droits seigneuriaux sur la terre.
- Suppression des douanes intérieures.
- Système décimal unifié pour les poids et mesures.
- Suppression des compagnies à charte.
- Maintien de l’exclusif.
- Protection douanière.
- Abolition des corporations ; libre concurrence entre les producteurs.
http://www.cvm.qc.ca/glaporte/RevoFR.html
uh, as far as the christian origin of “fraternity”, I have an anecdote when I was in my eiteens I visited Italy, for a summer, I stayed in diverse places and different sorts of political orientated families, In south of Naples, at Torre Annunciata, I was hosted by a communist family, and this family was very religious too. I made a remarck, “how does it come that you’re practicing the catholic religion and be communist, which supposed you’re a non believer (religion people opium) ?” I was answered that the communism and the christian agendas had no contradiction being applied together, as they aimed to the benefit of the fraternity, one on the moral ground, the other on the material ground.
Now, from that, I can deduct that “communism” could only have been concepted by western christians.
Man sees himself in the mirror and believes that the recognition of Self somehow makes him superior to other species. Yet the whispers of his instincts can never be suppressed for long, and it is those whispers – ever-reminding him that man, too, is ruled by natural law – that cause him to vainly create a phantom, parallel world within his own species. A world where his physical inferiority may be replaced by pseudo-intellectual or material superiority.
Life will never be anything more than a competition, a survival of the fittest. Certainly, as a species man is more willing to assist the collective but this latest Obamanation of forcing material equality will fail. As this piece points out, as it has forever failed. For it goes against natural law and no matter how “smart”, or how much techology we can create, we are not now and will be forever subject to our humanness.
Ask the antelope in the jaws of the jaguar if life is fair. We would be better off to accept our place in this world and enjoy the fact we get a life at all. Return to the foundations upon which this country was founded and let its inherent support of natural law, what we call the “free market”, take care of things like the auto industry, the banks, people who bit off more mortgage than they can chew. Anything else will simply accelerate our propensity for self-destruction.
Mike-no need to be rhetorical–slam it to him, he owns it!-”the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
“Betraying our instincts, we are calmly told to wait for the results…”
So true.
But screw them. The “benefit of the doubt” is what sprang OJ. Now it’s unleashing Obamazilla. They say give the enemy enough rope and he’ll hang himself. Maybe so, but this one’s out to disable and exterminate the opposition. Then what?–and how much irreversible damage happens while we sit idly by? Has he convinced us we DO need to be punished? Think about that one. Apparently most of America has swallowed it.
I recently heard that, contrary to folk legend, slowly turning up the heat on a kettle of water with a frog in it–when it gets too hot, the frog WILL jump out! Anyone encouraged? I sure like to think I wouldn’t/won’t let myself get boiled to death. Half of America should be jumping out like popcorn soon if that’s true, eh?! Watch for it. Ah, the audacity of freedom….
53. Ian Thorpe
For a more informed opinion of relative knowledge comparing the professor and the president, I suggest you read the president’s auto-biographies and compare them to the wealth, depth, and breadth of information in the professor’s many historical and contemporary highly reviewed and remarkably entertaining books.
Re Cato: You wrote, “It’s interesting that in English we have two words “freedom” and “liberty” which have similar, but not identical meanings. The French have only “liberte” and no real differentiable word for freedom. The Germans, on the other hand, have only “Freiheit” (freedom) and no corresponding word for liberty.”
Do you think, (say I, tongue in cheek) that this has any relevance to why France and Germany went to war so frequently? So much extra information in the world!
The correct question is “What will keep Obama from destroying the American system that gave us a large middle-class. It is the middle-class that best evens the playing field among people. Instead of ONLY rich and poor, we managed to create an upper middle-class and a lower middle-class.
Sheila Bair for president!
Liberals: “Heil, er… Hail Equality!” Wonder who’ll be appointed Handicapper General…
“The only impediment to our new polis? There are not simply enough of these entrepreneurial dinosaurs to pay the taxes to feed the new $3.6 trillion annual beast. One can take all the income of the $250,000 “them”, and their won’t be enough to pay down the $9 trillion in new debt.”
The only impediment?
What makes you think we will let them “take all the income”?
At some point soon, one of us will say ENOUGH in a way heard around the world.
The Founding Fathers stopped tyranny in its tracks, and we will too.
And then they will learn what a backlash really is.
Wetdreams of My Father and the Paucity of Hope.
77. Melanie Wilkes:
Wetdreams of My Father and the Paucity of Hope.
~
LMFAO! :lol:
Hammer time!
The thing that shocks me the most about the current shift is that the high wealth, optional income crowd: Gates, Dell, and Buffet are all squarely in the equality of results camp.
That seems to be the Achilles heel of capitalism – that once successful people become very, very successful, they no longer want competition. The little guy with a good idea is no longer noble in their eyes, but a possible competitor who must be crushed. And so the super-rich capitalists end up in bed with government, because they know that taxes which will squeeze and crush those lower down on the totem pole won’t hurt them much (especially since they know how to shield their wealth.)
Many extremely wealthy people, even self-made tycoons, seem to develop an aristocrat mentality. Aristocrats have always wanted to keep their ranks small and exclusive.
So what do they have to lose? They protect themselves by siding with those who want the government expanded. The ironic thing is that gives them a reputation for being altrustic, when they are in fact being entirely self-serving. I’ve heard more than one lib say Warren Buffet is a great guy for being in favor of the “death taxes;” actually, it’s not Buffett and his kids who will suffer from the tax; it’s the successful owners of small businesses. Their heirs are unable to pay up and those companies then get swallowed up by giants like Berkshire Hathaway.
VDH:
*NO* commercials on the Sirius/XM music channels.
It will improve your life to stop listening to AM/FM. Fox, BBC, CCN et al. are also on, but with commericals.
Marie-Claude, I can’t get the video of the French Finance Ministre in my area (the southwest of France), where are you? No one in this article took offense against the term fraternité. it’s the égalité that bothers most conservative Americans. It takes everyone to the lowest common denominator. What are you trying to say in #70? I’m not sure whether you are supporting communism
or are you being provocative in that comment?
Mr Hanson this article is so on spot!
Christian Communism has something that the Socialists do not. Christian Communism is VOLUNTARY! If you don’t like it, you can leave the Commune and no one will chase you down or try to kill you. You have the right to form a commune and share all the fruits of your labor equally. You do not have the right to force anyone else to join your commune.
The Scarlet O’Hara Era.The Ole Plantation Bosses an’ their O’baby’bama boys .
Did you see Pixar’s animated movie Wall-e?
It’s a cute story about Wall-e the robot, the last Waste Allocation Load Lifter (Earth Class) still working to clean up the planet—hundreds of years after humankind had destroyed it. Wall-e is the little robot who could; though all the other load lifters had long since broken down, he ‘awakened’ each morning with only his pet cockroach for company and spent the day dutifully cleaning.
The humans, meanwhile, have all gone to live on a giant spaceship called the Axiom—waiting for the day they can return to a cleaned-up and inhabitable earth. Axiom is like a cruise ship on steroids—all your needs catered to and limitless leisurely activities to fill your days. It’s an endless holiday for the human race while they float through the heavens with no responsibilities.
As you might imagine, this new environment did nothing to abate the rampant consumerism, laziness and lack of personal responsibility that caused the earth’s destruction. In fact, humans had become utterly dependent on BuyNLarge (the company that runs the ship) to meet all their needs. On the surface it was working out okay, but the cost of that dependence was pervasive obesity and physical inability. No one could walk, so they cruised around on hover crafts going from one leisurely activity to the next … and in the end, they had no choice but to allow BuyNLarge to address their every need.
Lest you accuse me of ignoring the central storyline of Wall-e to suit my purposes, I should tell you a sleek new robot model is sent to earth as a scout. Wall-e falls in love with Eve and together they endeavor to make it known that the earth may indeed have become hospitable to life once again—an unwelcome message to those in power on Axiom. The romantic drama plays out from there; I will avoid spoiling the ending.
I very much enjoyed the film but as I left the theater I couldn’t get over the image of humanity it portrayed: universally obese, all with the same stupid look on their fat faces and unable to get up from the chairs they sat in as they were fed and clothed by the ship that carried them.
It’s an image of an advanced welfare state and in many ways, I think our post-modern infatuation with “fairness” and/or “substantive equality” puts America on a path that leads down this familiar road.
…full post at http://inklingz.net/?p=132
View from afar, umm, in Poitiers we can see that video, may-be you need some extra program like “real player” or so !
well, I am always “provocative”, umm, actually it’s our nature, the poor ol Anglo-Saxons would get bored if we didn’t exist :mrgreen:
now, #70, is a true anecdote, and I am wondering why that no intelligent brain investigated why “communism” was imagined in our christian countries first, and not in India, China, Japan…
How unique in history is the United States of America.
We have no king.
It’s been like this for so long we forgot what tyranny is.
Liberals love the idea of a sovereign decision maker. It’s why they love the Supreme Court.
They like the ring of even the name. “Supreme.” Closest thing to a king we have. They speak. It’s law. End of conversation.
The Constitution is, as Obama says, a constraining impediment filled with “negative” rights that restrict government.
Only a king would see the Bill of Rights as “negative.”
Where were the Professors like this at Notre Dame?
Scots, as victims of British racial cleansing, should be classified as an injured and discriminated against minority. The US should demand that everyone of Scottish descent be given at least a few million British pounds and let the Brits know that we’re serious by bombing their infrastructure until they agree to our demands.
I mean, the only way to be even handed is to do unto them as we have done unto the others who were guilty of the same thing.
Regards