Oh the great conservative fear of Europe. It's like their gay or have cooties, and the conservative cool dudes actually lend serious credence to the idea that we'll catch it from them via Obama and the great liberal revival.
You have to love the moralistic rhetoric though. And this does dovetail with the critiques of Great Britain's socialism and its effects on the working class by another anti-bleeding heart screedist, Theodore Dalrymple. What I find funny however, is that if a government program threatens to weaken one of the 'institutions' of society--family, community, faith, vocation--this then is an unintended consequence and cause for alarm. Yet these same institutions are daily massacred (and sometimes reconstituted) by the onslaught of technology. No one dares question that.
Like most high minded moralizing, it seems the essence of the message is resentment at redistribution: we don't like that the poor people are getting some of our money. It's dressed up here to make it seem like the government is somehow stealing the lower classes right to self-esteem. "Jones, if you could only buck up and learn to love that mop and bucket and pay to put your kid through kindergarten, well then you might find a purpose in life and not hit your wife so hard."
Why doesn't government count as a potential form of community? Yes, none of us loves the government. But if it truly can be of, by, and for the people--well, aren't we the people?
And so the old chestnut of American exceptionalism is dusted off. Don't try to change our uniquesness. What is that uniqueness: to happily suffer a neo-gilded age slaughter, all the while patting ourselves on the back because this is a fervent expression of our singular national identity. No, it's just the same old greed, new face, new nation.
Perhaps though, to be helpful when sorting out such potential redistributionist schemes that the mauve Obama-ites will pander to the hearty red-blooded electorate, we should propose a new axiom: not just might makes right, but only might gives rights?
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