Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Election 2012, Humor, Intelligence, Liberalism, Politics, Taxes | Tags: Face the Nation, Longtime Host Bob Schieffer, Presidential Aide Dan Pfieffer
President Barack O’Blameless sent out aide Dan Pfieffer to explain that the president was absolutely not to blame for anything whatsoever, and that the White House had only learned that there was an Internal Revenue Service when everyone else did, and they were all shocked, shocked, and they didn’t know anything about Benghazi either. What was needed now was a little cooperation from the Republicans who were trying to make partisan mountains out of partisan molehills. Republicans were just trying to go on fishing expeditions. Breach of public trust, false allegations, partisan swamp. Inexcusable, top-down investigation yadda, yadda.
Bob Schieffer was not having any of it. You sound exactly like the Nixon administration. Mr. Pfieffer, this is the executive branch, and the president is supposed to be in charge of it. The President is right out there when it’s something good, claiming credit, so how come he took three days to comment? Why are you here? Where’s the White House Chief of Staff? Serious problems, I shouldn’t make fun, but really! “Is this president out of touch?” Highly amusing, not convincing.
Filed under: Capitalism, Conservatism, Economy, History, Liberalism, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: A 28th Amendment?, Congressional Misbehavior, The Same Laws Should Apply
In Monday’s Wall Street Journal Gerald D. Skoning argued that we need a 28th Amendment to the Constitution providing that all members of Congress have to comply with all laws that other citizens have to obey.
“Congress shall make no law,” the amendment might read, “that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the senators and/or representatives, and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the senators and/or representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.”
I agree absolutely. We would not have this disgraceful mess of ObamaCare legislation were not the members of Congress and the government excused from any participation in it. Some may have faith in the high moral character of their elected officials and argue that it shouldn’t take an amendment to make the members of Congress behave. True, it shouldn’t, but it apparently does. Mr. Skoning enumerates a bit of the telling history:
- In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act established the minimum wage, the 40-hour workweek, and time-and-a-half for overtime. Congress exempted itself from coverage of the law, and congressional employees were left without the protections afforded the rest of Americans.
- In 1964, President Johnson signed the Landmark Civil Rights Act, including Title VII, which protected all Americans from employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Congress exempted themselves, and staffers and employees were left with no equal-opportunity protection, nor protection against sexual harassment, of which there have been innumerable examples.
- The same blanket exemption of Congress was contained in a total of 10 other federal statutes regulating the American workplace, including protections from age and disability discrimination, occupational safety and health , family and medical leave — all issues that Congress felt were important to impose on American industry, but not to civilian employees working in the Capitol.
- The Reform of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 left critics unable to eliminate the exemption. Members of Congress remained immune to lawsuits for compensatory and punitive damages in cases of employment discrimination. Instead they enacted a self-policing system where Congress investigated and enforced its own compliance with civil rights laws.
- In 1995, with Republicans in control of both houses, the Congressional Accountability Act was passed eliminating the congressional exemption for all workplace laws and regulations. Some thought that was the end of Congressional exceptionalism. They were mistaken.
- Insider trading (buying or selling stocks based on insider information not available to the public) has been a violation of federal securities laws for almost 80 years. It was never illegal for members of Congress. CBS’s 60 Minutes did a segment with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Schweizer for his book “Throw Them all Out”. He testified that it was an opportunity to leverage your position in public service and use that position to enrich yourself, your friends and your family. Six months later, Congress passed and the president signed the “Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012″ — which required online posting of their financial transactions. Just last week while voters were focused on gun control and immigration, House and Senate members voted to repeal the provision that required the online posting of their financial transactions.
If the question is — does it take a Constitutional Amendment to make the members of Congress behave responsibly? — the answer seems to be yes indeed, and Congress isn’t all that inclined to obey the letter of the Constitution either, nor is the President. Something to think about. America has always been a nation of laws, but it’s certainly getting a little loosey-goosey isn’t it?
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Liberalism, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: Dana Milbank, Obama's Salary Stunt, Richard Cohen
President Obama is a fierce competitor, and he’s not nearly ready to give up on the Sequester as ammunition to use against the Republicans. There is nothing about the sequester that requires anyone to be furloughed, laid off, or fired. There’s nothing that requires the White House tours to be shut down (the guides are all volunteers).
Word has gone out to all departments to make some noticeable cuts, the ones that would most inconvenience the public. (The old Washington Monument play). Now the president has announced that he will share in the pain:
Washington Post April 3 headline: “Obama to take pay cut to draw attention to plight of federal workers facing furloughs.”
Dana Milbank, longtime WaPo opinion writer was not impressed. His headline read “Obama’s feeble salary “sacrifice.” Mr. Milbank quoted Dr. Evil from “Austin Powers” International Man of Mystery,” pointed out Obama’s embarrassing hoop shoot with the kids at the Easter Egg Roll (2 for 22), and laid into the president’s insensitivity and small sacrifice for a man who is worth millions. Let’s just say Mr. Milbank was contemptuous.
Nor was fellow WaPo columnist Richard Cohen impressed. The headline on his column read “Obama’s insulting salary stunt.” Ouch! “His unthinking and unthinkable attempt to make common cause with me brought to mind Anatole France’s observation that ‘The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’ Now it brings to mind Barack Obama. Mr. Cohen goes on to enumerate the president’s income $400,000 a year, living quarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, several limos, a very nice (Rose) garden and(Oval) office and some very nice bedrooms, one named for a former occupant, the late President Lincoln.”
Both columnists were indignant about the small amount of Obama’s announced ‘sacrifice.’ He was rich and got a huge salary. Neither had looked further into the sequester, nor understood how the sequester worked nor whether it was necessary for “the sacrifice being made by public servants across the federal government who are affected by the sequester” to actually sacrifice.
Another day in the life of our Nation’s capitol, altering and illuminating the affairs of men. Or something like that.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Liberalism, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressivism, Statism | Tags: Bill Whittle, How to Lie Convincingly, The Pain! The Pain!
Automatic federal cuts are bringing staffers to the brink of starvation, claimed Debbie Wasserman Schultz,. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) said he may be forced to lay off a staffer.
As Bill Whittle says, correctly, the sequester cuts barely 2% from increases in the federal budget, not the current budget. They have orders to proclaim the pain, and they are doing their best to lie plausibly— or not so plausibly. Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s staffers earn between $60,000 and $160,000 a year. Surely they could bring peanut butter and jelly from home.
Maybe they are among the federal employees who collectively owe enough in back taxes to the IRS, that if they paid up, it would take care of the sequester.
Filed under: Health Care, Liberalism, Media Bias, Politics | Tags: Dereliction of Duty, Journalistic Failure, Media Bias
I don’t understand the mainstream media. Theoretically, they are journalists, trained to dig into archives and conversations, to ask questions and conduct interviews. And granted, most are Liberals, but still…How come they miss so much? Only now that ObamaCare is coming fully into effect, a few media sources are beginning to notice that all is not as it seemed.
Headline: AP Exclusive: Applying for health care not easy And this is a surprise? The forms run to 15 pages for a three-person family. Online there are 21 steps with added questions. Three major federal agencies, including the IRS will scrutinize your application. That’s the first part that lets you know if you qualify for financial help. Then you have to pick a health insurance plan. Now your financial information is to be made available to the CIA as well.
HHS has put out a full 60 pages on its website to describe all the wonders of the 15 page form. Is this not typical of government?
The” Affordable Care Act” (you always knew that name was a joke) has 21 tax increases, and costs twice as much in new taxes as was advertised. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation pegs the price tag at over $1 trillion, almost twice the $570 billion suggested when the law was passed by legislative trickery three years ago.
The individual mandate was supposed to cost $17 billion. Looks more like $55 billion.
The “Cadillac tax” on higher-cost plans is $111 billion, not $32 billion.
The employer mandate is not the estimated $52 billion but a stunning $106 billion, and expect those estimates to continue to climb. Federal Programs are always vastly more expensive than estimated, often to and three times as much.
Conservatives warned in the beginning that the only federal government plan that had come in significantly cheaper than estimates was the much derided Bush Medicare Drug Plan. And of course, Democrats removed the incentive that made the plan less expensive — the so-called “donut hole.” Democrats do not understand incentives.
Many employers will drop spouses from their insurance plans. People are able to keep their adult children on their policies until they reach age 26, which is an added cost for insurers. There is no requirement to keep spouses on the policies, and many employers are expected to drop them.
The country’s big health insurers say they expect premiums — the cost for insurance coverage— to rise from 20 to 100 percent for millions of people due to changes that will occur when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act roll out in January 2014.
When media people have to apply for their own health insurance, and pay for it, they may get interested in just what the act entails and how it will affect the American people. Of course when people really needed to know what they were facing, the media was either absent or uninterested. The closed doors behind which the law was being devised made a mockery of administration transparency claims, but nobody noticed.
I once went online to check out the Columbia Journalism School, and the classes all seemed to be “how to write an obituary,” or “how to write about global warming” (I made that up, there is a Society of Environmental Journalists that takes care of the science part. There isn’t any. They teach each other.) But there wasn’t a single class mentioned in journalistic ethics, or “how to be a government watchdog.” But then this was just an online list of classes, not an official catalogue.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Education, Liberalism, Taxes | Tags: "Even Though", Supply and Demand, The Butterfield Fallacy
Have you heard of the Butterfield Fallacy? It is rooted in ideological prejudice, and well known to conservative commentators. Fox Butterfield was a reporter for the New York Times “whose crime stories served as the archetype for his eponymous fallacy.”
“It has become a comforting story for five straight years, rime has been falling, led by a drop in murder,” Butterfield wrote in 1997. “So why is the number of inmates in prisons and jails around the nation still going up?’ He repeated the trope in 2003: “The nation’s prison population grew 2.6 percent last year, the largest increase since 1999, according to a study by the Justice Department. The jump came despite a small decline in serious crime in 2002.” And in 2004: “The number of inmates in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell, according to a study by the Justice Department released yesterday.”
The Butterfield Fallacy consists of misidentifying as a paradox, that which is a simple cause-and-effect relationship. You put more bad guys behind bars, and crime goes down. The typical New York Times reporter disapproves of sending people to prison because among other reasons they think it is racially discriminatory. “In 2004 almost 10 percent of American black men ages 25 to 29 were in prison” and it diverts tax money from what should be higher priorities. In 1997, “already California and Florida spend more to incarcerate people than to educate their college age populations.” Here, Reynolds Law comes into play:
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.
New York Times business reporter Reed Abelson wrote yesterday with bewilderment that insurance premiums are rising sharply as ObamaCare’s insurance regulations begin to take effect:
Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
Yuval Levin wrote of Ableson’s surprise that health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers. Ableson was bewildered at the Butterfield Fallacy. as Levin wrote under the perfect title “Even Though.” Some people think this might have something to do with ObamaCare’s basically outlawing actual insurance and replacing it with an economically incoherent substitute. The article also notes with surprise that businesses that now have to have their prices approved by regulators have adopted a peculiar practice by which they first propose higher prices than they expect to end up with and then work down toward their costs. Levin adds “sources say that supply and demand may be related in ways that influence prices, but this remain unconfirmed.”
When health care bureaucrats reduce the price that will be paid to providers for their services, oddly enough, the cost of insurance will go up.
James Taranto note another example from the Associated Press:
A bluefin tuna sold for a record $1.76 million at a Tokyo auction Saturday, nearly three times the previous high set last year–even as environmentalists warn that stocks of the majestic, speedy fish are being depleted worldwide amid strong demand for sushi.
The reporter, Malcolm Foster, was too caught up in environmental sentimentalism to notice that this is basic supply and demand at work. When the supply of something is low, prices go up. Imagine that.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Education, Intelligence, Law, Liberalism, Terrorism | Tags: Fuzzy Thinking, Mindless Zero-Tolerance, Schools in Decline
This last month, a six-year-old boy in Silver Spring, MD was suspended from a Montgomery County public school for pointing his finger like a gun and saying “pow.” This was an incident that school officials characterized in a disciplinary letter as a threat to “shoot a student.” Oh please.
I’ve done that, haven’t you? I have also fired weapons and know the difference. I’m a real dead-eye when it comes to woodrats.
The first-grader was suspended for one day. The family found it necessary to hire an attorney, asking that the incident be expunged from the child’s school record amid concerns about potential long-term fallout. (Smart parents, but this is the most alarming point about the whole incident). Attorney Robin Ficker said:
The boy had no intention to shoot anyone. He is skinny and meek, In his words, he was playing. She described the child as soft-spoken.
Of course he had no intention to shoot anyone. A finger is not an assault weapon. But similar incidents have taken place in Oklahoma and elsewhere. I don’t think I was ever instructed in how to align my fingers to represent a pistol. It comes pretty naturally. Also note water-pistols, cap-pistols, NERF guns and carbide cannons.
The child’s parents received a letter from an assistant principal saying that their son “threatened to shoot a student” and that he had been spoken to earlier about similar behavior. A counselor “had an extended conversation” with the child to emphasize “the inappropriateness of using objects to make shooting gestures,” and an assistant principal had talked to the boy about the “seriousness” of the issue, the letter said.
“Yet, after the meeting with the counselor and assistant principal [the boy] chose to point his finger at a female classmate and say “Pow,” wrote the school system’s attorney. OMG. Call the cops, send him right to juvenile detention. What is the matter with these people?
In the meantime, there seems to be a little common sense at the Maryland State Board of Education which is preparing for a final vote on a proposed regulation that would transform the use of out-of-school suspension for minor offenses. [Please define minor]. The new regulation ban zero-tolerance approach and require school systems to “adopt a rehabilitative philosophy toward discipline, with the goal of limiting suspensions and teaching positive behavior.” Sigh. There’s some nice bureaucratic language intended to absolve anyone from blame for anything.
Ridicule is still the best weapon. When our schools get all paranoid about such trivial stuff, you realize why our education system has fallen so far. These schools should be made national laughingstocks. Just try a little common sense.
Filed under: Capitalism, Communism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Liberalism, Politics, Statism | Tags: Misunderstanding Everything?, The Layabout Policy, The Problem of Our Schools
It is always helpful when members of the opposition tell you what they really think.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Liberalism, Politics, Progressivism, Taxes | Tags: Administration Lies, Dishonest Negotiation, Phony Spending Cuts
No wonder the White House hates Fox News so much. They ask real questions and don’t accept administration prevarication. Awkward. This administration has an unusual propensity for getting caught telling whoppers, and the media arm of the White House usually tries to cover up.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner appeared on Fox News Sunday yesterday to talk about the rude and uncooperative Republicans who were not agreeing promptly to raise taxes on the rich the way Obama wanted.
The problem is that Chris Wallace is usually very well-informed. He challenged Tim Geithner on the lack of real spending cuts in the proposal he brought to Capitol Hill last week. Geithner objected, claiming that the White House has trillions of cuts in their proposal — from ending the wars.
Wallace reminded Geithner that no one planned to keep fighting those wars in the first place. Geithner lost his cool and started complaining about Republican gimmicks. That’s funny. These are the people who double count the same savings, create imaginary ones, anything in order to keep from cutting spending at all. They have no intention of cutting spending. None.
WALLACE: Or they now say because you’re not willing to cut spending enough.
GEITHNER: No, but that’s not true. Again, if they want to do more on the spending side than the $600 billion we proposed on top of the trillion already enacted, in top of the savings from the wars, then they can tell us how they propose –
WALLACE: Savings in the wars that we were never going to fight?
GEITHNER: No, that’s not true. We’re — as you know, we’re winding down two wars.
WALLACE: I understand that.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: And you are thinking savings that nobody thought that you were going to spend that money anyway. It’s a budget gimmick, sir.
GEITHNER: No, that’s not right. You know, let me say it this way, those were expensive wars, not just in Americans lives but in terms of the taxpayers’ resources. And when you end them as the president is doing, they reduce our long term deficits and like in the Republican budget proposals, the world should reflect and recognize what that does in savings.
And we propose to use those savings to reduce the deficits and help invest in rebuilding America. We think that makes a lot of sense.
WALLACE: But it was money that wasn’t going to be spent anyway, and –
GEITHNER: If those wars have gone on, they would be spent.
WALLACE: I understand. But you’re not saving — you’re not ending the wars for budget purposes. You’re ending the wars because of a foreign policy decision. The wars weren’t going to be fought. You’re not really saving money.
GEITHNER: Chris, we all agree –
WALLACE: I mean, it’s a budget gimmick, but it’s money never intended to spend.
GEITHNER: No, it’s not a budget gimmick unless you are — when Republicans propose, it’s a budget gimmick?
WALLACE: Sure, absolutely.
GEITHNER: And you should address that to them. But what it does is –
WALLACE: Well — so, I’m addressing it to you.
Watch for the attempt to use the $716 billion that Obama already took out of Medicare payments to providers, and the funds saved by not invading Canada. That should be a lot. Geithner has already insisted that there will not be a fiscal-cliff deal unless Republicans agree to hike taxes on the Rich. How embarrassing to have to try to sell this phony stuff. Geithner knows better.
The rich already pay far more than their “fair share.” The top 10% of taxpayers pay 70.5% of all taxes.The bottom 90% of taxpayers (the rest) pay 29.5% of all taxes. The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay just 2.3% of all taxes. So who’s not paying their “fair share?” American income taxes are among the most progressive in the world.
The problem is not a lack of revenue. It is the spending habits of this particular president. He is way out of his depth, and it becomes more obvious every day. Better go back to the drawing board, Mr. Secretary.
Maybe if the House could revoke that $4 million the president is going to spend on his vacation, it would get his attention.
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Education, Liberalism, Politics, The Constitution | Tags: Campus Speech Codes, Censorship in the Dorm, Never Offend
Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE, on Unlearning Liberty, talks about the problem of campus censorship, speech codes that limit free speech, and the failure to understand the First Amendment. FIRE does a wonderful job for kids who run afoul of speech codes and the nonsensical idea that no matter what, you must not offend anyone.
Filed under: Capitalism, Conservatism, Entertainment, Heartwarming, Liberalism, Politics | Tags: Conservative in Hollywood?, Examining American Culture, Leftist Thought
The Left is deeply concerned about income inequality, you know that, they tell us so often enough. They have observed that some people live in poverty while others, particularly corporate CEOs, who get ridiculously enormous salaries that they certainly don’t deserve, are very rich. The Left considers this observed inequality as unnatural. In his book The Secret Knowledge, playwright David Mamet tackles the origins of the problem:
To correct this observed inequality, which the Left sees as unnatural, it invented the term “social justice.” But a system of Justice already exists, formulated by Legislature, in supposed expression of the will of the people, and administered by the Judiciary. This is called the Judicial System. What then is this additional, amorphous “social justice”? It can only mean, as Hayek wrote, “State Justice.” Here, though the Left will not follow the reasoning out to its end, the State (operating upon what basis it alone knows, and responsible to no law enacted by the people) confiscates wealth accumulated under existing laws and redistributes it to those it deems worthy.
History proves that the worthiest in these Marxist schemes are or quickly become, those in charge of distribution, which is to say “the State,” it’s constitutional powers usurped by those we know as “dictators.”
To the Left it is the State which should distribute place, wealth, and status. This is called “correcting structural error,” or redressing the legacy of Slavery,” or Affirmative Action, or constraining unfair Executive Compensation; but it is and can only be that spoils System which is decided at the ward level as “cronyism.” And lauded at the national level as “social justice.” It is nothing other than the distribution of goods and services by the government for ends not specified in the Constitution; and in response to pressure from or in attempts to curry favor with groups seeking preferments or goods not obtainable either under the law, or through those practices of mutual benefit called the Free Market. What obscenities are created in the name of “social justice?” What could possibly be less just than policies destructive of initiative and based upon genetics?
David Mamet was once a Democrat, and thought better of it. Actually he thought long and deeply about it, read a lot, and turned his considerable writing skills to explaining just why he changed his mind. It is a perfectly delightful book, and as a lifelong Conservative, I learned a lot.
David Mamet is an American playwright, screenwriter, author,and director renowned for Glengarry Glen Ross (Pulitzer, Tony nomination). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict and Wag the Dog. His books include: The Old Religion, Five Cities of Refuge, The Wicked Son, and a long list of books and movies, television shows and even radio dramas.
The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, is Mamet’s book detailing his conversion from modern liberalism to “a reformed liberal.” It was released in June of 2011, and I recommend it heartily.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Freedom, Liberalism, Progressivism, Statism | Tags: Daily Kos, Howard Dean, Milton Friedman
From the Archives: August 8, 2010.
Liberals control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Their efforts are extolled and celebrated by the national media. Hollywood churns out movies and TV shows that portray the liberal view of the world. Congress can pass whatever bills they want, confident that the president will sign them. They have the power to do whatever they want, and since they are there —our elected representatives — one can assume that they have the approval and good wishes of the people of the United States.
So why are Liberals so angry? If the recent revelations from JournoList, the e-mail list of about 100 liberal/left journalists mean anything, the most notable fact is the depth of their hatred for conservatives. And not just conservatives in general, they hate conservative individuals.
There is plenty of evidence of this. Those of us on the right have seen it — frothing at the mouth, red-in-the-face, not just disagreement, but hatred. Back in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union “an evil empire,” liberals were enraged.
A JournoList participant, a public-radio reporter, expressed her personal wish to see Rush Limbaugh die a slow painful death — and nobody objected. A Daily Kos editor dreams of liquidating opponents like “Steven Milloy and his buddies” with a Soylent Green assisted suicide, because they commit the crime of opposing global warming alarmism. Howard Dean, never shy about expressing his hatred for Republicans, said “In contradistinction to the Republicans, Democrats don’t believe kids ought to go to bed hungry at night.” Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) said “I want to say a few words about what it means to be a Democrat. It’s very simple: We have a conscience.” Oh please!
When you comb through the evidence, it becomes apparent that Conservatives are hated specifically because — they disagree. Liberals life-long dream of government controlled health care has been realized. And the Republicans had the colossal nerve to oppose it. It was, liberals are sure, the right thing to do, to make health care more affordable and everybody healthier, and the Republicans started in with their studies and evidence and history and convinced the poor ordinary folk out there to oppose it too.
Progressivism is a bit of a religious experience — everything is politics and politics is everything. And when they got to be in charge, to control the levers and the power of government, liberals would show everyone just what “hope and change”really meant. Equality, social justice. Things would be fixed. The rich would be brought down, business would be forced to stop preying on poor people just to make a profit. Profit would no longer be allowed. Life would be fair.
Of course they have tripled the deficit that Obama claims daily was left to him by George W. Bush. They have really, really tried to fix the economy. They have paid people to buy cars, purchase homes, pay off their mortgages, weatherize their homes and put solar panels on their roofs. And it didn’t work. And the liberals are furious because the conservatives — disagreed.
Life is not fair. It just isn’t. And you cannot make it fair. Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. Human nature is imperfect, unchangeable, and unfixable. We make mistakes, and that is how we learn. Sometimes we make horrible mistakes, and we try to fix them. But if we do not learn from our mistakes, then we cannot grow. The greatest impetus for growth has always been liberty. Milton Friedman once put it rather well:
A society that puts equality— in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.
I’m repeating this because they are still angry, and it still applies.
