Posts Tagged ‘personal responsibility’
« Older Entries |Conservative vs. Liberal Beliefs
Friday, March 12th, 2010
| CONSERVATIVES – believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense. Believe the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals.
Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems. |
LIBERALS – believe in governmental action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all, and that it is the duty of the State to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. Believe the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Believe that people are basically good.
Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve people’s problems. |
THE ISSUES:
| ISSUE | CONSERVATIVE | LIBERAL |
| Abortion | Human life begins at conception. Abortion is the murder of a human being. Nobody has the right to murder a human being.
Support legislation to prohibit partial birth abortions, called the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban” (partial birth abortion – the killing of an unborn baby of at least 20 weeks by pulling it out of the birth canal with forceps, but leaving the head inside. An incision is made in the back of the baby’s neck and the brain tissue is suctioned out. The head is then removed from the uterus.) |
A fetus is not a human life.
The decision to have an abortion is a personal choice of a woman regarding her own body and the government should stay out of it. Women should be guaranteed the right to a safe and legal abortion, including partial birth abortion. |
| Affirmative action | People should be admitted to schools and hired for jobs based on their ability. It is unfair to use race as a factor in the selection process. Reverse-discrimination is not a solution for racism. | Due to prevalent racism in the past, minorities were deprived of the same education and employment opportunities as whites. We need to make up for that.
Support affirmative action based on the belief that America is still a racist society. Minorities still lag behind whites in all statistical measurements of success. Also, the presence of minorities creates diversity. |
| Death penalty | The death penalty is a punishment that fits the crime; it is neither ‘cruel’ nor ‘unusual’. Executing a murderer is the appropriate punishment for taking an innocent life. | We should abolish the death penalty. The death penalty is inhumane and is ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment. It does not deter crime. Imprisonment is the appropriate punishment. Every execution risks killing an innocent person. |
| Economy | The free market system, competitive capitalism, and private enterprise afford the widest opportunity and the highest standard of living for all. Free markets produce more economic growth, more jobs and higher standards of living than those systems burdened by excessive government regulation. | Favor a market system in which government regulates the economy. We need government to protect us against big businesses. Unlike the private sector, the government is motivated by public interest. We need government regulation to level the playing field. |
| Education – school vouchers | School vouchers will give all parents the right to choose good schools for their children, not just those who can afford private schools. Parents (who pay the taxes that fund the schools) should decide how and where to educate their child. | School vouchers are untested experiments. We need to focus on more funding for existing public schools -to raise teacher salaries and reduce class size. |
| the Environment | Desire clean water, clean air and a clean planet, just like everyone else. However, extreme environmental policies destroy jobs and damage the economy.
Changes in global temperatures are natural over long periods of time. So far, science has not shown that humans can affect permanent change to the earth’s temperature. |
Conservatives don’t care about protecting the environment. Industrial growth harms the environment. Global warming is caused by an increased production of carbon dioxide. The U.S. is a major contributor to global warming because it produces 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide. The U.S. should enact laws to significantly reduce that amount. |
| Gun control | The Second Amendment gives the individual the right to keep and bear arms. Gun control laws do not thwart criminals. You have a right to defend yourself against criminals. More guns mean less crime. | The Second Amendment gives no individual the right to own a gun, but allows the state to keep a militia (National Guard). Guns kill people. Guns kill children. |
| Health care | Free healthcare provided by the government (socialized medicine) means that everyone will get the same poor-quality healthcare. The rich will continue to pay for superior healthcare, while all others will receive poor-quality free healthcare from the government. Health care should remain privatized. Support Healthcare Spending Accounts. |
Support universal government-supervised health care. There are millions of Americans who can’t afford health insurance. They are being deprived of a basic right to healthcare. |
| Homeland security | Wary of parts of the Patriot Act | Oppose the Patriot Act |
| Immigration | Support legal immigration at current numbers, but do not support illegal immigration. Government should enforce immigration laws. Oppose President Bush’s amnesty plan for illegal immigrants. Those who break the law by entering the U.S. illegally should not have the same rights as those who obey the law by entering legally.
If there were a decrease in cheap, illegal immigrant labor, employers would have to substitute higher-priced domestic employees, legal immigrants, or perhaps increase mechanization. |
Support legal immigration and increasing the number of legal immigrants permitted to enter the U.S. each year. Support blanket amnesty for current illegal immigrants.
Believe that regardless of how they came to the U.S., illegal immigrants deserve: Illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans do not want to do. |
| Religion | The phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution. The First Amendment to the Constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This prevents the government from establishing a national church. However, it does not prevent God from being acknowledged in schools and government buildings.
Oppose the removal of symbols of Christian heritage from public and government spaces. Government should not interfere with religion and religious freedom. |
Support the separation of church and state. Religious expression has no place in government.
Support the removal of all references to God in public and government spaces. Religion should not interfere with government. |
| Same-sex marriage | Marriage is between one man and one woman.
Opinions differ on support for the creation of a constitutional amendment establishing marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Believe that requiring citizens to sanction same-sex relationships violates moral and religious beliefs of millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who believe marriage is the union of a man and a woman. |
Marriage should be legal for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples to ensure equal rights for all.
All individuals, regardless of their sex, have the right to marry. Believe that prohibiting same-sex citizens from marrying denies them of their civil rights. Opinions differ on whether this issue is equal to civil rights for African Americans. |
| Social Security | The current Social Security system is in serious financial trouble. Changes are necessary because the U.S. will be unable to maintain the current system it in the future. Support proposal to allow a portion of Social Security dollars withheld to be put into an account chosen by the individual, not the government. | Generally oppose change to the current Social Security system. Opinions vary on whether the current system is in financial trouble. Changing the current system will cause people to lose their Social Security benefits.
Support a cap on Social Security payments to the wealthy. |
| Taxes | Support lower taxes and a smaller government. Lower taxes create more incentive for people to work, save, invest, and engage in entrepreneurial endeavors. Money is best spent by those who earn it. | Support higher taxes and a larger government. High taxes enable the government to do good and create jobs. We need high taxes for social welfare programs, to provide for the poor. We can’t afford to cut taxes. |
| United Nations (UN) | The UN has repeatedly failed in its essential mission: to preserve world peace. The wars, genocide and human rights abuses of the majority of its member states (and the UN’s failure to stop them) prove this point. History shows that the United States, not the UN, is the global force for spreading freedom, prosperity, tolerance and peace. The U.S. should never subvert its national interests to those of the UN. | The United States has a moral and a legal obligation to support the United Nations (UN). The UN can be effective in promoting peace and human rights. The U.S. should not have acted in Iraq without UN approval. The U.S. should submit its national interests to the greater good (as defined by the UN). |
| War in Iraq | This was a preemptive strike to protect the U.S. All intelligence indicated that Saddam Hussein possessed and used weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in the past and was prepared to use them again. He would not allow United Nations weapons inspectors to confirm his claim that he had destroyed his WMDs. A democracy can succeed in Iraq if the people are given the opportunity to create one. All people want to live in freedom. |
This is Bush’s war for oil. Saddam Hussein was no real threat. We have not found weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), so Saddam did not have any. President Bush lied about WMDs and the dangers posed by Saddam. We should have given the UN more time. We have alienated the rest of the world by our unilateral action (‘go it alone’ attitude).
A democracy can’t succeed in Iraq. Not everyone wants to live in a democracy. |
| War on terror/terrorism | The world toward which the Militant Islamists strive cannot peacefully co-exist with the Western world. In the last decade, Militant Islamists have repeatedly attacked Americans and American interests here and abroad. The terrorists must be stopped and destroyed. | 9/11 was caused by America’s arrogant foreign policy. America needs to stop angering other countries. The threat posed by terrorism is exaggerated by President Bush for his own political advantage. |
| Welfare | Oppose long-term welfare. We need to provide opportunities to make it possible for poor and low-income workers to become self-reliant. It is far more compassionate and effective to encourage a person to become self-reliant, rather than keeping them dependent on the government for money. | Support welfare. We need welfare to provide for the poor. Conservatives oppose welfare because they are not compassionate toward the poor. We have welfare to bring fairness to American economic life. Without welfare, life below the poverty line would be intolerable. |
Tags: economy, Election 2010, government control, Houston Voters, Liberal vs Conservative, personal responsibility
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Is Health Care a Right?
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Most politicians, and probably most Americans, see health care as a right. Thus, whether a person has the means to pay for medical services or not, he is nonetheless entitled to them. Let’s ask ourselves a few questions about this vision.
Say a person, let’s call him Harry, suffers from diabetes and he has no means to pay a laboratory for blood work, a doctor for treatment and a pharmacy for medication. Does Harry have a right to XYZ lab’s and Dr. Jones’ services and a prescription from a pharmacist? And, if those services are not provided without charge, should Harry be able to call for criminal sanctions against those persons for violating his rights to health care?
You say, “Williams, that would come very close to slavery if one person had the right to force someone to serve him without pay.” You’re right. Suppose instead of Harry being able to force a lab, doctor and pharmacy to provide services without pay, Congress uses its taxing power to take a couple of hundred dollars out of the paycheck of some American to give to Harry so that he could pay the lab, doctor and pharmacist. Would there be any difference in principle, namely forcibly using one person to serve the purposes of another? There would be one important strategic difference, that of concealment. Most Americans, I would hope, would be offended by the notion of directly and visibly forcing one person to serve the purposes of another. Congress’ use of the tax system to invisibly accomplish the same end is more palatable to the average American.
True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by another. In other words, my rights to speech or travel impose no obligations on another except those of non-interference. If we apply ideas behind rights to health care to my rights to speech or travel, my free speech rights would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with an auditorium, television studio or radio station. My right to travel freely would require government-imposed obligations on others to provide me with airfare and hotel accommodations.
For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, or any other good or service, whether a person can afford it or not, it must diminish someone else’s rights, namely their rights to their earnings. The reason is that Congress has no resources of its very own. Moreover, there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy giving them those resources. The fact that government has no resources of its very own forces one to recognize that in order for government to give one American citizen a dollar, it must first, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
To argue that people have a right that imposes obligations on another is an absurd concept. A better term for new-fangled rights to health care, decent housing and food is wishes. If we called them wishes, I would be in agreement with most other Americans for I, too, wish that everyone had adequate health care, decent housing and nutritious meals. However, if we called them human wishes, instead of human rights, there would be confusion and cognitive dissonance. The average American would cringe at the thought of government punishing one person because he refused to be pressed into making someone else’s wish come true.
None of my argument is to argue against charity. Reaching into one’s own pockets to assist his fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else’s pockets to do so is despicable and deserves condemnation.
Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Election 2010, Houston Voters, national healthcare, personal responsibility, socialized medicine, Taxes
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Low-tax Texas beats big-government California
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
March 7, 2010
| (AP) |
“Stop messing with Texas!” That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas’ anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.
His point was that the big-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters’ independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.
No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state’s history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.
They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation’s second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.
But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress — or lack of it — over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.
Those Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million — all originally extracted from taxpayers — into effective TV ads.
Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California — almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census.
Texas is a different story. Texas has low taxes — and no state income taxes — and a much smaller government. Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California’s year-round legislature. Its fiscal condition is sound. Public employee unions are weak or nonexistent.
But Texas seems to be delivering superior services. Its teachers are paid less than California’s. But its test scores — and with a demographically similar school population — are higher. California’s once fabled freeways and crumbling and crowded. Texas has built gleaming new highways in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
In the meantime, Texas’ economy has been booming. Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs.
And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. That inflow has continued in 2008-09, in which 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state, at the same time as 98,000 were moving out of California. Texas is on the way to gain four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment.
This was not always so. In the two decades after World War II California, with its pleasant weather, was the Golden State, a promised land, for most Americans, while Texas seemed a provincial rural backwater. Many saw postwar California’s expansion of universities, freeways and water systems a model for the nation. Few experts praised Texas’ low-tax, low-services government.
Now it is California’s ruinously expensive and increasingly incompetent government that seems dysfunctional, while Texas’ approach has generated more creativity and opportunity. So it’s not surprising that Texas voters preferred Perry over an opponent who has spent 16 years in Washington. What’s surprising is that Democrats in Washington are still trying to impose policies like those that have ravaged California rather than those that have proved so successful in Texas.
Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, economy, Election 2010, government control, Houston Voters, personal responsibility, unemployment
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Why the Left Despises Personal Responsibility
Sunday, March 7th, 2010
Townhall.com
If you wish to see an enjoyable evening with friends become quite animated, then overly hostile, and end in exacting bitterness, ask those in attendance to choose between the following.
As an individual citizen, is it more American to believe that you have a personal responsibility to be personally accountable for your actions, and those of your family? Or is it more American to believe that you should wait for the giant collective to take care of you?
This did not use to be a controversial concept. Until liberals decided that power is more highly coveted than freedom. Once they did, they started systematically enslaving people to the collective. Take the President for example.
President Barack Obama’s tendency to drink too much, and his inability to stop smoking was revealed publicly this week. His refusal to stop smoking, and his need, according to the White House physician’s official diagnosis, to moderate his alcohol consumption are huge red flags, health-wise. In fact aggressive or “non-moderate” alcohol intake, and cigarette smoking specifically (pipes and cigars are not nearly as dangerous) contribute to many poor health factors that do not show up immediately. Yet everything from heart disease to various cancers can be accelerated due to these behaviors.
But in President Obama’s world, personal responsibility barely means anything. He seldom exhibits it, and the nation that voted for him reviles it.
“Oh too far, Kevin,” you may be saying.
But it’s not.
On my nationwide morning show on March 2, 2010, I asked this very question, and the responses floored me. Geographically speaking, it made no difference. From the east, west, north, and south, protestations and attempted justifications declared repeatedly that the collective has more responsibility for the individual’s happiness than the individual.
And friends if this IS the belief of the nation, we’ve lost America.
The reason our founders were so attentive to individual rights, and focused so hard to embed them into the bedrock of our legal outlines was because they understood that to be at the mercy of the collective, was in fact to be at the mercy of a powerful few.
President Obama may not wish to curb his habits as it relates to his health. But generally speaking, such risky behavior should put him outside the boundaries of expecting to have other people pay for his cancer surgery, his diseased liver, or the eventual recovery from a stroke or heart attack should the unthinkable occur. Continued…
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Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Election 2010, Houston Voters, national healthcare, personal responsibility, socialized medicine
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Millions of people can monitor their own behavior better than any third parties can
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Too Many Apologies
Tiger Woods doesn’t owe me an apology. Nothing that he has ever done has cost me a dime nor an hour of sleep.
This is not a plea to be “non-judgmental.” I am very judgmental about all sorts of things, including Tiger Woods’ bad behavior. But that is very different from saying that he somehow owes me an apology.
For all I know, my neighbors may be judgmental when I drive out of my driveway in a 15-year-old car. But they have never said anything to me about it, and I have never offered them an apology. This is not equating driving a 15-year-old car with what Tiger Woods did. But the point is that any apology he might make should be made to his family, who were hurt, not to the public, who might be disappointed in him, but not really hurt.
Public apologies to people who are not owed any apology have become one of the many signs of the mushy thinking of our times. So are apologies for things that somebody else did.
Among the most absurd apologies have been apologies for slavery by politicians. For one thing, slavery is not something you can apologize for, any more than you can apologize for murder.
If someone says to you that he murdered someone near and dear to you, what are you supposed to say? “No problem, we all make mistakes”? Not bloody likely!
Slavery is too serious for an apology and somebody else being a slaveowner is not something for you to apologize for. When somebody who has never owned a slave apologizes for slavery to somebody who has never been a slave, then what began as mushy thinking has degenerated into theatrical absurdity– or, worse yet, politics.
Slavery has existed all over the planet for thousands of years, with black, white, yellow and other races being both slaves and enslavers. Does that mean that everybody ought to apologize to everybody else for what their ancestors did? Or are the only people who are supposed to feel guilty the ones who have money that others want to talk them out of?
This craze for aimless apologies is part of a general loss of a sense of personal responsibility in our time. We are supposed to feel guilty for what other people did but there are a thousand cop-outs for what we ourselves did to those we did it to. Continued…
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Tags: Election 2010, government control, Houston, Houston Voters, personal responsibility, socialism
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An Unbridgeable Philosophical Divide?
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
One quickly realizes the major philosophical and principle divide between liberals and conservatives when they painfully deconstruct and analyze their respective rhetoric. Conservatives and liberals are worlds apart in their ideology; an ideology that is now more than ever serving as the impetus for bold and endlessly complex legislation foisted on the already burdened American people. Conservative cling to the power of equality of opportunity and unfettered freedom; while liberals, on the other hand, are fearfully willing to sacrifice the hard earned dollars of honest Americans for the freedom of equal outcomes.
To illustrate the point, let’s examine some of the more recent contentious political issues to better test and illuminate this hypothesis.
Healthcare: The Left was willing to sacrifice individual freedom to choose doctors, opting instead to impose a state-run monopoly on medical care at the expense of a market driven health system. They unabashedly didn’t care that they were redistributing income from the more productive to the less productive; from the young to the old; from the healthy to the less healthy. In contrast, conservatives looked towards market solutions to resolve many of the existing health care issues, one that operated within a framework of the invisible hand of rational behaviors and the proper incentives. If cost is a factor in health care as liberals would argue, then why not ensure the solution has a price-based fixture?
Cap and Trade: Under the Democratic plan, income derived from a cap and trade scheme would be redistributed from productive carbon producing enterprises to non-carbon emitting enterprises. In effect, jobs would be lost, shifting from the USA to less responsible, emerging countries. Wealth would also shift from America to non- compliant nations; for what reason? Because of spotty, inconclusive scientific evidence that reduced carbon emissions would prevent global warming. Conservatives questioned that science. Not because they were Neanderthals. But when you ask the average American to pay $5 for a gallon of gas to save an iceberg in a remote part of the north he may never see when that same person is struggling to pay that month’s mortgage or he himself will be out in the cold, you better be damn sure of the consequences of “global warming.” Frankly, the Left failed in that argument.
Union Card Check: Democrats were willing to sacrifice the sanctity of a secret ballot to insure that Unions could fleece more American workers. With members (and clout) dissipating at record rates, it’s evident union bosses are feeling their grip on power lifting. It was easy to see this political exercise for what it was – a desperate bid to win at all costs, even if it meant cooking the ballot box at union halls. Here again, conservatives stood on an obvious side – the one for more freedom and more individualism.
McCain-Feingold: Democrats howled when the Supreme Court recently overturned corporate prohibitions in the landmark McCain-Feingold law. Here again, they’re willing to sacrifice the constitutionally-protected free speech of corporations and their shareholders. This has the long term effect of preventing this segment of society from spending their corporate dollars on political issues that are or are not in their best interest. The beauty of our First Amendment is captured best in its simplicity – when you abridge someone’s right to speak out for causes he/she believes in, no amount of demagoguing will cover that injustice. Continued…
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Tags: Congress, economy, Election 2010, government control, Houston, Houston Voters, personal responsibility, Taxes
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HICKS: A conservative creed for today
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
The Washington Times
By Marybeth Hicks
“Mom, I need to ask you something,” my daughter begins as she buckles her seat belt. Knowing the drive to school lasts only six minutes, she must figure the answer will be either concise or embarrassing, so I brace myself for a question about the meaning of a phrase I will undoubtedly have to look up on Urbandictionary.com.
“What’s the difference between liberals and conservatives?”
Whew. An easy one. I’m just glad she didn’t ask the difference between Democrats and Republicans. That’s harder to explain.
“The short answer is, liberals think government can solve a lot of our problems, while conservatives believe the government should be limited so that people can solve their own problems,” I say.
I offer up a couple of examples of government programs to illustrate the point — the economic stimulus package, “Cash for Clunkers” — but there’s not much time to elaborate as we arrive in the school drop-off lane.
“Well, I’m definitely a conservative,” Amy says as she climbs out of the van. “See ya.”
I’m amused, but not surprised, that my 12-year-old already has decided on a philosophical label. Knowing Amy, it won’t be long before she’s asking me the difference between neo-cons and libertarians or the “Old Right” versus the “New Right.” Clearly, she was sent to us by God to keep us on our toes.
I’m also not surprised to be having a conversation about political theory with one of my children. Call us geeky (we’re OK with that), but we believe it’s crucial to teach our children not only our core religious beliefs, but also our political beliefs. This is what it means to instill our values, and thus, to do the real work of parenting.
Of course, my “civics lesson in a nutshell” doesn’t even begin to articulate the differences between liberals and conservatives in our country today. Beyond the political implications, these labels also describe a general worldview about freedom and responsibility, liberty and license, duty and entitlement.
Lofty stuff for the ride to school, to be sure, but timely nonetheless.
On Wednesday in Alexandria, about 80 conservative leaders, including the heads of some of the nation’s most influential groups on the right, gather to sign a document that has been more than a year in the making called the Mount Vernon Statement. For those of us seeking to pass on our conservative values and ideals to our children, this new document reinvigorates the old — but not outdated — concepts behind the founding of our country.
According to Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator and a member of the Conservative Action Project, the work group behind the Mount Vernon Statement, its purpose is to articulate the common core values of all facets of the conservative movement.
Recalling the words of the late Russell Kirk, Mr. Regnery says, “The Constitution is the most successful conservative document in the history of the world.”
Even so, he concedes the Constitution can be daunting to read, while the Mount Vernon Statement simply defines a set of guiding principles as old as the republic and that will be relevant years from now, just as it is today. Importantly, the Mount Vernon Statement is not geared to any election or candidate or specific piece of legislation.
“We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding,” the statement begins. “Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government. These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people.” (Read the rest at www.themountvernonstatement.com).
Visitors to www.themountvernonstatement.com and the Web sites of the various organizations supporting the project are invited to sign the statement online and to use it as a blueprint going forward for activism and policymaking.
It’s meant to go viral as a creed, of sorts, for modern-day conservative believers.
Amen to that.
• Visit Mary Beth Hicks at Marybethhicks.com
Tags: Congress, Election 2010, government control, Liberals vs Conservatives, personal responsibility
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The Fallacy of “Fairness”: Part III
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
Most of us want to be fair, in the sense of treating everyone equally. We want laws to be applied the same to everyone. We want educational, economic or other criteria for rewards to be the same as well. But this concept of fairness is not only different from prevailing ideas of fairness among many of the intelligentsia, it contradicts their idea of fairness.
People like philosopher John Rawls call treating everyone alike merely “formal” fairness. Professor Rawls advocated “a conception of justice that nullifies the accidents of natural endowment and the contingencies of social circumstances.” He called for a society which “arranges” end-results, rather than simply treating everyone the same and letting the chips fall where they may.
This more hands-on concept of fairness gives third parties a much bigger role to play. But whether any human being has ever had the omniscience to determine and undo the many differences among people born into different families and cultures– with different priorities, attitudes and behavior– is a very big question. And to concentrate the vast amount of power needed to carry out that sweeping agenda is a dangerous gamble, whose actual consequences have too often been written on the pages of history in blood.
There is no question that the accident of birth is a huge factor in the fate of people. What is a very serious question is how much anyone can do about that without creating other, and often worse, problems. Providing free public education, scholarships to colleges and other opportunities for achievement are fine as far as they go, but there should be no illusion that they can undo all the differences in priorities, attitudes and efforts among different individuals and groups.
Trying to change whole cultures and subcultures in which different individuals are raised would be a staggering task. But the ideology of multiculturalism, which pronounces all cultures to be equally valid, puts that task off limits. This paints people into whatever corner the accident of birth has put them.
Under these severe constraints, all that is left is to blame others when the outcomes are different for different individuals and groups. Apparently those who are lagging are to continue to think and act as they have in the past– and yet somehow have better outcomes in the future. And, if they don’t get the same outcomes as others, then according to this way of seeing the world, it is society’s fault! Continued…
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Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Election 2010, Fairness, Houston, Houston Voters, Ideology of Multiculturalism, personal responsibility, Public Education
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