A reader writes:
I thoroughly enjoy many aspects of your blog and find it to be very largely informative. However, I have to take exception with your description of the aims of liberalism – I believe you know perfectly well that liberalism doesn’t believe in punishing success/wealth-creation any more than conservatism believes in perpetuating the wealth of the rich on the backs of the poor/middle-class. These are the types of lump descriptions that just drive me wild; everyone agrees that this country would be better if more of its people were successful. So, we disagree on the manner of achieving that outcome. Big Deal. Let’s have the argument about the specifics of that, and refrain from silly/rote/easy demonizations.
Yeah, that kind of rhetoric isn’t very helpful. But it does express my irritation with the way some liberals – and only some – assume a kind of nefariousness among those who have actually made a material success of their lives, and see no real loss in expropriating their moolah. I have a visceral reaction to that assumption. Which is why, I guess, I’m still a conservative.
The Dish 