So says President Obama, who then raises our taxes, deficit-spends us into a devalued currency and a lowered credit rating, and subsidizes those who in turn subsidize his political aspirations — through phony green energy boondoggles, sops to public sector unions, and ever-growing entitlement spending on the dependent class the Democrats rely on as their voting base, and whom they therefore must always endeavor to keep dependent.
But here’s the thing: dictating conformity and enforcing “shared responsibility” — which is nothing more than man’s way to dignify State-sponsored theft by slapping on a veneer of moral rectitude and faux populism — is a direct assault on a free people, particularly in an atmosphere where the government gets to define what is “fair” and how much one is commanded, under a “progressive” scheme, to “share”.
Who I am as a person, Mr President, is me. And in this country, I’m supposed to allowed to be me, provided I don’t run afoul of the law. Yet more and more, what I eat, where I sleep, what I sleep on, what my children eat, what I drive, how much I drive, how much energy I use, how I see, how my house is painted, and on and on and on, are determined in DC by bureaucrats and administrators — and I’m told that a failure to follow their rules puts me at odds with the laws of the State.
This is no way for free men and women to live.
And free men and women left unmolested by the State is who we as Americans should be “as a people”.
That we’re not any longer — having long ago become pawns to the social engineers and technocrats playing SimCity on a grand scale — must be part of that “fundamental transformation” we hear so much about.
The problem being, we’re still Americans. And sooner or later, the idea that we must all be worker bees in the service of the fat Queen of the State is going to prove unpalatable to many of us.
At which point, the pendulum is going to swing back.
I think there’s more going on with “shared responsibility” than it’s the responsibility of the productive to produce so that government can share it out to the unproductive. Collective responsibility promotes individual irresponsibility (there’s that no-fault freedom thing again). Get enough individual irresponsibility and you start getting social breakdown. Social breakdown requires ever greater government intervention (in the name of shared responsibility, of course), which in turn leads to more individual irresponsibility.
Repeat until we’re all slaves to the machine.
The most we can hope for is a low-flow toilet in which it will take two or three tries to flush us completely down the drain.
Sort of a tragedy of the commons writ large.
But if you just lean on the productive class, you can have collective salvation!
Which is nice because that means you can be a useless piece of shit and ride to glory on the backs of those who aren’t.
Pretty much. But only because Obama has private definitions for his political bromides (hard work, fair play, shared responsibility) that he’s never been pressed about.
And also because our side is afraid to talk about our values* (e.g. hard work, self-reliance, personal accountability, the right to enjoy the fruits of your own labor); either because they’re afraid of mockery from the socio-cultural elite, or because somewhere some moderate might have her tender sensibilities offended, I suppose.
*sorry sdferr
‘S cool Ernst: we’re stuck with it.
I’m content to be content if people merely get an idea where it came from and why it came from there. How it is used on them, in other words.
Which (heh), I’m still working on it!
[…] being the typical Leftist he is, has substituted different meanings for all of those phrases, as Jeff Goldstein reminds us: But here’s the thing: dictating conformity and enforcing “shared responsibility” — which […]
See, I always thought that only totalitarians said “shared sacrifice,” and that such a red flag would be obvious to all.
dicentra, I think he was betting he could say “shared responsibility” (which was never “part of who we are”) and that people would hear “personal responsibility” (very much a part of who we are) and go “…oh yeah, there’s something sort of right-sounding about that…maybe this guy does have a clue, after all…” and BAM! Poll numbers pushing 50%.
This is a tactic he’s used many times before, to great effect.
And it’s not just him. The entire Left is all about this “vague familiarity by partial obfuscation” dealio. I recall two instances where people relatively new on the political scene (IOW, not household names yet) were called by the media by their allll-most correct names. At the time I thought it a dazzling display of pop culture-fueled ignorance, but looking back it may have been an intentional ploy to endear these new faces (one of whom would desperately need it) to Americans. Ready?
1. Madeleine Albright. Appointed SecState by Clinton for his second term (maybe it was near the end of his first), succeeding Warren Christopher. Now, she was already known to political junkies, as she had previously been Ambassador (to the UN?), and had famously called out the President of Mexico for his lack of cojones. During the SecState proceedings, the press consistently referred to her as “Dr. Albright.” Now, she did indeed have a Ph. D. or three, but to the best of my memory she had previously been referred to as “Ms. Albright.” I’m nearly convinced that the new appellation is due to the character of the same name in the then-current TV hit, “Third Rock from the Sun.” I thought at the time it had been a subconscious error, but I’m not so sure anymore.
2. Bashar Assad. AKA the “chinless ophthalmologist” dictator of Syria. Succeeded his father Hafez upon his death in 2000, despite never having been “next-in-line”. Was called “Dr. Bashar” by anyone and everyone. Now, in this case I’m not aware of him having been called something else previously, but it seems a strange formulation – title and first name, instead of last. I could have dismissed that, however, were it not for the occasional slip-up, calling him, get this, “Dr. Bashir.” Yeah, the guy from Star Trek, also then a going concern.
But then, I could just be some crazy conspiracy Visigoth nut.
(Which are almost as good as macadamia nuts.)