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First, Mr. Levitt's letter:
The United States of America was designed to be different from all other nations. It accepted that an individual’s fate was to be determined, not by class distinction and hereditary status, but, by one’s own freely chosen pursuit of ambition.
This fostered our “exceptionalism.”
In all other nations, the rights enjoyed by their citizens were conferred by human agencies: kings and princes and parliaments. They were privileges that could be revoked by the same human agencies. In America, the citizen’s rights were declared to have come from God and to be “inalienable” – immune to legitimate revocation. Thus was fashioned a country in which more liberty and prosperity is more widely shared than among other people in history.
Politicians, not concerned about liberty, pursue class warfare policies seeking economic equality, rather than opportunity, reflected in the phrase “spread the wealth.”
They ignore the observations by a socialist that those nations which put liberty ahead of equality have ended up doing better by equality.
Within America today a split has developed, with one side in favor of liberty and the other in favor of redistribution.
Those seeking redistribution assume that the financial gap between citizen groups self-evidently amounts to a violation of social justice, which rules out the role played by talent, character, ambition, initiative, risk, work and spirit in producing unequal outcomes.
This wiping away of the causes of American exceptionalism, by employing class warfare, is turning this country into a facsimile of social-democratic regimes of Western Europe. America can continue to be “exceptional” only if we the people demand our God given rights, not privileges to be parceled out by politicians, and if we understand that, while we are all created equal, we should remain free to pursue our own fate, even though economic results are unequal.
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Now Mr. Hessman's reply:
This letter is a response to Jack R. Levitt’s Dec. 6 letter regarding his thoughts on American exceptionalism. One of his main points was that any attempts at social justice violate the idea that our nation was founded on the ideas of equality of all people (Take a moment and read Mr. Levitt's letter again. This is not what he said. Mr. Levitt said that spreading the wealth violates liberty.)
and that an insidious group of Americans seek to eliminate this principle (Insidious is not a word used by Mr. Levitt. In fact, he doesn't even imply that there is some sort of stealth movement. He does specifically name politicians, who implement policy in government. Those laws are published and are not hidden at all.
In fact, it seems that these kinds of people have been emboldened to the point where they freely admit their objectives. Insidious is a word that conveys a conspiracy, which of course pushes Mr. Levitt into kook-land, according to people like Mr. Hessman).
I am one of the people whom he accuses of putting equality before liberty, but the point he misses is that seeking equality is seeking liberty for all. To abandon social justice would be an abandoning the idea of freedom. To give free reign to those who hold wealth only results in class division being further increased. (This is a standard line of thinking for the Left, the envy of the rich. This dividing people into classes is a marxist concept. Supposedly it is wealth disparity between classes that needs to be remedied by the uprising of the proletariat against the bourgeois.
This concept is held dear by the Left, even though it has been rendered obsolete by the success of western society for all classes. Western society is predicated on the idea of individualism, property rights and self sufficiency, and this has yielded unprecedented prosperity and opportunity. The American ideal celebrated by Mr. Levitt has rendered marxist arguments moot.
But they persist, clinging to an archaic framework, albeit in a modified form. Traditional marxists would identify the wealthy factory owner, aided by a government consisting of a privileged class, as the oppressor which needs to be overthrown, violently if needed.
However, rather than overthrow the wealthy power structure, modern day quasi-marxists have embraced the government power structure as a means of change, and now use it to coerce people to part with their wealth via taxation. Now they can achieve their vision simply by passing laws that take money from one person and gives it to another person who did not earn it.
This vision of "justice" is what Mr. Levitt objects to.)
Conservatives argue government should get out of the way to allow for equal opportunity, but the idea of equal opportunity is a complete sham in the corporate-driven world. (Here's confirmation of my previous paragraph. Mr. Hessman identifies his bogeyman and claims that corporatism is the reason there is poverty. So, since equal opportunity is a sham, the government, which happily embraces corporate cronyism by the way, should intervene)
Students from poor families being unable to continue their education because of insane college costs (It sometimes surprises me what bubbles to the surface when quasi-marxists rant. Mr. Hessman equates high tuition costs with lack of liberty, but few institutions of higher learning are run by corporations. Most are government-run!)
while trust fund babies sail through expensive educations is not liberty (Do you see? People who have money are at an advantage, and that is not liberty. Mr. Hessman seems to think that the RESULT of liberty is proof of lack of liberty!
But we know that if the results are always equal, no matter the intelligence, resources, effort, creativity, and initiative invloved, then definitionally merit becomes irrelevant, or even, undesirable So, in this odd scenario, people should get what they don't deserve, while others don't get what they do deserve. This is not liberty, it is tyranny.).
A family facing financial ruin because they had the poor judgment to get sick is not liberty (This is a not-too-clever way of saying that healthcare equals fairness. One might take that further and suggest that everyone not eating steak is unfair, people who are forced to drive an old car is not fair, not being able to afford box seats at the football game is not fair, and not being able to breathe clean air is not fair. Leftists, like little kids, are obsessed with fairness.
However, fairness is a base concept, a fiction in real life. Nothing is fair, and frankly, nothing can be made fair. The complete lack of fairness ought to be self-evident. A storm destroys one home while leaving another untouched. A murderer kills one person, but leaves another alone. Someone eats a bad clam and dies from food poisoning, while another eats a bad clam and doesn't even get sick.
Fairness is a fairy tale, it's what junior-high level intellects want.).
Liberty can only exist when people are not only free to choose their own path in life, but able to pursue their dreams. (This is quite true. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.)
This ability becomes more and more diminished as social programs are cut in a heat of tax-cutting fervor (Now we have Mr. Hessman equating social programs with liberty. Aside from the fact that they have not been diminished at all, we need to note that social programs have not succeeded. Poverty is still hovering at 12-14%, and has for decades. Senior citizens still have to choose between dog food and medicine, despite Social Security, Medicare, and all sorts of other senior benefits.
Even corporate welfare has not prevented Chevrolet, Chrysler, Solyndra, and a host of other crony corporations from going bankrupt. If anything, the evidence is overwhelming that fairness has failed. The redistributionist model is an unmitigated disaster).
If America does indeed wish to remain exceptional, pursuing equality is key. Neither liberty nor equality can exist while distant plutocrats build their empires on the backs of the rest of the population (Plutocracy is defined as government by the wealthy. The irony of this is that government, by growing huge and intervening in society at every level, has precipitated the very situation bemoaned by Mr. Hessman. Government is obscenely powerful, spending untold trillions on every conceivable fairness program. Government controls huge sums of money, which of course is directed by government officials. And people are corruptible. We see it every day. Bribery, influence-buying, cronyism of every kind, are all commonplace.
However, rather than overthrow the wealthy power structure, modern day quasi-marxists have embraced the government power structure as a means of change, and now use it to coerce people to part with their wealth via taxation. Now they can achieve their vision simply by passing laws that take money from one person and gives it to another person who did not earn it.
This vision of "justice" is what Mr. Levitt objects to.)
Conservatives argue government should get out of the way to allow for equal opportunity, but the idea of equal opportunity is a complete sham in the corporate-driven world. (Here's confirmation of my previous paragraph. Mr. Hessman identifies his bogeyman and claims that corporatism is the reason there is poverty. So, since equal opportunity is a sham, the government, which happily embraces corporate cronyism by the way, should intervene)
Students from poor families being unable to continue their education because of insane college costs (It sometimes surprises me what bubbles to the surface when quasi-marxists rant. Mr. Hessman equates high tuition costs with lack of liberty, but few institutions of higher learning are run by corporations. Most are government-run!)
while trust fund babies sail through expensive educations is not liberty (Do you see? People who have money are at an advantage, and that is not liberty. Mr. Hessman seems to think that the RESULT of liberty is proof of lack of liberty!
But we know that if the results are always equal, no matter the intelligence, resources, effort, creativity, and initiative invloved, then definitionally merit becomes irrelevant, or even, undesirable So, in this odd scenario, people should get what they don't deserve, while others don't get what they do deserve. This is not liberty, it is tyranny.).
A family facing financial ruin because they had the poor judgment to get sick is not liberty (This is a not-too-clever way of saying that healthcare equals fairness. One might take that further and suggest that everyone not eating steak is unfair, people who are forced to drive an old car is not fair, not being able to afford box seats at the football game is not fair, and not being able to breathe clean air is not fair. Leftists, like little kids, are obsessed with fairness.
However, fairness is a base concept, a fiction in real life. Nothing is fair, and frankly, nothing can be made fair. The complete lack of fairness ought to be self-evident. A storm destroys one home while leaving another untouched. A murderer kills one person, but leaves another alone. Someone eats a bad clam and dies from food poisoning, while another eats a bad clam and doesn't even get sick.
Fairness is a fairy tale, it's what junior-high level intellects want.).
Liberty can only exist when people are not only free to choose their own path in life, but able to pursue their dreams. (This is quite true. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.)
This ability becomes more and more diminished as social programs are cut in a heat of tax-cutting fervor (Now we have Mr. Hessman equating social programs with liberty. Aside from the fact that they have not been diminished at all, we need to note that social programs have not succeeded. Poverty is still hovering at 12-14%, and has for decades. Senior citizens still have to choose between dog food and medicine, despite Social Security, Medicare, and all sorts of other senior benefits.
Even corporate welfare has not prevented Chevrolet, Chrysler, Solyndra, and a host of other crony corporations from going bankrupt. If anything, the evidence is overwhelming that fairness has failed. The redistributionist model is an unmitigated disaster).
If America does indeed wish to remain exceptional, pursuing equality is key. Neither liberty nor equality can exist while distant plutocrats build their empires on the backs of the rest of the population (Plutocracy is defined as government by the wealthy. The irony of this is that government, by growing huge and intervening in society at every level, has precipitated the very situation bemoaned by Mr. Hessman. Government is obscenely powerful, spending untold trillions on every conceivable fairness program. Government controls huge sums of money, which of course is directed by government officials. And people are corruptible. We see it every day. Bribery, influence-buying, cronyism of every kind, are all commonplace.
People like Mr. Hessman want government spreading money around, they want redistribution, they want high taxes on the wealthy. And then they are surprised when interested parties try to influence where that money goes. Quasi-marxists are responsible for the very problems they decry!
If liberty was truly the goal, then we would deprive government of power. If they didn't have the ability to control huge sums of money, then their inevitable corruption would not manifest, because they could do anything with their corruption. Take the money away, and corruption is contained.).
If liberty was truly the goal, then we would deprive government of power. If they didn't have the ability to control huge sums of money, then their inevitable corruption would not manifest, because they could do anything with their corruption. Take the money away, and corruption is contained.).
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