The Concept of Fairness
For a long time now but especially lately, the word ‘fair’ and the concept of ‘fairness’ has been receiving a great deal of discussion time in the public discourse. It is bandied about with great looseness and frequency so that it is just an accepted term that everyone understands and is comfortable with. Especially the idea that somehow everything not only should be fair but the government has an obligation to see to it that all things are, in fact, fair. The problem with this word is that it is essentially meaningless. When someone uses it, especially in political discussion, no one even bothers to ask the speaker what he or she means when referring to it. What exactly does that word mean?
Personally, I don’t have the slightest idea what the word fair means. Oh, I know what it has come to mean. In its everyday usage, it basically means, and this is true for everyone, whatever is good for me is fair and whatever is bad for me, even if it is good for someone else as is normally the case, is unfair. This is, of course, not even possible. Something simply cannot be fair to you if it is unfair to someone else if, as people believe, all things must be fair.
Time for some simple truths. Let’s start with a universal truth. Something that has always been true and always will be true. Life is not fair. Life has never been fair, is not fair now and will never be fair. Get a grip on it, get used to it and deal with it. The problem is, despite what the Declaration of Independence tells us, we are not all created equally. Some of us are smarter, more driven, born to a wealthy family, luckier and any number of other things that help some people to become more successful than others. Some people make poor decisions. In fact, we all make bad decisions about one thing or another during our lives. Most of us do not expect the government to legislate corrections and shovel money at our bad choices. We look at the guy in the mirror and know he or she is the one that did it and has to live with the consequences.
However, odd as it may seem, many people do expect the government to protect them from, let’s face it, their own stupidity. Their own bad choices. The mistakes they’ve made and continue to make. We have created a nation of whiners, entitlement addicts and children. And the reason for this is politicians have been encouraging this thinking for at least a couple of generations. “Vote for me. Life isn’t fair and it’s not your fault. You can’t help it. You’re a victim. Vote for me and I’ll see to it the government takes care of you because that would be fair.”
Now we have Barak Obama and his minions telling us that the way out of our economic difficulties is by taxing the rich because they don’t pay their ‘fair share’. There’s that word again, fair. (a quick disclaimer. I am not one of those rich people. I’d like to be but, I’m not). Despite the fact that by any statistical measurement anyone can come up with, they are paying plenty more than anyone else and certainly more than their fair share. But, according to Obama, their taxes need to be increased to get them to pay their ‘fair share’. And, of course, the Obama media never, ever asks him the question, just exactly what is their fair share? Please tell us so we know.
Part of me doesn’t really care if the very well off have to pay more in taxes. After all, how many homes, cars, wives and girlfriends do you really need? The problem I have with this is I don’t believe the politicians for a minute. There is no way they would use this money for deficit reduction and to get the government’s financial house in order. If you give them more money they will simply find more things to shovel it to in order to keep their jobs. And, the part they are really lying about, if you tax the rich into bankruptcy it still wouldn’t be enough to get the job done. But at least it would be fair. No, sooner or later they are going to come for your money also because the monster they have to feed, their own egos and job security, will eventually require it. Cutting spending is hard. Shoveling someone else’s money for votes is easy and fun.
I have never met anyone who believes that the government, and I mean any level of government from the local school board up to and including (especially) the feds, believes these people spend our money wisely, effectively or efficiently. In fact, just about everyone will laugh if you ask them that question. Yet, many people believe it is a good idea to give them more. Say what? What exactly are you thinking about? We all know they do a terrible job handling the money they have now and yet there are those who want to give them more. Seriously. In fact, I recently heard an uber liberal commentator from MSNBC say it is a ‘common sense solution’. Huh? Common sense solution to what? Little wonder every time I hear a liberal use the term common sense I want to hide my wallet. If you gave your teenager $10,000 for school and he blew it on video games girls and beer, would you give him more? If so, there are drugs that can help you. The analogy is accurate.
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