The Simplistic Notion of Liberty

It is interesting when people on the political left in American politics say explicitly the deplorably unjust things they actually believe. We saw this during the campaign when Michelle Obama said that the popular support for her husband made her proud of her country for the first time in her adult life. Or when Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber that the government needs to use the tax system to spread the wealth around.

Here is Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) sharing what is a common notion among the Democrats:

Now in the last seven years we have had the highest corporate profit ever in American history. Highest corporate profit! We’ve had the highest productivity! The American worker has produced more per person at any time, but it hasn’t been shared, and that’s the problem because we have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in this simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it and they have an antipathy towards the means of redistributing wealth.

Is it a "simplistic" notion that people should be secure in their property, and that one of the fundamental purposes of government is to provide that security? To state it more pointedly, is it a simplistic notion that government should protect us against robbers, and not become itself a robber? What is government-enforced redistribution of wealth but the less wealthy majority pillaging the more wealthy minority through the coercive power of the state?

Take it to the next level. Is it a simplistic notion that people who have lives should be able to keep them? Given President-elect Barack Obama's and the Democratic Party's stand and record on abortion, infanticide, the "harvesting" of prenatal human life for medical research--and who knows what else?--it is obvious that the Democrats see that as a "simplistic notion" as well. (This post only begins to summarize Obama's radical commitment to killing the unborn under every imaginable circumstance.)

Consider also the enthusiasm among Democrats for the so-called Fairness Doctrine by which private broadcasters exercising their political free speech in the public square would have to balance conservative expressions with liberal ones. (For background, read this 1993 summary of the issue from the Heritage Foundation.) Is it "simplistic" to think that people who have opinions are entitled to express them? To the Democrats, apparently not. (Hear it from the very powerful New York Senator, Charles Schumer, in The Hill, Nov. 4, 2008.)

It appears that in the ruling Democratic view, it is a simplistic notion that those who have liberty should be entitled to exercise it and live securely in it.