The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
If They’re So Rich, How Come They’re Not Smart?
“Authorities say two brothers accidentally blew up their house after celebrating a $75,000 winning lottery ticket by purchasing marijuana and meth,” Fox News reports from Wichita, Kan.:
Wichita police Sgt. Bruce Watts said one of the brothers was taken to a hospital and the other to jail after Friday’s explosion. The Wichita Eagle reported that the injured 27-year-old brother is in serious but stable condition with second-degree burns on his hands, arms and chest.
Watts said the explosion happened after one of the brothers went to the kitchen to refuel the butane torches they planned to use to light their bongs. The brother emptied a couple large cans of butane lighter fluid, leaking butane into the air.
Eventually, butane vapor reached the pilot light in the furnace, causing the blast.
It’s further evidence, as if any were needed, that lotteries are a tax on stupidity.
What Do Liberalism and Communism Have in Common?
Don’t blame liberalism for the scandals of the Obama administration, USA Today’s Kirsten Powers argues not very convincingly:
There is zero correlation between the political ideology called liberalism and the cascading scandals of the Obama administration. If anything, it’s the opposite: it’s the undeniably illiberal actions of people within the government that has created these crises. To suggest that any of this happened because the government is too big, or even that the aim of liberalism is to make government bigger, is a gross distortion. . . .
Liberalism is a noble tradition and worldview that is perennially in search of a leader–and these days even followers–worthy of its name. If in any of these situations even one person of influence had adhered to the basic tenets of liberalism–a respect for dissent, free speech, government transparency and liberty–all of these scandals could have been avoided.
It’s a little like what communist sympathizers used to say to excuse away the crimes of Stalin and Mao: That wasn’t “real” communism. Real communism has never been tried.
The analogy, however, is imprecise. Liberalism has been tried, most notably in the United States, and it’s worked considerably better than any competing political philosophies. But the liberalism of the founders was quite different from the “liberalism” of Barack Obama and the 21st-century Democratic Party. Powers either is confused herself or is seeking to take advantage of the confusion between the two senses of the word.
It’s true that “big government,” or democratic socialism, doesn’t necessarily produce corruption. Scandinavian countries, for example, are notably unsoiled by corruption. But our view, articulated Monday, is that contemporary American left-liberalism makes such scandals inevitable–not only because of its ideological character but also because it dominates cultural institutions while regarding much of the country with hostility. That in turn produces both self-righteousness and an ends-justify-the-means mentality.
Powers is right that “liberalism is a noble tradition.” It’s just that these days it usually goes by different names.
Note: The excerpts above are from the 5/22 and 2/19 BOTW Archives. For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.
