Speaking of associative fear-mongering, today's article by Jeffrey Lord qualifies as the stupidest condemnation of Huckabee by association yet. Huckabee has said that there's something wrong with an economy where CEOs make 500 times what many of their workers do, often for running their companies into the ground, and advocates pro-global competitiveness policies designed to help raise wages of the working and middle class. He has never said a word about capping wages of executives. But Mr. Lord simply asserts, with no factual basis, that regretting income disparity = government setting executive pay. From there he spins a fanciful Orwellian tale, in which there are no limits on government power, and in that world it makes sense that the government also has the power to declare a right to kill unborn children. This teaches us... the strange way Jeffrey Lord's mind works.
The associations here are astoundingly irrational. In addition to the original, counter-factual leap into government-set executive pay, there's the the complete contradiction that an all-powerful government invents new individual "rights." A government that micromanages everything subordinates individual rights to the designs of the state. The invention of new "rights" such as abortion is the mark of a political worldview that elevates individual rights above all moral considerations and the general welfare of society. These are completely opposite concepts. (Except that both are embraced by the Democratic party--but that's another topic entirely.) In a command and control society, like China, abortion is not a "right" but a mandate, a tool for achieving government control over population.
Mr. Lord ignores the open and obvious true connection between Huckabee's comments on executive pay and his position (unequivocally against) abortion: belief in the inherent dignity of all human life. As persons made in the image of God, we are not to practice the law of the jungle with each other. Every human being has the right to life, and to fair wages for his or her labor. The point is not to envy the wealthy, but to remind the wealthy of their responsibility to treat their subordinate workers fairly--just as parents have the responsibility to provide for their children.
It seems Mr. Lord's perspective has been so narrowed by party-line politics (Republicans are against abortion and for the law of the jungle in economics; Democrats invent "rights" to abortion, gay "marriage" etc. and criticize income disparity) that he cannot conceive of a political philosophy grounded in human dignity. I hope, for the sake of our nation, that few people share this distorted perspective.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
CEO Pay and Abortion?
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1 comment:
I totally agree. I work inside the beltway, too, and also inside the conservative establishment. These guys are completely cynical and only into their own (and their organization's) power. They see Huck as a threat. As Mike said himself, they don't like him because they don't control him!
How else to explain the unbelievably slanted negative coverage of Huck on FOXNews (everyone knows that Roger Ailes supports Guiliani--and when Huck started rising FOXNews plumped Romney to try to destroy Huck). Hugh Hewitt and Peggy Noonan appear to have sold-out to Romney, as does NRO.
Same thing goes for Rush Limbaugh. Rush clearly wants Hillary to win--Huck is the biggest threat to that scenario from the right. Rush made millions hate-mongering and attacking the Clintons in the '90s and obviously is salivating over another profit opportunity when Billary re-take the White House (with his help!).
The performance of these and other major "conservative" news and opinion outlets has forever changed how I view them. They are no better than the leftist-slanted CNN and New York Times that they purport to loathe. Meanwhile the little guy gets screwed, again.
Mike Huckabee is the only one out there standing up for the middle class and trying to move the Republican Party back to its natural base, which includes the blue-collar Democrats and Catholics that made up the Reagan coalition.
God-willing, Mike Huckabee will succeed.
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