Today's "well, you get what you ask for" example is courtesy of Professor Cornel West, who is upset with President Obama because "black folks are being pushed to the back of the bus" while "our gay brothers and lesbian sisters" are "being pushed to the center." As Will Allen observes at NRO's "The Corner":
Perhaps West is right, and identity politics really is a zero-sum game.
The way I'd put it is that when you see government's main mission as the granting of privileges rather than acting as a defender and protector of universal rights, as progressives are inclined to do, then you have to accept that the government gets to decide who gets what privileges. There is only one pie, and it can only be sliced into so many pieces. When we think if terms of universal rights -- especially if we consider them "natural rights" or "God-given" rights, there are no limits to that pie. What one person or group has does not diminish what others have. For everything we ask government to do for us, we are adding to the power of government to do to us.
