It's getting awfully lonely out here for the shrinking handful of us who still think government should be limited to those few things it can do well if it holds to its proper role. We rail against Hillary Clinton's plan for universal health care and John Edwards' promise he will end poverty and Barack Obama's apparent desire to cure all ills from Washington, and George Bush goes to the United Nations and gives a speech that makes all the Demorats seem like rightwing pikers:
Second, the mission of the United Nations requires liberating people from hunger and disease. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration states: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food and clothing and housing and medical care." Around the world, the United Nations is carrying out noble efforts to live up to these words.
I could quote more from the speech, but it's all like that, a complete abandonment of the idea this country was founded on -- individuals free to pursue their own version of happiness -- replaced with government defining and doling out that happiness, the tyranny of kings that people have been bleeding and dying to end for all of humankind. Is there any doubt any longer that "compassionate conservatism" is just effete liberalism by another name?
What Bush and the United Nations define as "rights" are merely the paternalistic justification for the confiscation and redistribution of wealth. You do not have the right to keep what you earn -- it must be taken from you by the higher authority and spread around.
There has only been one war in the history of the world -- the individual vs. the group. Guess which side is losing.
