Hyperbole is not harmless; careless language bewitches the speaker's intelligence. And falsely shouting "socialism!" in a crowded theater such as Washington causes an epidemic of yawning.
Maybe.
From Will's column of Nov. 16:
McCain and Palin, plucky foes of spreading the wealth, must have known that such spreading is most of what Washington does.
Including Republicans,
whose prescription drug entitlement is the largest expansion of the welfare state since President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society gave birth to Medicare in 1965...
Contesting perpetual government claims that "seepage of government into everywhere is...to be temporary and nonpolitical," Will hones in on conservatives:
Conservatives rightly think, or once did, that much, indeed most, government spreading of wealth is economically destructive and morally dubious -- destructive because, by directing capital to suboptimum uses, it slows wealth creation; morally dubious because the wealth being spread belongs to those who created it, not government. But if conservatives call all such spreading by government "socialism," that becomes a classification that no longer classifies: It includes almost everything, including the refundable tax credit on which McCain's health-care plan depended.
Okay then.
I'd like to believe Will's claim that
Americans are an aspirational, not an envious, people
but can't help but wonder whether envy hasn't redefined the concept of "aspirational," for conservatives and non-conservatives alike. Perhaps the conservative party needs to get on the ball and start thinking again what it once thought, but also to remain aspirational in the most noble sense of the word.
(And I hope George is wrong about Obama...)
