July 27, 2004 [LINK]

Democrats use class warfare

Thanks to C-SPAN, I was able to watch a rerun of last night's speeches at the Democratic Convention. I had missed Hillary's introduction of Bill and the early part of Bill's remarks. They kept accusing Republicans of trying to divide the country, and then indulged in good old fashioned class warfare rhetoric. Quite a paradox, no? Republicans, of course, would rather not emphasize the inevitable differences in income levels that exist in every society, especially in dynamic ones like ours that attract so many immigrants from abroad. One wishes it would dawn on more people that the redistributional impulse of making "keeping up with the Joneses" the centerpiece of public policy is the very essence of social divisiveness. Such an agenda only serves to retard economic progress and exacerbate bitterness among the less fortunate. In terms of substance, oddly enough, I had a hard time figuring out what the Big Differences on foreign and economic policy are, except for raising taxes on the wealthy investor class (like Bill is now!) and pushing for incremental socialization of health care. It leaves me wondering what possible reason there could be for all that Bush hatred; apparently there is no there there. Ever-upbeat Bill still dreams of global harmony via multilateralism, not realizing that 9/11 signified the ascendancy of the power of negative thinking.

NOTE: This is a "post facto" blog post, taken from the pre-November 2004 archives.