Thursday, December 08, 2005
The madness of our Congress
George Will covers yet another maddening spending bill before Congress. Because, as we all know, it's government's responsibility that we all have digitial television. I believe Locke or Burke said something to that effect one.
Two excellent paragraphs:
Two excellent paragraphs:
Now, the hardhearted will, in their cheeseparing small-mindedness, ask: Given that the transition to digital has been underway for almost a decade, why should those who have adjusted be compelled to pay money to those who have chosen not to adjust? And conservatives who have not yet attended compassion reeducation camps will ask: Why does the legislation make even homes with cable or digital services eligible for subsidies to pay for converter boxes for old analog sets — which may be worth less than the government's cost for the boxes?I defy anyone to explain why this program is even remotely a good idea. Please, please, please. And he concludes:
What oil is to Saudi Arabia — a defining abundance — cognitive dissonance is to America. Americans are currently in a Founding Fathers literary festival. They are making bestsellers out of many biographies of the statesmen who formulated America's philosophy of individualism and self-reliance and who embodied that philosophy — or thought they did — in a constitutional architecture of limited government. Yet Americans have such an entitlement mentality, they seem to think that every pleasure — e.g., digital television — should be a collective right, meaning a federally funded entitlement. Clearly, Americans' civic religion of reverence for the Founders is, like most religions, more avowed than constraining.Amen.
# posted by Paul Zummo : 2:36 PM
