Complementing my recent post on Reactionary Liberalism, I encourage you to read this open letter to Obama, in which only one, though very grave aspect of his reactionary views (and deeds) is highlighted.
I am afraid the most powerful man in the world has ascended to the American throne mainly due to a profound lack of education or miseducation - which is patently obvious even in his field of constitutional law - and a wonderful ability to see things and act in ways that reliably cater to the needs of an egregiously inflated ego rather than to intellectual honesty, consistency and truth.
Mr. Barack Obama
President of the Executive Branch
United States Government
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. Obama:
In your recent interview with NBC News you explained that your policies would promote more private-sector job creation were it not for (as you put it) “some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.”
With respect, sir, you’re complaining about the source of our prosperity: innovation and the increases it causes in worker productivity.
With no less justification – but with no more validity – any of your predecessors might have issued complaints similar to yours. Pres. Grant, for example, might have grumbled in 1873 about “some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank that uses a modern safe and so employs fewer armed guards than before, or when you travel on trains which, compared to stage coaches, transport many more passengers using fewer workers.”
Or Pres. Nixon might have groused in 1973 about such labor-saving innovation: “You see it when you step into an automatic elevator that doesn’t require an elevator operator, or when you observe that polio vaccination keeps people alive and active without the aid of nurses and all those workers who were once usefully employed making iron-lung machines, crutches, and wheelchairs.”
Do you, Pres. Obama, really wish to suggest that the innovations you blame for thwarting your fiscal policies are “structural issues” that ought to be corrected?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
The source.
See also my post on The Authoritarian Nature of American 'Liberalism'.
