An excellent piece reminding us what the whole thing is really about:
They say “the Devil is in the details.” Sometimes, so is God.
Statists, Socialists, right-wing paternalists - all those who think of
humanity in terms of classes, races and masses - need constantly to be
confronted with such stories and images. They claim to love humanity;
everything they do is for “Society” or “the greater good.” These are
the merest of abstractions. A good human loves and cares for other
humans around him; for actual, individual specimens with all their
faults and weaknesses, not classes or masses.
Next time you hear an appealing abstraction weighed against the
interests of an individual or a family, please picture a man making
barbed wire to imprison his uncle or my neat little secretary typing a
death list. They served abstractions too.
There are other reasons to support this liberal capitalism thing too. The more of it you have, the longer people live.
Contrary to the rumours, the very fact that people can opt out of its rat race is one more reason to support it.
Further, despite the experiments, looking at what people actually do shows that they do prefer the higher living standards, with the inequity. Migration does tend to be from poor countries to rich.
Iain Dale announces that he has Type II diabetes. Our wishes for his continued good health. Perhaps worth remembering that a century ago this diagnosis was close to a death sentence: now it's a chronic, manageable, disease. We continue to advance.
Well, we'll continue to advance if this attitude can be driven out of politics. They serve us, not the other way around.
And finally, about as good a description of this year's Presidential election as you're going to get.
