Friday, February 29, 2008

Some people should be roadkill

Conservatives (not the social or religious kind) talk about limited government intrusion, that each person should be empowered to make what they can of their own lives. How far does such a concept go? (1) Suppose a bus is barreling down the road and it looks like the person next to you is about to step in front of it. Do you stop them? Conservatism says you don't. (2) Take a step to the side and you are next to the person about to stop the one with one foot in front of the bus. Do you prevent the rescuer from doing the good deed? It appears that conservatives believe some people should end up as roadkill. Strangely hypothetical? Take a look at the housing bubble and subprime mess. As the bubble was picking up steam some local and state banking officials saw the damage ahead and saw that it was fueled by bad lending practices. With help of legislatures they created laws to curb the predatory practices. The Bushies (1) not only ignored the bubble (2) they used a Civil War era law to prevent at least national banks (and lots of state banks rely on the nationals) from enforcing those laws that protected the borrower. Are they merely heartless? Or do they see a way of consolidating a lot more money into the hands of the powerful from the crash than they could from a healthy economy and do this no matter how many average Joes are hurt in the process?

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