by Smitty (via Insty)
Senator Webb of Virginia, ever the centrist duck, made some quacking noises in the WSJ today about the need to make sure that the laundry list of Federal fairness management bureaucracies should just kinda be more fair about stuff or something. His conclusion:
Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes.
Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away.
Well, wasn’t that an intellectual quaalude of Barackian proportions? We’re emoting about some undeniable need for inclusiveness that is irreversible in markets and communities. Is this crypto-capitalism? Is this as close to as you could get to capitalism and still get by your zampolit? You don’t seem to grasp that, as long as the mechanism exists, It Will Be Used. If you want to ensure artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes, Senator, remove the wrongheaded bureaucracy attempting to legislate fairness, and let the legal system handle the legitimate cases of illegal activity. The Oedipal drive for the nanny state teat will always drive Procrustean, bureaucratic outcomes until the Federalist mastectomy utterly nips the collectivist funbag from the body politic.
The tell in the editorial came earlier, as far as I could observe:
I have dedicated my political career to bringing fairness to America’s economic system and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship. Unfortunately, present-day diversity programs work against that notion, having expanded so far beyond their original purpose that they now favor anyone who does not happen to be white.
Do we need to get into your voting record, Senator? Have you not essentially been a rubber stamp for every crypto-Marxist idea that Pelosi and Reid have excreted in this atrocious 111th Congress, unless I’ve missed something. Where is your editorial promising to caucus with the GOP, if necessary, to prevent some zombie Congress from going on a brain-eating Card Check, Cap-N-Trade, &c rampage after the election in November? Where are you on making sure we’re approving Supreme Court justices who support and defend the Constitution, and don’t feel some urge to treat it as free verse about which to emote?
And speaking of the document you’ve sworn to support and defend, WTF “bringing fairness to America’s economic system and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship”? ‘Fairness’? Where the ‘F’ is the F-word in your oath or in any of the founding documents? Why does liberty terrify you so? Why is the Federal government fretting the work force in say, Virginia? Isn’t that Governor McDonnell’s job? That whole chain of command thing–have you heard of it?
When you think of fairness, Senator Webb, does the macaca incident enter you conscience? In particular, was Ezra Klein and JournoList, or some equally spin-tastic predecessor, involved? Do you really think the whole mish-mash honorable, or was the macaca thing in the Washington Post just a cost of doing business to advance your ambitions?
But, no, your ‘political career’ is what it’s all about, yes? Reform in this country will take root when almost all have such, elected or otherwise, to the point the phrase is oxymoronic. Here’s the book: your thumb wrestling match with George Allen for the seat led you to run on the Democratic ticket. Fine. I hoped you might be a voice of reason to the Democratic caucus, USNA grad and Vietnam veteran and all. But, in the main, you’ve consistently been a tool. Perhaps these strange masters of yours have subverted you totally.
Or, this editorial could mark some renewed consciousness. Moe Lane says ‘flame out’. Yeah, JW did that in his SecNav days.
Unrelated: I’m catching a flight back to Virginia. FMJRA will be up later Saturday. Everyone come to the Patrick Murray event on Monday in Alexandria. JW’s political career is on the archery butt in 2012, but we have to do our Ted Nugent impression with Jim Moran’s in just three months.
