Here is my ABSOLUTELY favorite quote regarding the proposed Wall Street bailout:

"You know what the actual threat [they're predicting] is?  They're [Wall Street investment banks] saying, 'If we don't get this bailout, there's going to be a period of time where people are going to have to live within their means.'  I know that's a shocking idea, but there's TOO MUCH DEBT.  People have been borrowing too much.  Actually, it's exactly what we need--to have less credit.  So, they [Wall Street banks], of course, want more credit, because they make BIG BUCKS off of it.  But what they're advocating is bad for the average American, and it's bad for the economy...It ought to be rejected."

--Lew Rockwell (Ludwig von Mises Institute)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-09-26_035_stop_the_bailout.mp3

[Classmate],

You’re right, since the 1960s, America has been “trying to get to the place where everyone is equal.” You’re right, too, that “if we do get to that place”—which we never will—“equal may not be fair.”

Egalitarianism—absolute EQUALITY OF CONDITION—was the goal of all of the Communist experiments. What we know is that each of these systems of forced “equality” wound up depressing the living conditions of the masses, abridging the liberties of the people, and—not eliminating class but rather—re- concentrating wealth/power/privilege in the hands of a new elite.

By contrast, Americans historically recognized the necessary INEQUALITY OF CONDITION among individuals—inequalities determined by different genetic endowments, different life experiences, different drives and personal persistence, etc. If we eliminated the inequalities of the “starting line” (remember our activity?), there is everything to suggest that people would hit the finish line at different points—some never reaching it—for the same reason that Olympic athletes don’t all finish together and that some people who start marathons or treks up Everest never obtain their goal.

We each have different, racially-independent, make-ups. Nature and nurture conspire for or against each of us—regardless of our skin color, our heritage, or our dreams. But we must all (as in races on the track) be subject to the SAME rules of the game.

What Americans always believed in as their highest ideal and aspiration—even when they denied it to minorities on the basis of race--was LIBERTY. (Remember, “Give me liberty or give me death”?) The equality they believed in, and which I believe in, is EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW—George W. Bush is every bit as much UNDER the jurisdiction of the laws of the land as the basest murderer (which is why he should be impeached), and every Black man or woman is every bit as much PROTECTED by the promises of liberty guaranteed by our Constitution as the Rockefellers, Bushes, and Kennedys.

What the Founders believed in—racist as many of them were—and what Lincoln and MLK and Obama appeal to are the fundamental “manhood” rights of ALL Americans to protection of Life, Liberty, and Property and the uninhibitted Pursuit of happiness. However, we should remember that the FREER a market (or a society at large), the greater the INEQUALITY of condition there will be. Government does not intervene to privilege railroad tycoons, telecom or energy giants, or (on the opposite end) racial/ethnic minorities or women. (Remember, racism is “a system of privilege on the basis of race”? Preferential treatment of minorities through affirmative action and similar programs is inarguably racist by Tatum's definition.)

The EQUALITY that grows in the context of liberty, and the PROSPERITY that flourishes in a free society (including the marketplace—no subsidies to agri-businesses that raise consumer food and energy prices, no bailouts of banking corporations when debtors are losing their homes when they default on their loans, no land grants to the wealthy or government contracts to Halliburton, etc.)—as opposed to a Socialist/Communist one—is EQUALITY before the law.

LIBERTY for all Americans, EQUALITY before the law, and FRATERNITY/brotherhood of all Americans—Black and White and Red and Brown—is the equal, just, and fair path that those who hope for a better America should pursue. If we narrowly focus on EQUALITY (of material condition) to the exclusion of the soulful need of all humans for LIBERTY, we will lose PROSPERITY and LIBERTY both and only increase the injustice, prejudices, and suspicions that still mar the cross-racial relations of many Americans.

Brett,

Thanks for the thoughtful and balanced assessment of McCain's foreign policy.  I have to say, this straightforward and, I'd wager, accurate assessment of McCain makes me much less comfortable with his foreign policy than I was before.  It only solidifies the fear that he's a Johnson or Bush on the unwarranted and unpopular foreign intervention.  And while the NYT writer said McCain could not be pigeonholed as a neocon (or anything else), the following statements put him squarely in this un-conservative and un-constitutional fraternity:

"And then, on the other end of the spectrum, you had the idealists, including most of those known as neocons. The idealists believed that American force could and should be used to promote American values abroad, whether or not the countries involved posed an immediate danger to national security and whether or not the rest of the world agreed...America exists, in McCain’s view, not simply to safeguard the prosperity and safety of those who live in it but also to spread democratic values and human rights to other parts of the planet...In other words, to paraphrase Robert Kennedy, while most politicians looked at injustice in a foreign land and asked, 'Why intervene?' McCain seemed to look at that same injustice and ask himself, 'Why not?'”

Best regards, my friend.  Desperately hoping America will come to its sense and pursue the rational and constitutionally mandated policies of our Founders.

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Brett,

I will look forward to your visit.  I don't believe in isolationism--in fact, it is our imperial hubris and current unilateralism that makes us odious to the many nations who once considered us their friend.  I believe in a vibrant and FREE exchange of materials and ideas, of travel and diplomacy with all nations--and entangling alliances, elective wars, and violations of others' national sovereignty with none.  (So did Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and others.)  We suffer from a collective "big stick" idealism that we inherited from the original cowboy president, Teddy Roosevelt.  I don't believe in purging moral values from policy.  Far be it!  Rather, I believe we must always act within the noble ideals stated in our founding documents.  Our current policies are intensely hypocritical, and other nations see straight through that.  We abhor standing armies; we ardently believe in the right of people to determine their form of government for themselves; we champion civil liberties and due process of law--the law is king, not vice versa; and we renounce military aggression, torture, and unrepresentative and/or unchecked, unilateral (dictatorial?) rule by the federal executive.  We are not nearly as exceptional as Americans would like to think, as evidenced by the lifestyles of our leaders in Washington, the disregard for our values, traditions, and laws, and our hypocritical imperial adventurism. 

Interestingly, while the Founders believed we would be a shining city on a hill (so long as we stayed true to our ideals), their conservative understanding of human nature--i.e., that it is depraved--prevented them from any illusions that the American people and/or their elected officials were innately better than their European counterparts.  They unanimously predicted that America would cease to be great when the powers they painstakingly separated and checked were concentrated in the hands of any group of people, level of government, or branch of the federal apparatus.  Above all other threats, they feared war--especially war of the perpetual kind--because it created the most dangerous climate for maintaining the necessary and proper balance on the limited government they envisioned.  Will talk more later.  Have a class coming up in a few minutes, and I haven't eaten my lunch yet.

Best regards,

Jonathan