The Limits of Venality

The lockdown has, in retrospect, become condemned. Draconian! Limited liberty! Harmed education! Destroyed businesses and economies! Would people be complaining if the lockdowns had worked or are their objections based on principle?

The Limits of Venality

300 billion dollars, Biden's effort to be kind to some people at the expense of others, may be closer to 800 billion. Are other debts worthy of displacement to others? Are some unworthy? How are the distinctions made?

This shift of debt from one to another is unreasonable, morally suspect, an effort at bribery of the constituents and, perhaps, a desperate effort to flood the economy with money before the election to counter the recessionary consequences of previous such nonsense.

Most of the motives place the politician first at the expense of the well-being of the nation. 

The venality of politics has become a tautology. And the political debate will never be venal-poor. It seems the essence of the American structure is that it demands its citizens escape this. We cannot be governed by good intentions any more than we can be governed by bad. Biden probably thinks he is being kind. He also hopes to buy votes. But the nature of the country does not allow either and both are equally wrong. Both confound the very nature and structure of the nation in which government powers are specifically and limitedly assigned. The very structure of the nation.   

The people, for better or for worse, are otherwise on their own.

That quality--which is admittedly harsh--is America's defining characteristic, the very lynchpin of the land. The government cannot step out of character for the benefit of one cohort or another.

And the real question is whether the citizenry can engage in the basic arguments involving this basic question or, worse, even stand considering it.