Sometimes it seems that politicians have set up for us a Looming Financial Doom.
Why would they do that? And how do we avoid it?
Expanding on the subject of Friday’s Common Sense, I try to tackle both questions in this weekend’s Townhall column, “Over the Cliff.”
The column takes a few long quotations from The Washington Post article, and one short quotation from the actual study. Also linked in the column is a Common Sense from some time back, about public employees gaming the public employee pension system. It’s worth noting that the chief problem with the system is that it is badly rigged. But the gaming doesn’t help.
I use the phrase “cordon off” — it is interesting to remember that “cordon” basically means “rope off,” but that “cordon” doesn’t mean “rope.”
For a previous discussion of the metaphor of the “fiscal cliff,” see “Cliff Notes.”
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.
If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. 
The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness.
