April 17, 2011
By Timothy H. Lee
4/14/2011
Of all the canards nurtured by liberals, perhaps the most corrosive is their persistent reference to income as “distributed” or “taken.”
What explains that bizarre mindset? It’s as if liberals believe in some sort of mystical, heartless roulette wheel in the sky that arbitrarily “distributes” cash from a massive pile to various powerless dependents.
But that isn’t how it works. Wealth isn’t “distributed.” It is earned. And if someone wants more of it, then nobody is stopping them from going out and actually earning it instead of wailing that they want more “distributed” to them.
Of course, the entire fallacy serves a dual role for liberals. It simultaneously clouds their understanding of basic economic principles, while also serving as a tool to advance their grievance agenda. Stated differently, it leads them to pursue counterproductive social policies, and it in turn constitutes a tool to mislead others into supporting those policies. Read More
