SOTU 2012: On Fairness
Not that you should care of my thoughts, but I thought it was a fine, nicely delivered speech. It reminded me of why the right would always remain upset with Obama: he’s a pragmatic centrist who likes to talk about fairness. It’s disarming to both those who wish for a society based on absolute equality, and those who think equality means less freedom to live at the expense of others. Obama has always stood at the intersection of equality and autonomy, in other words.
Of course, to those of us liberals, it’s more than unfair to be talking about fairness when the public has been so brazenly wronged by private multinationals. But given the unreasonable, plainly racially-motivated tantrums on the other side, one has to acknowledge its usefulness as a campaign strategy.
