There is something I didn?t include in my previous post, which I
think is more evidence that the left cares little about making the
poor prosperous. An observation that I have made over the years is that
the left is always investigating the causes of poverty, but never asks
about the causes of prosperity, which is a much more interesting
question. It seems to me that the the answer to the first question is
quite trivial. Life causes poverty, which is man?s natural state, and
has been so for most of human history and still is in most of the
world. People who are really concerned for the poor should always be
asking and seeking answers to the second question, that is, what are
the causes of prosperity? Yet the left, especially those who claim most
vociferously that they are advocates for the poor, never inquire about
these causes. John Edwards Center on Poverty at UNC-CH Law School is a
great example. Last March’s conference which was billed as “the Center’s first full-scale conference on poverty”
did not have a single panel or even a presentation on the causes of
prosperity. In fact, their biggest issue seemed to be income
inequality, not making people more prosperous. But this is consistent
with and ideology, i.e., socialism, that believes that the reason why
some people are poor is because others are rich. This is the ideology
behind what could be the most ignorant leftist slogan of all time–and
that is saying a lot: “live simply so others may simply live.”