Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Marco Rubio Gets It Half Right

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio recently spoke at the Reagan Presidential Library.  He identified two broad goals for national policy: prosperity and compassion.

Rubio is a principled and thoughtful leader.  He combines strength and kindness.  He will play a great role on the national stage. 

But in the case of his speech, he is only half right. 

Prosperity is an appropriate policy goal because it is an outcome.  We can define the elements of prosperity and measure the efficacy and efficiency of efforts to achieve that outcome.

Compassion, on the other hand, cannot be a policy goal because it is a sentiment, not an outcome.  Motivated by this sentiment, I can act in ways that have wasteful or harmful results.  I can expend a dollar's worth of society's resources to do a penny's worth of good.  I can impose a restriction out of concern for one person that results in poverty, injury or death to others.  Out of compassion, I can even intentionally euthanize a fellow human being. 

Some would argue that "equality" is the policy goal that counterbalances prosperity.  But, history, including recent history, shows that the more we sacrifice prosperity for equality, the less we get of both.  History also shows that the more we promote freedom, the more we get of both prosperity and equality.

Let our overarching goal be freedom.

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