Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 14, 2012

Tucci is right that there are left-wing totalitarians as well as right-wing totalitarians, and as the socialist George Orwell pointed out, in the end there is not much difference between the one and the other. He is weird indeed to think that modern American liberalism is any closer to totalitarianism than modern American conservatism is. He seems particularly odd when he asserts that states like Texas would be better off without the Union. Considering that Texas receives more in Federal money than it contributes, and that replicating the entire array of federal law and institutions for an independent Texas would be extremely expensive: consider the cost of the military alone. Tucci seems to think that when people alone they are free but when they act together they are not. His notion of liberty is a tempered anarchy in which no one owes his fellow citizens anything but to leave them alone. All the freedom that money can buy. Nobody get anything but what he individually pays for. You can do whatever you like, so long as you’re not on someone else’s property. Would Tucci agree with the idea that for the citizen to be taxed to pay for a service or benefit that the citizen personally makes no use of, and only benefits others, is wrong? So it is wrong for his money to be taken to build a road on which he never drives? Or a public school when he has no children? Or a public library that he never visits? Or unemployment insurance that he never claims? Or health insurance that he makes no use of? You know, there is a word for someone who pays more in insurance premiums than he ever collects, or puts more money into “social program” taxes than he ever receives back in personal benefits: that term is LUCKY. It is someone who has been so fortunate as to never need help. I do agree with Tucci that the term “social justice” is pretty confusing. “Justice” will do just fine.