Paul Krugman, the intellectual apostle of liberal-left socialism in the United States, recently wrote the following in The New York Times:

"One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state . . . morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It's only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate. The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That's what lies behind the modern right's fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty."

Note the choice Krugman gives us: Socialism with rich being forced to help the poor, or freedom where nobody ever helps anybody for any reason, whatsoever. Ridiculous!

The hypocrisy, inconsistency and general idiocy of our age -- a "liberal" age -- knows no limits. Consider liberal/socialist outrage over Walmart. Walmart, liberals argue, is greedy and exploits its workers by not paying them what they consider enough. How much is enough? This is never specified. However, the definition is clear: "Enough" consists of more than workers are currently making at any given time. It will never be enough.

The issue is profit. Liberals hate profit and success, especially when it occurs in the free market. What does the "free market" actually mean? It means that everyone involved is doing what he or she is doing voluntarily. Workers at Walmart are working there by choice. They're free to work elsewhere, or even to not work at all and instead draw unemployment or Social Security disability (something liberals would frankly prefer). Liberals and socialists cannot stand the idea of anyone doing anything voluntarily, because (1) this means government is not involved, and (2) this means they (liberals) are not needed.

Rush Limbaugh made an excellent point, in reference to the killer in the Arizona shootings: “One of the first acts of insanity is to take an obviously deranged kid, insane, irrational, and try to analyze him with sanity and rationality."

This is exactly right. People make this mistake all the time, and not only with criminals. People look at the actions of others and conclude, "These actions make no rational sense. What reason would the person have for doing them?"

Hello?! There's a contradiction here. You don't look for "reasons" as to why people do things outside the province of reason.

I blame a lot of this misunderstanding on the field of psychology.

Congress is prepared to pass yet another trillion dollar pork spending bill. The question arises, "How can they? Did they not hear the Americans vote against Big Government spending in the last election?"

Of course they did. But they also understand that most Americans want particular spending, if not spending in general. "Should government spend less?" Of course, 90 percent of Americans say. "Should government spend less on this particular project or that particular project?" Well, that depends on what district you're in, and whether you personally like that spending. At that point, the polls are more like 50-50, or 70-30 in favor of the particular spending.

It's even more than that. The idea of government spending -- outside the obvious Constitutional requirement of defense -- implies a deeper assumption. The assumption is that each individual is his brother's keeper. The whole point of Big Government is to enforce -- not merely advance, but enforce -- the idea that people must take care of one another. You can complain that pork projects like $8 million for a Ted Kennedy memorial, or half a million here for cheese research, and half a million there for syrup subsidies, isn't exactly high-minded "altruism." But this outrageous spending is what the ethics of altruism leads to in practice. By "altruism" I don't mean kindness or benevolence, which is always voluntary and hopefully rational. I'm talking about forced altruism, the idea that man's primary purpose in life is to live for others, and the only purpose for his existence comes from his service to others. Big Government allows politicians and their supporters to go through the motions of altruism. "Hey, look at me. I'm compassionate. I’m funding all these socially important things. What's that? You're against all this spending? What kind of selfish SOB are you?" [Insert guilt reaction here.]