Leftists, Liberals and the War on Liberty and the Economy

Edward H. Crane, president of Cato Institute, writing in “Cato Policy Report” (Nov/Dec 2011), properly characterizes the Left here in the U.S.:

Of course, the Left has pretty much given up any claim to being champions of liberty these days. Speech codes on campus and restrictions of political speech show their disdain for the First Amendment. Double-down on troops in Afghanistan? Okay if the president’s a liberal. Then there’s the Left’s profound ignorance on how wealth is created. They love to focus on how to alleviate poverty when the [real] answer is wealth creation. Poverty is the natural state of man. Prosperity requires free markets, respect for contracts, and protection of private property. No big secret, but it seems to escape the Left.

So you have the Obama administration trample centuries of business law [Common Law] by denying Chrysler bondholders their contractual right to be first in line for assets sales under bankruptcy, and instead giving those rights to the UAW [United Auto Workers union], which had no such claim [under the law]. Property rights abused; the difficulty in selling corporate debt increased. The earned income of the rich? We’ll just take it and give it to those who didn’t earn it. Property rights abused; the incentive to create wealth undermined.