In his speech last night, President Obama listed a lot of groups of people whom we shouldn’t blame for “all our problems”:
We don’t think the government can solve all our problems. But we don’t think that the government is the source of all our problems, any more than are welfare recipients, or corporations, or unions, or immigrants, or gays, or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles.
He’s right to discourage scapegoating. But there’s a category error here. Government is not just a group of people distinguished by their place of birth, or sexual orientation, or economic organization. Government is defined by its power to use force to achieve its purposes. Gays and immigrants don’t have such power. Neither do corporations or unions or welfare recipients.
No one blames governments for “all our problems.” Indeed, libertarians should be the first to remember, as Dr. Johnson told us,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Read more at http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/is-government-like-immigrants/
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