Barack Obama Strikes Me As A Man

Charity Is Commendable; Everyone Should Be Charitable. But Justice Aims To Create A Social Order In Which, If Individuals Choose Not To Be Charitable, People Still Don't Go Hungry, Unschooled Or Sick Without Care. Charity Depends On The Vicissitudes Of Whim And Personal Wealth; Justice Depends On Commitment Instead Of Circumstance.

The Supreme Court Consistently Favors Organized Money And The Political Privileges Of The Corporate Class. We Have A Senate That Is More Responsive To Affluent Constituents Than To Middle-class Constituents, While The Opinions Of Constituents In The Bottom Third Of Income Distribution Have No Apparent Effect At All On The Senate's Roll Call Votes.

When Ideology And Theology Couple, Their Offspring Are Not Always Bad But They Are Always Blind.

When Certain Causes Become Prairie Fires, Politicians Make Difficult Choices, And Often At The Expense Of Someone Like Jeremiah Wright And Walter Jenkins. That's The Cruel Nature Of American Politics, Where The End Becomes The Consummate Objective, And Sometimes The Means To Get There Come At A Great Price.

But There Is Nothing Idealized Or Romantic About The Difference Between A Society Whose Arrangements Roughly Serve All Its Citizens (something Otherwise Known As Social Justice) And One Whose Institutions Have Been Converted Into A Stupendous Fraud. That Can Be The Difference Between Democracy And Plutocracy.