Our Tragedy Of The Commons

by Star Parker - September 7th, 2009 - Townhall.com

A common grazing field is available to a community of herders. Everyone brings his or her cows there. Because there is no clear ownership, the only incentive each herder has is to bring all of his cows to graze and consume as much as possible.

With everyone doing it, and no one having any incentive to consider the implications of their behavior beyond consuming as much as possible, the final result is obvious. The field is destroyed.

With this analogy to the general problem of government, Star Parker has produced another extremely effective article explaining the problems we currently face in our health care system. One of her points eviscerates the hypocrisy of Ted Kennedy and his support for programs whose consequences his great family wealth meant he was not exposed to. What I think the Democrats are missing is just how angry people are becoming over this hypocrisy. Whether it was serious or merely sarcasm, one of the comments on the Townhall.com web site where Star's article was posted was the following:

"When our country descends into chaos and revolution, and after we emerge victorious and restore the republic, there are certain things we must do to make sure we don't have to do it again. All registered democrat voters, liberals, all MSM notables and other domestic enemies must immediately be put behind barbed wire compounds, investigated, put on trial and hanged. We must dig up Ted Kennedy's rotting corpse and hang it too."

I wonder just how many Democrats realize how angry much of the public really has become? This comment might give them a clue. However I doubt it will not because they simply ignore anything that does not fit their preconceived notions.