United Liberty

We live in weird times, and in these weird times, the truth cannot be relied on from predictable sources. Take for instance New York’s Democratic Governor David Paterson, who said:

But the candidates are couching their support in economic terms. Gov. Paterson, who is facing an uphill battle against likely rival Andrew M. Cuomo, told a group of bankers recently: “In New York, Wall Street is Main Street. … You don’t hear anybody in New England complaining about clam chowder. If you say anything about oil in Texas, they’ll string you up near the nearest tree. We need to stand behind the engine of our economy in New York, and that engine of economy is Wall Street.”

Paterson’s comments bring to my mind my experience growing up in Seattle, in which the public school system was effectively modernized with computers by Bill Gates and new stadiums and buildings, which brought in a host of new jobs and replaced the dangerous eyesore that was the Kingdome, were put into place by Gates’ fellow tech pioneer Paul Allen. Allen also turned radio station KCMU into the powerhouse that is today KEXP, a move that brought alot of early criticism, alleging that KEXP would be just another bland, commercial radio station.

Despite modernizing Seattle during the 1990s and 2000s, to the benefit of everyone living and working in the area, envy can be heard by many (but not all, of course) Seattleites simply because Gates and Allen have done well for themselves.

Paterson isn’t alone in his defense of the engines of economic progress. Harold Ford Jr., also a Democrat and hoping to win a US Senate bid, said in an interview with Politico:

“The most compelling case study of how piling on a state’s major industry can devastate a state’s economy is Michigan. The collapse of property values, school enrollments and health services in Detroit is directly linked to the demise of the car industry.”

Ford and Paterson both sound like figures straight out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, defending those who make society function and benefit everyone (and I mean everyone, from the construction worker building a stadium to the welfare recipient who benefits from the taxes the engines of society pay). Let’s hope they keep this sort of talk up.

(Side Note: The quote by Harold Ford Jr. quote was taken from the print version of today’s Politico, in an article by Ben Smith called “Candidates See Gold in Defending Wall Street.” I couldn’t find the article on the Politico website. If you have a link to it, please post in the comments. Thank you.)