Who’s the thief, the guy trying to take what isn’t his or the guy trying to protect what is his? Phillip Green is a saint compared to the communist layabouts who think they have a right to take all Green has, all you have and all I have.
If Philip Green paid his taxes and advised the government on how to hike my taxes, then I’d hate him for being a socialist but at least I’d know he was doing conservatism a favor. But what he’s doing instead, is DAMAGING conservatism in the United Kingdom.
America is a completely different political animal, and FOR NOW Americans can argue that giving the likes of Philip Green a free pass benefits the political Right, not the political Left. But that isn’t the case in the UK, and it may not always be the case in America.
The Leftists in the UK thrive on the notion of the “undeserving elite”. They had a pop at the monarchy, the landed gentry, peerages (even those who earned their peerages), the “Tory Toffs”, and now they’re gunning for mega-rich tax dodgers.
They claim these people are all part of the “undeserving elite” - a clique which writes the rules that everyone else must follow, but who don’t ever think those same rules should apply to them.
By being a member of the government and advising them on things that hurt working folk while exploiting tax loopholes they wouldn’t be able to exploit, Green, by his own actions, lends credence to that stereotype.
Right now, America does now have a social elite who show total disdain for the rest of the American people, and you DO have a sense within the ranks of that elite, that the rules that apply to mere mortals, don’t apply to them.
And you DO have a popular uprising in the making, with the TEA Party. Granted it is mostly conservative now but that may not remain the case if the Republicans get in and nothing changes.
And you ALREADY have very senior politicians who’re already showing that they’d be right at home under a socialist regime.
If everyone has the same right to succeed, then they must also have the same right to fail and the same right to expect to be punished, not be propped up by the state. But you’ve had bailouts, and who benefited from the bailouts?
Free Republic rallies around what it means to be American, and that’s the right thing to do - after all it was the American Dream, not the American Gun, that caused the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
In Obama’s world, nobody’ll want to start a business; they can get richer by appearing on reality TV, and they can get more powerful by being a career politician. Why bother teaching snot-nosed kids their ABCs when you can earn a hundred times more, by talking a good game in a courtroom to get rich people out of having to pay their taxes?
To maintain your freedom, Americans have to see evidence of aspiration every day of their lives, and that means taking aspiration back into Main Street. And giving people like Philip Green a big pat on the back and a government job for pulling the kind of white collar tax dodge that the average Joe on Main Street would be heading to prison if HE tried to repeat, is not the way to do it.
All in all, the “undeserving elite” is going to play a big role in American politics for many years to come, especially if Obama gets a second term or the old school Republicans like Rove get their way.