There are a lot of criticisms I could make about that opinion piece by Mr. Webb. But I'll simply ask one question. Why should Mr. Webb's opinions about economic fairness become the law of the land?
"Why" is an inappropriate interrogative, given the stakes.
"When" is much more appropriate and congruent, as the threat of financial insecurity continues to grow for average Americans like the rim of a sinkhole. We know we are getting closer to "when" when more and more Americans are realizing that the loss of financial security, and not the neocon-exploited, if not neocon-created, fear of national security, is the true threat.
Americans are emerging from the caves and waking from their carefully induced sleep, as more and more sabotaging critters from the top are being espied and exposed, despite the carefully mananged darkness--megacorporation conglomerate emissary Dick Cheney and his chest-thumping, intimidating cheap trick little cowboy be damned.
If they could not stay the course of successful propagandistic endeavor, somnambulizing the populace with confusing spin and undeniable fear-mongering, why would you think that your question--a typical Grover Norquist mindfuck--should even attempt to be answered?
Chase a stick and you end up with a stick in your mouth, had.
The last election suggests that fewer and fewer are chasing decoy doubletalk Norquist sticks. (Please do not deny, again, the close relationship between Norquist, Abramoff, and Rove.)
To borrow a fit metaphor from Pat Buchanan, the villagers are now taking up torches and pitchforks, and moving toward the only few remaining, undownsized, unabsorbed castles left in the land, an inevitable reality that grows exponentially now that middle class Americans are realizing that the next stop, beyond their control, is or soon will be, homelessness. Now sizable numbers of white collars, previously thinking themselves immune from the slaughter, are finding themselves callously dumped into the same pit they help dig for the corporate cause.
Webb, whom I am sure in no favorite in the I-can-gather-more-crumbs-than-you-can-gather crowd over at Dogfight Attrition Central, is merely one of those now highlighting the realities which the MSM never seems to have time for, given that tossed sticks Brad and Tom and their baby woes take up so much air time.
I am sure that Mr. Webb, a Democrat from Virginia who realized success only after the blatant racial tumors of his opponent Massa Allen were largely accidentally exposed, is no favorite in your crowd.
In case you haven't noticed it, several 'accidental' exposures and outings are happening.
I would suggest that, remarkably untypical, Virginia blinked, unlike Tennessee, at the odd and sudden appearance of a favorite ploy of the conservative right, the race card. And if Virginia can blink, the whole nation can blink. This blinking is more "when" and less "why," since the race card was suddenly realized for what it was, finally, by the politically finger-fucked themselves, a new thing in southern politicking. In the whole miasma of manufactured race card playing, Virginians, of all southern state residents, saw the ruse and overcame a long-exploited, heritage hook in the mouth tactic employed by Rove and others of his slithering ilk.
America may finally confront its racism when White breads realize that its the econonmy, stupid, thus validating the theory that racism is often manufactured from the sins of elitist excess, and maintained as an instrument of foment as a political tool. Racism as a political tool, finally realized, may initiate its demise.
"When" is a matter of numbers. To metaphorize the math, when the Mexicans--who are now capturing most of construction jobs, as well as other industry and service jobs (thereby retiring the bogus conservative mantra--jobs-people-don't-want)--have shouldered in too far, there will eventually be reached a moment of critical mass, when too many Americans, like Virginians but not the recalcitrant Tennesseeans, realize they have simply been had by a conscienceless corporate secret structure, the one Hillary finally labelled. The reality of this might be realized by considering that the Crips and the Bloods in Calilfornia have joined ranks to fight the growing Mexican gangs.
It has long amused me that for two hundred years, this country sat hoodwinked, inadequately informed about the Constitution, until the Neocons and supportive Libertarians came along with a play book filled with mindfucks, to show them the error of their ways.
There can only be legislated "fairness" or "fairness" achieved as our founding forefathers achieved it.
You remember, the tea in the bay thingy.
After all, that is the very nature of realizing that liberty is a fluid reality properly confined within a fair, tacitly agreed upon political construct (not the Libertarian ruse of existing without, or rather outside of, a political construct); it is defined and dependent upon realizing that political temporalism is defined by vigilance against the foxes in the henhouse.
I relish that guys of your temperment, unable to answer beyond the mindfuck metaphors of your megaego narcissism, will soon be found bound atop a bonfire construct. Well, not really. I would much rather have you put through a reeducation camp, where, among other things, you realize that no nation can be long moored to individual isolationist greed, and then be reabsorbed into the mainstream that you have so grieviously insulted, on condition of conviciningly demonstrated contrition, of course.
Such conditional forgivance is far more than what has been extened to those Americans already made destitude by the actions of the greedy few, and their draconian contract you so fervently embrace.