WILLIAM F BUCKLEY - FRIEDRICH HAYEK - GEORGE ROCHE - A SOCIAL JUSTICE DISCUSSION FROM 1977

Machine generated transcript, expect errors

 

we have two guest George wrote is the president of Hillsdale College in

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Michigan

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a venerable small coeducational Institute

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unabashedly devoted to the cultivation at the mall

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imagination and the presumption in favour love the private sector

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our second guest is the

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senior libertarian economist in the world

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nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek

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mister IQ are very famous essay on the intellectuals and socialism

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in which you want attempt I think quite successfully

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to show why a socialism the soon nubile

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for the end for the intellectuals on

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what what is that this is the view was and you still are

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defended you know certainly guess Pilates

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very into listings fell into a link between apes of saddam

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ideas which government's thinking into the

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eighteens essentially he said Pierre we can

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that we can make everything to our pleasure

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that we can decide in social institutions

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in there working now

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that is basically mistake social institutions

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have never been designed and didn't do much more than we knew

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if grown-up consists of selection

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of the successful some people frequently no

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late success that applies to the market the market

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is the I was going to say most ingenious

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ingenious without having been decent

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installment which enables us to utilize knowledge which is distributed

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monk I'm home for thousands of people it's an

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about tation to posing for circumstance which never moves

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the nobody epic and new as a whole the present crisis

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formed on the market 10 the individual

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what to do and what not to do into social interests 90 to understand this

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you have to know economics

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needs person we mansions

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also distribution of income is determined by somebody deliberately did

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me it seems that if this is

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civic responsibility of a particular guide says

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evidently dumb Birmingham trust effectiveness is not being done

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unjustly because we achieve all that we do achieve

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by having come to agree to pay is sort of game

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in which game of the market is a liking to call it

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in which because we're utilizing

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more information more facts in anybody know the outcome

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for particular individual is necessarily unpredictable

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9 outcome which is I'm predictable in I'm designed

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any public and be just just that little worse outcome of a game

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both trials can be just game but people who sent this

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and the people who mentioned all could be possible

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to design also use to arrange this

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except to government to do this in the men looted distribution

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his just this is literally

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impossible because able to the choir that

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all this widely dispersed information about particular facts in particular

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circumstance

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people would give can be used in control

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by simple food good one why couldn't I could be

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fact why couldn't the rule up the Justice make a

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come at the and on the process by

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taking from someone who has more than he needs

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for the purposes that is fine somebody who has less than the

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specific names part of his income is going to be taking flame there's no

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inducement for him to do their particular thing

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if I knew that the fed with Ingrid fetch a very high price

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to for without being taken from and I can do something much more pleasant for

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further saying come without paying any income tax

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I'm going to do with not going to do what most beneficial to society

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where but in point of fact them a great many people

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who are taxed at the two-third to rate continue to be very productive

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all well I thought well there's poop deck before think could

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me odd let's say they are less productive than they could be

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but how do you answer the question that the demands of justice

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or perhaps approved have to

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you have permitted in absolute distribution to the proceedings

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to the mall i'm new possible who

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of just distribution in the system was the distributions not

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deliberately is the result of people bringing in about

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mean justice is simply beautiful

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individual action I can be just Wellcome Trust

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towards my fellow man but the conception

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of social justice to expect from an

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impose more pushups which nobody can control

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to bring about a just to sell is not only in

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meaningless conception it's completely impossible

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see everybody talks about social justice but if you

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press people to explain to you what do you mean by social justice ultimately

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pics except there's just nobody knows I

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telling you because they've been playing for the past 20 years Afghan people

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what really are you principles social justice

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is that your notion that a society

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or not to undertake redistribution

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because it cannot to find blasters or

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because it has no legitimate

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of our to engage in the activities

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using both as a matter fact it occurs to me that

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such a thing as social justice becomes almost a contradiction in terms because

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if you examine the philosophical roots

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that produced the modern egalitarianism

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ideal those roots contain all

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sorts of departures from the idea

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that it is possible to establish a difference between right and wrong

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they deny the operational moral framework and ultimately come to the

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utilitarian goal at

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all ideas and all their lives are reconsidered essentially on their own

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merits

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and the same people who have said that and are busy then undercutting

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a the more traditional values in western civilization

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are the same people who then go on and prayed about social justice

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as though somehow the assignment numbers

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love quantification will tell us something about justice and

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infected wanna the so I don't think that you can

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define social justice you can define social injustice you can produce a

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socially unjust situation

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what to do so you what you've really done is undercut individual morality and

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and the opportunity to to make those choices that have genuine moral compass

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suppose you have a state

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in which some X

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green conditions exist in one area the state

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fifty dollars a year is spent towards the education

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up a child in the other and the state a thousand dollars

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the spent towards the education are

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other child I is

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is the concept blast

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is in vocal in the society that says

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we must do what we can

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to diminish that antibodies

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we must pay more

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for the education %uh the child down

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in the southern region even if it means diminishing the ground

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to the child in the obviously is is this

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is is this as thus far described

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irregardless of at hint at quotes justice

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no morality is a difference between right and wrong

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in concrete specific decisions and transactions between and among

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individuals when this is elevated to a social plane hit

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it ceases to have any particular recognizable content as justice

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but but but is is that

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terminal logically subjective if

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and individual decides to give soccer to the hon

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a hungry person are why is that

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different from 10 individuals giving

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sucka 10 hungry people privately and you don't know nor even if the use the

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instrumentality

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above the crowd because at that point I become the soccer for them because it

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quite

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taxes that the company there's it's fine for you to decide to be charitable it is

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not

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fine for you to be charitable with my resources as opposed to yours

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in fact is no charity connected with them well

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this really depends on the rules to society than that wants raises the

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question notices I'm great with your essay

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that says the most of his and mean

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is the fact that the people of oklahoma and two people from New York find it

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convenient to have a common system of law whose

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a justification with two people were got home and amounted to people of New York

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homes of their pocket

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persons to people who claim movement mean it's a question which he

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on through a high-speed rikki there's nothing like a model agreement

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which key create such in fact it's nearly perfect will

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where that use to power ones be for common state that this apollo

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it is accepted as legitimate that this power

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takes out of pocket from the French at home for a bit

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now does that mean that if you have a world government we can

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taxi Americans to all Americans to eighty percent of their incomes and also

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maintains a Chinese

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in that the same principle applied the once even international government they

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were busy international Powell

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live two planes and is perfectly legitimate to certain political

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government

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decides to text all Americans eighty percent of the income

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handed over Chinese and pizza Chinese whatever way we may think about

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desirable future you walls of moles a

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no doubt to existing rules with most small plus the fat

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and I would maintain that in fact

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when today they will the politics

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United States a heavily taxed in favor of the

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put a pulse this is not

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the result of pinnae mole agreement majority of the american people

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but soon with a flick that whatever party is in power

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needs to do to Oklahoma and pays for the roots of Oklahoma

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it's a cost a few people to win few parts nothing else

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well at but the motivations

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I love the people who past those rules

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are not necessarily the motivations of people who

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are propelled by demagogic pressure

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on you not you not to mind disinterested

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generosity exercise the legislature it's entirely different map is International

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Journal said

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germans want nothing action but to claim with the

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is consensus of the American people

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which also license legislature to

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bring about a certain redistribution of income using

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track never did not poop American people have never

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calls principles they ought to be applied this

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all they are asked her all the out told this

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in fact the the public input Democratic Party

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promises you such-and-such will be in pole only

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if it buys to support a few people in oklahoma and since you know that you we

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get from

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Democratic Party when you what to expect for me you vote for me

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and to take into account the necessity the role with the democratic party gets

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into power

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it has to pay special benefits people will promote with what

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comes to

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lives am a business to jeff greenfield

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East or is your skepticism about social justice

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justice confined to the spear economics

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or you skeptical about any ability to define it classical demand is

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it's a state hope to played all people is

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equally in spite of the fact that they have a happy

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unequal you can deduce from this

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there who it because their people hot I'm equal

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he ought to t2 unequally well to make them unequal

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and that what social just three months to it's at the mountain

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that the state should 3 to different people differently in all took place in

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the same position

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you who of equal treatment applies

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ending close things the state has to do in any case

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but to make making people equal

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goof governmental policy would force government to keep people guessing I'm

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equally

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me

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hun

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