House Resolution 784, proposed to honor the twenty-five-hundred-sixtieth anniversary of the birth of Confucius, received a No vote from Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake.
Why?
Honorable Flake say “He who spends time passing trivial legislation may find himself out of time to read healthcare bill.”
He has a point, and it’s worth than a fortune-cookie presentation.
I am pretty sure Master K’ung-tzu, whom we call Confucius, would side with Flake. It is more important actually to do good deeds than honor the ancient wisdom of a foreign culture, or its chief exemplar.
It’s not bad to honor such an ancient one as Master Kung. But if everything else you do rubs against the Confucian grain, what does that say?
Take just one issue. Congress continues to obsess about executive salaries, and in effect has given the current administration the green light to fix salaries.
But as economist Arnold Kling has noticed, this is all a distraction. “The substantive issue is
the extent to which [recent market] losses were caused by political actions and the extent to which they are concentrated at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. . . . Given the large role of Freddie and Fannie, it makes sense for politicians to create as large a diversion as possible. Hence, the brouhaha over bonuses at bailed-out banks.”
Very un-Confucian, such shifting of blame.
‘Paul Jacob is President of Citizens in Charge and the Citizens in Charge Foundation, which sponsors both Common Sense and Paul’s weekly Townhall Column. The opinions expressed in Common Sense are Paul Jacob’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Citizens in Charge or the Citizens in Charge Foundation.’