Thinking Inside Think Tanks

AMONG AMERICA'S MANY interesting forms of community, including street gangs, fight clubs, and tea parties, there are "think tanks". These are groups of highly intelligent people brought together inside a building for the purpose in engaging in thought, and producing benefits therefrom. They are funded by private donations from wealthy people with a political agenda, and are usually conservative, though some few are liberal. Their primary purpose is to justify the values and beliefs of their benefactors. You would almost think that productive thinking could occur anywhere, by almost anybody, and that it wouldn't be necessary to spend a lot of money on buildings and such in order to get it done. But, oh no, nothing so simple in America, the fun house, where nothing is as it seems, and a big fuss must always be made. But what the heck? Nothing wrong with a little formal, paid thinking here and there. Each think tank has an imposing name. The American Enterprise Instutute is devoted to thinking about economics, with only one requirement: all thought must be conservative, and must reflect the belief that the free market is sacred. The current chairperson of the AEI is a consrvative gentleman named Arthur Brooks, and he made a rather shocking statemnt recently. He said that conservative republicans should consider the possibility of accepting the existence of the social safety net, rather than trying to undermine it. In other words, welfare programs are here to stay, might as well accept them. Opposing entitlements might be hazardous to your political health, dear conservatives. Will Mr. Brooks lose his job for blasphemy? From social security to medicaid to obamacare, conservatives have been dragged onboard kicking and screaming. Mr Brooks mright merely be saying that all the kicking and screaming is counter productive to conservatives interests, whatever those are. He is certainly not saying that sharing wealth through government coercian is a good idea, and he is no doubt adamantly opposed to Obamacare. He made one comment to the effect that liberal democrats want endless welfare, and conservative republicans want enterprise. The demonstrably open minded deep thinking Mr. Brooks might eventually realize that even liberals, of all people, believe in good hard work and free enterprise. But of course, it takes awhile to think of things like that, even for deep thinkers swimming in think tanks.