About the debt ceiling and the mess in most state capitals and in Washington:  A close friend whom I love and respect suggests that Ron Paul’s and Neal Bootz’s plans for solving the economic problem should be considered because they are fair. “Eliminate the income tax and all deductions (and subsidies) and collect government dollars from sales tax on all purchases (except on personal jets and yachts!) There could be exceptions for basic food and necessary meds, but like the Obama health care bill states, if you sell your house, there is a tax. The tax is estimated to be significant, around 23%. The pros and cons list is long, but maybe this method is...fairer.”

I thought about it for awhile and concluded that a solution doesn’t have to be “fair.”  I suppose there are some affluent, healthy, beautiful people who believe their good fortunate is the logical playing out of a system operating among human communities that favors fairness. Naaaah... I don’t buy it. Fairness has little to do with it. The “it” in those sentences is the pronoun that represents the economic, social and health status of people, any people, in any cultural setting. Of course, we ideally strive for justice and equity in our legal systems. We strive to make our laws “fair,” but equity and justice reinforced in law don’t guarantee that the rewards of a free society are measured out fairly to all citizens. We expect our children to learn in school that fairness is a valued characteristic, but everyone who has spent any time in school knows that ultimately the rewards systems don’t take into account all individual differences. Does anyone try to argue that the very intelligent student and the dull normal student operate on a level academic playing field or that the athlete born with ideal genetic make-up and the youngster with real physical disabilities have equal opportunities for success in athletics? When responsible people who are blessed with natural or inherited or preconditioned advantages reach out to those who aren’t so blessed and share, they are doing more because they recognize and acknowledge that they enjoy the good life at least partly because of the advantages they have enjoyed. The responsible person, the moral person, recognizes that the good life isn’t spread through a community equitably and fairly. The responsible fortunate person expects to give more to community... not just a greater amount but a bigger percentage. The responsible person doesn’t settle just for fairness but goes beyond what fairness requires and does “the right thing.”