On the Eve of a New Presidency

Food for thought 15 days before the transition of power from George W. Bush (R) to Barack Obama (D):

The idea of the current crop of “conservatives” – that government can cater to greed and leave charity to volunteers – is vicious and it can’t work. The “liberal” idea – that the failures of a greedy and wasteful economy can be effectively patched by government services and regulations – is also hopeless. There is no way to get a good result from an economy that institutionalizes greed as an honorable motive and excuses waste and destruction as “acceptable costs.”

- Wendell Berry in a 2005 interview with Preservation Magazine

Photo from Sojourners Magazine.