They are evil

On some level, most of us feel like we are being screwed. It's not true of course, but this feeling serves a very important psychological purpose: self delusion. Our ego cannot allow us to feel inferior, so instead of looking within ourselves, we look outward for scapegoats and bogeymen to blame. We think our boss exploits us, that mega-companies charge too much, and that luck is not on our side.

I think most of us intuitively know we are not being shafted left and right. You go to class and see the smart kid in the room. You see her talent and you know she’s special. Every day she works her butt off and eventually it pays off. And even the most cynical among us can’t help but admit, she's earned everything she's got.

Nonetheless, the need for bogeymen persists, and we don't personally know every smart girl in the room. To assuage our egos, we simmer illicit stories of how she became rich. What wrongs she must have committed to rise above us, or how it was just plain luck.

Politics essentially divides itself along two lines. The first takes as its premise that what people have, they earned. The second believes that what you have is not earned, or at least not earned rightly.

Liberalism, the politics of entitlement, is manna to your ego. When you see successful people, liberalism sells the idea that you have been shafted; that they don't deserve their success; that if you give liberals power, they will get you what you are entitled. It's a dangerous philosophy as it pits man against man, and feeds on our innate animal desires.

This is not an extreme view of liberalism. At its heart, liberalism is based on the presumption that your fellow man profits at your expense and this causes conflict by definition.

It's the frailty of our ego that wants to transform smart, successful women into our personal scapegoats. It's the tragedy of liberalism to encourage it.