The basic pitch of the Left is based upon a Blame & Envy Cocktail. Those who ascribe to the egalitarian/collectivist fantasy that makes a grievance out of other people's success, and blames the successful for every failure, feel justified in cutting corners--in altering the rules, because they have bought the myth that the rules were made to keep them--or those with whom they identify--down.
Unless you confront this mindset, you are naively assuming that everyone has certain basic ideas of fairness in common. There is, in fact, a figurative ocean of difference in what different factions mean by "fairness."
Great post and blogs, Ohioan. In my fantasy ideal world, you and many like you would be outstanding political science professors, teaching college students that they are playing with fire if they allow themselves to be hoodwinked by the left. Such an education would dovetail neatly with what they are seeing all around them in the age of Obama.
Unfortunately, it is the Professors who are doing the "hoodwinking."
It is, truly, the mountebanks in higher education who have corrupted the whole debate. (For example, see the Chapter in my Conservative Debate Handbook on Myths & Myth Makers In American "Higher" Education.) And because most of the major main stream journalists are too dense to ever challenge the Professors who conditioned them, the "playing field," has been stacked against us.
This is why we need to start attacking the flawed premises of the Left, rather than 'walking on eggs' to sound politically correct. The reality is that egalitarian collectivist fantasies serve the interests of no one but demagogues--who exploit the make-believe grievances--and those who know how to game the system, to sponge off their neighbors, through programs that subsidize bad decisions & corrupt behavior.
In a very real sense, every one else, rich or poor, black or white, faithful believer or religious skeptic, or whatever, is an actual victim of the real social wrong of our era.
William Flax