“People don’t just want a life of comfort; they want a life of dignity — of self-determination,” Paul Ryan said at CPAC this morning. “A life of equal outcomes is not nearly as enriching as a life of equal opportunity.” He told a story that captured the point:
This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my buddy Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a poor family. And every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. But he told Eloise he didn’t want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch—one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids’. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him.
“That’s what the Left just doesn’t understand,” Representative Ryan said. “People don’t just want a life of comfort; they want a life of dignity — of self-determination. . . . The party that speaks to that desire, that tries to make it concrete and real, that’s the party that will win in November.”