Sir Barack of Loxley

Everyone knows that Robin Hood "steals from the rich to give to the poor." This notion is quite heroic at the surface, if you're not one of the "rich." The heroism, or morality, of this particular form of "redistribution of wealth" only survives a deeper inspection, though, when examined in the proper context.

The basic story is this: Robin Hood was a loyal subject of King Richard the Lionheart, who ran a just and equitable kingdom. When King Richard went off to fight in the Crusades, he left his despotic brother, Prince John, in power. John oppressed, repressed, and depressed the people of Nottinghamshire ruthlessly, taxing the bloody hell out of them to finance his own excesses. Well, Robin Hood wouldn't stand for such injustice, so he began his own crusade, to take from the cronies of Prince John and give back to the robbed poor.

Noble indeed, especially given the conditions in Nottinghamshire at the time. But what about the modern-day Robin Hood? No, I'm not talking about the Dukes of Hazzard. I'm talking about Barack Obama.

There has been much ado, lately, on the Right regarding Obama's comment that he thinks "spread[ing] the wealth around [is] good for everybody." This prompted a comparison to Robin Hood that I heard on the radio today. Unfortunately, the suggested morality of the comparison, if such was the intent, is unfounded.

It's pretty clear, from Obama's populist theme, that he is all for a legislated wealth redistribution. Obama would finally punish those evil Big Oil companies who dare make a profit (how dare they!) while providing the goods and services that the public demands. He'd raise their taxes (by eliminating some of the exploration incentives that exist today) and impose a "windfall profits tax" on them, if they made money above some obscure threshold. Nevermind that they already pay multiples of their profit in the form of taxes today. (While Exxon Mobil, for example, made over $11 billion in profits in their second quarter 2008, they paid over $32 billion in taxes in the same quarter.)

Obama would eliminate the tax breaks that the highest income bracket enjoys today, and have been enjoying since Bush passed his tax reform following the dot-com bust. In fact, Obama states that he would reduce taxes for 95% of the population...increasing them for only the top 5% of wage earners. Well, the bottom 20% of wage earners don't even pay any tax to begin with, so they would actually be getting a check from the government every single year.

Further, Obama has highlighted that he would like to see a regulation of executive pay in private enterprise. The idea, obviously, is that if CEOs and other execs are making less, that's more available to the worker bee.

Barack Obama wants to take from Peter to pay Paul. If this were 12th century England, and Prince John was in power, this might be dignified. Peter would be some wealthy bastard of a noble who was living large off of Paul's toil and labor. But this is not 12th century England. This is the United States of America, where Peter has raised himself to his position of wealth through his own ingenuity, toil and labor. Peter has stolen from no one. So why should Paul get his money? The freedoms and liberties granted in America to succeed (of fail) at one's own choosing do not provide even a hint of the context necessary to justify what Obama would like to do to the men and women who support this country through their hard work and sacrifice.

Barack Obama is no modern day Robin Hood.