Column: Modern society impossible without a little redistribution

One good gaffe (47 percent “who are dependent upon government”) calls for another, so Romney staffers reached back to 1998, catching Barack Obama telling students at Loyola University that he actually believes in “redistribution, at least at a certain level.”

In 1998, Obama probably didn’t imagine that 14 years later he would be president of the United States. If he had, he might have chosen his words more carefully.

On the other hand, he also probably couldn’t have imagined how casually in 2012 he would be called a “socialist,” even when he hasn’t come close to behaving like one. Or how toxic a word like “redistribution” could become. After all, “redistribution” is only a word, and even when it’s attached to the phrase “of wealth” its meaning needn’t be as malignant as the anti-Obama forces imagine.

The term may have acquired a bad reputation, but “redistribution” can be used just as easily to describe what happens when people pool their resources to create the infrastructure of a civilized, secure society. Almost no Americans, including the Democrats, want to bring everyone’s income down or up to the same level. But nearly all of us believe in pooling our money — “redistributing” it — for common purposes.

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