“Our cgi guys can make some really realistic looking tornadoes tearing stuff up. We threw together a plot where some people chase tornadoes around Oklahoma- flying cows, Jack Nicholson’s head shredded on a drive in movie screen, songs from Van Halen. We’re going to be soooooo rich!”

I personally don’t hold Lucas responsible for Twister. I do hold him partially responsible for the latest crappy Indiana Jones flick, and for Jar Jar Binks.

Likewise, there is only so much you can hold Rawls responsible for the way people have used his work. In Miller’s version of Rawls, Rawls in the end was not a socialist at all.

Matthew Miller’s discussion of Rawls contains a very interesting interview with Milton Friedman. I highly recommend it.

Check out Matthew Miller’s treatment of Rawls in the 2% Solution. Now, Miller comes up with a number of policy recommendations that I don’t support, and one can’t help but wonder if the things he advocates are so great, why don’t divert resources within the existing structure out of unproductive sectors into these new fabulous ones.

Miller’s treatment of Rawls, however, is extremely interesting, and seems quite at odds with the way he is actually used in practice, which seems all too often to be as a justifying myth for the status quo of whatever the government happens to be doing now.

Perhaps I should say “cannot credibly” use Rawls to justify anything. You can of course twist anything to support anything. A Rawlsian could try, for example, to say that the putrid condition of schools in DCPS at $20,000 per kid justify moving to $40,000 per kid.

The problem is, there’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that such a move would actually benefit the kids in DCPS.

I think the ‘veil of ignorance’ concept is a very useful concept, perhaps because of the same reasons Greg dislikes it.

Greg’s post didn’t touch much on the veil though, he relied more on Rawls’ justification for inequality. In doing so, I think he came pretty close to advocating universal choice from a Rawlsian perspective.