No Taxation Without Enhancification

Okay, maybe I'm citing too many of Auster's entries lately, but I simply could not pass on this one because it discusses one of my pet peeves...

I certainly don't agree with, nor do I like the idea of taxing one class of people for the purpose of eliminating self-esteem issues of another class of people, which seems to be the idea here. But I'm mainly concerned with the false concept that outward appearances determine the level of one's internal self-esteem. That seems to be at the bottom here.

I've run into this problem numerous times within my own circle, and it's a fairly conservative circle by comparison. And my advice or counsel is always to be careful about entertaining the liberal bassackwards philosophy that says the external leads to the internal. Why is this my advice to those who ask it in one way or the other? Because, as I explain to them over and over (but this usually falls on deaf ears), invariably you will find that ultimately self-esteem is not enhanced, nor self-esteem issues eliminated by external means. It is the internal that leads to the external. One's self-esteem is not determined by the way one looks, but by the way one acts; by the content of one's character, to borrow from MLK.

Ultimately self-esteem is destroyed by this idea of enhancing one's features to increase self-esteem, not the other way around.