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Conventional wisdom is "the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
OPINION
The Pain Caucus
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 30, 2010
Less than a year into a weak recovery from the worst slump since World War II, there is a dangerous urge to stop helping the jobless and start inflicting pain.
Those who quantify their every mortal moment seem to be in search of a derivative explanation of their existence. In their finite measurements, they seek a more infinite answer, a whole greater than the sum of its quantifiable parts. In 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., without benefit of digital diagnostics, arrived at an eloquent answer to the biometric question being posed: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
-- DENNIS B. APPLETON,
Madison, Wisc.