In Praise of the Oxford Comma

I thought this was a funny little demonstration of why the English language needs Oxford commas. But I ran into a real-world instance today up at Salon in David Sirota's piece "What makes a progressive?" In describing some of Ron Paul's positions on issues, he writes:


"At the same time, though, when it comes to war, surveillance, police power, bank bailouts, cutting the defense budget, eliminating corporate welfare and civil liberties, Paul is more in line with progressive goals than any candidate running in 2012 (or almost any Democrat who has held a federal office in the last 30 years)."

(Emphasis mine.)

Paul does not run on a platform of eliminating civil liberties yet Sirota's statement is unclear with the comma. It should read "At the same time, though, when it comes to war, surveillance, police power, bank bailouts, cutting the defense budget, eliminating corporate welfare, and civil liberties..."