We hear much about the split between right and left political parties and individuals. With a media fed by leftist academia, there is the dual-attack on everything not progressive, the new word which replaced liberalism because liberalism had its name destroyed and tied to failed policies. The interesting thing about this change is that when the progressive politicians had destroyed the name of progressivism, at that time they changed their name to liberals hoping that their ideas and policies could be sold as liberating instead of the stifling which progressivism had come to represent. It was Hillary Clinton who referred to herself as an early Twentieth Century progressive when she attempted to strip herself of the liberal label. This worked almost well enough for her to win the Presidency on her second try. She was counting on the fact that most people have little recollection of what exactly was a progressive of the early Twentieth Century and thus she could define herself as the candidate for progress. This has been the systematic redefining that the socialists have had to do to avoid being labeled exactly what they are, Statists. The progressives, and the liberals after them and now again with the moniker progressives have always stood for has been socialism and the empowerment of government. They offer programs which sound marvelous and all inclusive but these programs are all based on one simple concept, the government must be the provider of rights and all means of survival thus having the power to decide who lives and who does not. Gaining this power, despite the claim that they are empowering women, comes through in the abortion debate where the plans of Margaret Sanger remain alive and well within Planned Parenthood, to remove the unwanted types of people from the society through sterilization and abortion preventing their reproducing. This is also central in the discussion over euthanasia of the terminally ill and the elderly. What is almost always refused entry into this debate is the speed with which medical discoveries and breakthroughs are being made and how this will only become more miraculous with time and thus some who may choose to be euthanized may do so only to have their loved ones read of a new miraculous cure or treatment which could have returned their loved one to a productive and healthier life which could have continued for decades. The newest discussion in these areas has been the right of a parent to abort a disabled child after their birth simply because they are not prepared to make the sacrifices required by their infant’s disability or illness. Thankfully, this was not the custom when Ludwig van Beethoven who was almost completely deaf, and as such in his time was most definitely a difficult imposition on his parents. By the standards being touted today by the left, one such as Beethoven could be considered not worthy of the effort to be permitted to live.
While reading an article which took a slightly differing approach to the difference between the left and right, as stated in this article the difference was between Leftism and Americanism, an odd and not too sophisticated movie, which was amusing just the same, came to mind called, “Idiocrasy,” about life in the far future. We are not recommending rushing out to order this on Netflix or any other means to view it, that is unless you have some time to waste on puerile enjoyment and flatulence jokes used to set the level of the society and not intended to entertain. In the film, a not so intelligent soldier and a woman who volunteered for the financial reward end up in the 2500’s, where the society has all but collapsed due to government programs and regulations ruling every part of life and the general dumbing down of the population reaching its logical conclusion. The rest is unimportant beyond the fact that this is where every experiment by mankind has led to, or would given sufficient time, where the government gains total control over every facet of life, the means and methods of production and virtually everything is regimented by rigid regulations. Somehow, in Idiocracy, it led to humorous institutions run by ignoramuses where television shows of the basest variety are more important than working or virtually everything else. The world, by rule of law, is restricted to using an energy drink for everything for which Hashem gave us water and for some reason they are unable to grow food, yet everyone still eats. This comical look at a total socialist existence which had been in place for quite some time and where it invariably would lead is, in its own way, educating.
The reality of government dependence and reliance solely on the government to fix every little problem is that people will tend to lose their motivation to actually perform any actual service to the society. Socialism works well in small groups which have a common goal and where there can be societal shame used to motivate any slackers. Further, in a small group such as communes or the Israeli Kibbutzim, members who are not pulling their weight and have no specialized skills making them worth carrying are often invited to leave the group and try being shiftless elsewhere. Such a control mechanism does not function with such means as shaming in a large, metropolitan society where often people know absolutely nothing about their neighbors. Also, when the goodies provided by the all-powerful government includes housing, then those who are completely dependent upon the government for their food, shelter and all other necessities end up residing together where their way of life is the norm and thus shaming again is useless, or in this case, nonexistent. Currently, there are two shining examples of a completely socialist governance and where such leads, and they are North Korea and Venezuela. There is another item such societies posses, and that is a complete ban on private ownership of firearms. This makes the people completely dependent on government and with no power to resist any policy. They also make resisting anything the government may decide is necessary to continue ruling including deciding that certain people no longer have any right to exist. This can lead to the extermination of an entire group in any random basis such as the Nazi near extermination of European Jewry, and the Nazis were socialists, National Socialists. Currently, in both Venezuela and North Korea, people are starving and without their medications or any of the niceties of life such as toilet paper. Changing the leadership in either nation or infusing capital in an attempt to restart economic activity will result in throwing good money after bad as they will slowly grind their economic engine to a halt in order to serve government programs.
There is another oddity which we and some of our friends have discussed at length and come to what originally we thought was something odd, but later we reached some conclusions. The item we noted was that the people supporting leftism and the socialist agenda mostly resided in the larger cities while those who supported individualism, capitalism and such were those in the rural communities. This appeared perplexing, especially since we all resided in larger cities and would have politically stood with those from the rural areas, so obviously this was not a universal qualifier. We finally hit upon the differentiating factor, or at least we settled for this reasoning. Disclaimer, we are not necessarily the sharpest knives in the drawer. What we found was that in each of our lives, should something break or if we did not have the exact item needed to complete some task, we would improvise and get the item functioning or complete the job and then, when it was more convenient, we would go and get the correct item or fabricate some elaborate piece and actually repair or complete some task. This did not mean we would use a roll of pennies instead of a fuse in our homes, but we would wrap a gum wrapper around a fuse in something like a flashlight to get it to function when needed and later replace the fuse. None of us admitted to doing such with the fuse in a vehicle, but we all knew that at least some of us had probably committed such a not so brilliant fix. The people we all knew who were avowed leftists, and yes, we managed to remain friends with such people because they can be perfectly wonderful people and even good friends, until something breaks, but we avoided talking politics with them as we realized long ago that leftists must find their own path taking them off the government plantation. Truth be told, some of us were once leftists and have found our way to self-reliance. And that the term which most often delineates leftists from those on the right, is self-reliance. It actually comes down to do you at least try to repair things yourself or do you wait for a repair person to come and repair it because they were trained for such jobs.
We noted another difference which was less obvious and had a greater number of exceptions. What we noted was that most of the leftists worked either in a union, an office, or some regimented type of work where people were, to varying degrees, interchangeable while the more conservative people worked often in some form of repair or technical work and often for smaller companies where each person has their particular specialty which adds to the whole and all are able to perform multiple jobs required by their employers. What we were never quite able to get our arms around was why the vast majority of highly educated university graduates were almost all leftists, and the more education they had and the more advanced degrees they had attained, the stronger this attachment. This may be due to our age and the majority of these highly educated varieties of people we meet are often twenty or more years younger than ourselves. We also had noticed that the highly educated which were closer to our age were more likely not to be leftists and abhorred socialism. We might have fallen into the trap of believing age has something to do with political views, but we know far too many people our age who are committed leftists. These other descriptions appeared to be somewhat more accurate and telling.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm
We understand the concept of assisting the poor, especially those who have some disabling difficulty which prevents their being gainfully employed. Special instances must not become generalized privileges available to the general public at large. We understand the necessity for taking care of the elderly, but this too is not universal as there are those of advanced age who are still fully capable and there are some who prefer working to taking a government handout. It is for these people that we oppose age restrictions such as mandatory retirement age. Some people can be unable to functionally work due to age and other related injuries and complications at age forty-five while other people are still vigorous and fit at age seventy plus. One-size fits all rules are seldom a great idea as, in case you may have missed this, people are all different with different needs, abilities and desires. This is part of the problem when the government makes rules for the society; these rules are, by necessity, one-size fits all. What is interesting is that those who make these rules always find some means of excusing themselves from the same rules. The example which has always upset us and our friends was when regulations and rules were passed to make insider trading of stocks and bonds illegal, the legislators of Congress and their senior aides and advisors, you know, the people most likely to have insider information and even information even insiders do not have access to such as who is about to get the big defense contract, these people were exempted from all prosecution for insider trading. This should provide everyone with the answer as to how people after four years in an elected government position or high post for an elected member of the government become multi-millionaires when they were almost dirt poor upon entering office. Rules, what rules, we are the governing, not the governed, we do not have to obey the rules. Members of Congress cannot be ticketed for speeding or other driving violations as long as they are on their way to the office, that is another great rule which is just wrong. These are just a taste to get everybody upset. The other item you will see is even in Venezuela and North Korea the leadership and their friends and the military eat and live well, the closer to the leader, the better one lives. Socialism is all for equal treatment of the common people and not of the privileged people. Those who matter, matter and those that don’t, don’t, it is that simple. To quote George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” To that, we need add nothing as if you do not understand this, you will never understand socialism and the privilege of the governing, something relatively valid no matter the governance. All governments will tend to grow and once they pass a certain size, they are next to impossible to bring back under the control of the people as they have amassed too much power and the ability to know far more than is required to govern about every individual and more so once you become a person they find interesting, gain ballot access to Congress and you will find out exactly how interesting you can become. Thomas Jefferson stated, “The government which governs best governs least.” Unfortunately, the government which will govern least is the one with the least number of employees. When it comes to government, the first thing that matters is whether they are capitalist or socialist, the next is whether they are elected or some form of plutocracy, and finally, no matter what you have heard, size matters. After these three items, the rest can be diced out by the people for the government still belongs to the people and not the people to the government.
Beyond the Cusp
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Beyond the Cusp 