Tools

As an old (and former) leftist, the search for an enemy is one of the left's most striking features. What's also striking is how selectively incomplete this search is. That incompleteness is - to me, at least - the reason that I'm a former leftie.

I don't think that most folks on the left understand this. I think that most are decent people who honestly want to change things for the better. They've just let an intellectual framework channel that decency into something that is being exploited quite shamelessly, by people who are anything but decent.

Let's look at the framework, which is best described by the left as "progressiveism." It's very poorly understood by most people who, to their credit, have much better things to do than study political theory. So they're not driven by theory; instead, most will - quite rightly, IMO - point to something in our society that is clearly broken, and say "that's broke; let's fix it."

The debate often goes a step further. The object under consideration isn't just broken, somebody broke it. The implication is that these people are possibly malign, certainly are not to be trusted, and must be somehow be brought to justice in the course of setting things right.

The examples are too many to catalog, so we'll just point out fat-cat defense contractors and their $500 toilet seats, fat-cat industrialists poisoning the environment, and today's bete noir, the fat-cat banker destroying the economy. You get the picture.

Usually when you really examine the situation, the complaint boils down to a lack of foresight (too much leverage in the financial market) or lack of due care (pollution): sins of omission typically. Yes, there's the occasional Bernie Maddoff, but real fraud-from-whole-cloth is awfully rare.

The list is presented, the failures rolled out, and the demand for "progress" is made. So far, so good - honest people can choose to agree or disagree about a few points of marginal tax rate, and the debate is good for us as a society. So are elections.

But the list is curiously incomplete. We've tried to "fix things" as a collective society (via governmental action) in a big way, for a long, long time.Very few of these have turned out as planned. The simpler the goal, the more success we've had, especially when there's a strong engineering focus. Few people, for example, would argue that the Interstate Highway System was not much more successful than originally envisioned. The same thing goes for the "Space Race" - while the moon landing per se didn't have direct benefits, the indirect technology benefits from advances in electronics, computer programming, materials science, and the like is not just a win, it's a massive win.

There aren't many of these, but there are a lot of colossal failures associated with government programs. Great Society has inflicted massive collateral damage, effectively destroying marriage as an institution in the inner city. The "War on Drugs" hasn't gotten rid of drugs, but has done a wonderful job of jailing 3% of the population, criminalizing another 4-5% for life (felons can't vote, and often can't get jobs), militarizing police forces, and killing innocent people like Kathryn Johnston (a "no-knock" raid based on lies from a paid informant). The Alternative Minimum Tax - designed to make sure that millionaires didn't end up paying no taxes - wasn't indexed for inflation. Now it's destroying middle class people's lives.

And so to the incompleteness of the discussion. If a private company had done these things - put poor Mrs. Johnston in her grave, or Simon Legree style thrown people out of their homes for non-payment, the left would have a big old vat of tar boiling up right now, right next to the feathers. It doesn't. Why?

Because it was the government that did these things.

This begs the question: why does the government get a pass, when someone else who did these things would be cooling their heels in durance vile?

So, you ask, what happens when government makes a mistake? We'll fix it later, you might hear. So when are we going to see fixes for what's broken today?

This is where you meet the blank stare. When you get to this point, you know that you're talking to a fundamentally decent human being, who just wants to make some the country better. He hasn't thought things through very well, but means well.

Incomplete.

But you're transmitting on a frequency he isn't equipped to receive on. Okie-dokie, but this is why I won't accept the charmingly naive belief that most lefties possess, that they are smarter and nicer than other people. Consider it exhibit A for the prosecution, if you will.

But there's a darker aspect to this. Some people on both the left and the right don't give a tinker's damn about making the country better. They do care about getting, keeping, and expanding their own power. Whether it's Jack Abramoff (corrupt Republican fund raising) or PMT (corrupt Democrat fund raising), Washington can reliably be counted on to fiddle while the country burns, as long as they all get re-elected the next go around.

Unfortunately, it's the well-meaning lefties who are much more likely to be used like a tool by these bozos, then the well-meaning righties. Those on the left are much more susceptible to falling for the old there's a crisis and people are hurting RIGHT NOW!!!1! shtick. That are much more likely to be led down a path to a future they're promised is so bright, they'll have to wear shades.

You are about to leave the American Sector. Make sure you're not a tool.

Note: Bonus points to anyone who can point out the misspelling in the sign. Hint: it's obscure, and not in the english part.