Maybe I'm Not Smart Enough To Be On The Left

After a great deal of self-analysis, I may have discovered a serious lack of mental accuity in myself; though I can't say that I find it particularly worrisome.  It doesn't appear that it was a lack of intelligence, at least I have been given to understand it, as I've always measured pretty well on the IQ scale.  Neither was it a lack of knowledge, as I have loved to study since I was a small child; and have worked assiduously at maintaining the standing of a well-read person.  It couldn't have been a lack of education, as I've was given my early lessons in a very good private grade school, spent most of my high school years in the 'first track' (honors program) of one of the finer college prep schools in the city of Chicago, and attended classes at a couple of well-respected seats of higher learning. It don't think it could even be considered the lack of ability to communicate, though many who've been reading the efforts in this blog for any length of time could probably make an argument to the contrary.  Regardless of being able to set aside all of these potential drawbacks to my brainpower however, there still seems to be something missing intellectually in my case. 

So maybe it's not a question of knowledge but one of maturity instead.  As many of you know, I make no claims of maturation, hoping in life to go 'from immaturity to senility without noticing the transition'.  This sarcastic pose however does not prevent me from making my own decisions (such as they are), choosing my own career path (when the industry I'm in isn't collapsing around me), cooking my own meals (and doing so quite proficiently if I do say so myself), maintaining my own residence (when not improving it), and paying my bills (usually on time).

Being therefore what could be considered fairly intelligent, well-educated, and well read, it should be no surprise that there's a lot of subjects of national interest on which I have formed strong opinions.  These range on a wide variety of subjects from access to abortion to gun control, and I hold them regardless of the level of controversy attached to the subject.  None of these opinions if you must know, are based (except perhaps in some small part) on emotion, sentiment, or a 'gut feeling' about the situation; but instead rely on fact, logic and careful analysis of the short and long term consequences.  When doubt arises, as it must inevitably, I fall back on the concept of the 'rule of law' as embodied in the second attempt to define this government of this nation in a single document, The Constitution.  (I had a friend in Toledo that finally cured me of such things a few years back.)  Not surprisingly, you would find that these opinions are logically consistent from one subject to another.  I don't use one set of criteria to judge one issue, and its polar opposite on the next; in a pattern of logical inconsistency that hopes to achieve some twisted form of emotional self-satisfaction.    

These methods me at odds with some of my acquaintances, fellow pundits, and political opponents from the left however. You see, unlike many of my Liberal counterparts, progressive advocates, mainstream media reporters, and most of the statist politicians of both major parties; I don't appear to be able to make the same kind of decisions that they can.  Oh don't get me wrong, I'm more than capable of making decisions for myself; but draw the line at that point.  In their minds therefore, I'm suffering from apparent form of intellectual inadequacy that I find myself unashamed of:   

I'm not smart enough to make decisions for other people.
  
Fortunately enough for me, I'm not allowed to make decisions for other people.  Unfortunately for all of us, many of those who I've previously described think that they not only have the right to decide for the rest of us, but in fact have the obligation to do so.  Someone might get injured, so we'll decide not to expose you to the risk.  Somebody else might get hurt financially, so we'll take the risk for you to keep yourself from taking it.  Worse still, somebody might make the wrong choices, so we'll take those choices away from you for your benefit.  Heaven forbid that you should expose yourself to the potential of poor choices, potential harm, and future regret.  After all, that's only life as we know it.  No we the smart ones, the caring ones, the ones in political power will make these decisions for you regardless of whether you're capable or not because after all, we're smarter than you are.
     
Strangely enough, I find that there is no jealousy in my heart for those on the progressive left who believe that they are possessed of such a singular form enlightenment, but in fact a fair amount of pity.  Imagine the burden of knowledge that this progressive intelligentsia possesses, believing themselves capable to decide for all.  What a trial it must be to find one's self the discerning statist and recognize that one is so smart that they're incapable of allowing others to decide for themselves.  What fearful stress and emotional turmoil it must be for far too many of today's legislators, administrators, and of course political leaders to recognize the erudition in themselves that forces them to carry the responsibility of limiting the free choice of so many in order to defend freedom itself.

While I can certainly imagine the kind of progressive self-righteous sagacity must be required to assume the role of mother and father protector to those one barely knows in order to prevent those apparently unwilling or unable to accept the burden of making choices for themselves (lest it interfere with their Reality Show schedule), I certainly don't feel myself burdened with such personal perspicacity.  Oh yeah, I consider myself smart enough as far as it goes (just smart enough at least to refuse to use the Tom Hanks line from "Forest Gump"), but it appears that I may not be smart enough to be on The Left.



    

Quote of the Day

This is another of those longer quotes, and one which I discovered while reading the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal this morning.  It is however, one that I believes some due consideration for anyone trying to understand government in terms of historical perspective (this one comes from 1924), but especially in the election year of 2012.


The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives.  The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes.  The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.  Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition.  Thus we have two great types ... the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins.  He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine.  Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob.  This called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution.

- G K Chesterton 

And The Progressive Hits Just Keep On Comin'

Having attained the apparently necessary age and self-appointed title of Curmudgeon, one tends to look at things with a cynical eye and a jaded perspective. Most of the things that everyone talks about as being "the latest thing" appear to one in my position of simply being yet another example of "everything old is new again". 

Take for example the current Administration and Congress. While there appear to be some firsts seen with this current crop of politicians, much of what they say and do today is little more than ideological retreads. President Obama claims to be the first African-American president, but did after all have a Caucasian mother. Perhaps that instead makes him the first bi-racial president, though I suspect that other presidents in our history might have had some interesting pedigrees that they were unwilling to talk about. I guess a person can be who they decide they are however. 

President Obama is claimed by many of his sycophants to be the greatest uniter as a president since Abraham Lincoln, but Lincoln's election divided this country as it had never been divided before or since ... in Civil War. Obama and Lincoln do both come from Illinois however, and show a similarity views where the federal government is concerned; with both attempting to draw increasing power both to it and to the executive branch. (One could also point out that Lincoln was a great builder of railroads, and that the latest Congress appears to be a runaway train.) 

Beginning perhaps in the second term of the Bush years, it seems intent on legislating and spending in a way that has embarrassed drunken sailors. They have raised the debt ceiling (a rather curious term, isn't it?) more times than Visa has raised my credit limit in recent years, and to a worse purpose. Congress has likewise intruded in an ever increasing way in the personal freedoms of the citizens of this country. But we have seen this before in the "New Deal" of the FDR years and the "Great Society" of LBJ. It's not perhaps a change in philosophy that we are shown here, as much as an increase in the scope and scale of the governmental abuse. 

Money is hard to come by, and many say that it is the fault of this President and this Congress. Inflation also seems right around the corner, and the worth of a dollar may prove much less very quickly, but this too is not far out of our memory. Any of us old enough to have lived through the Carter Administration remember the gas lines, the double digit prime rates, and the fact that no one could afford to borrow money for anything. 

There is a lot of talk about organizations like the United Nations, the G20 and others will exert influence that will lead inevitably to a "World Currency" and a "World Government". We have seen this before as well, with Woodrow Wilson and the attempt to form the League of Nations. Many indeed were crying out over the ceding of our sovereignty then to an organization that we never actually ended up joining. 

In truth, there is a commonality to all of these abuses and the thinking that is behind them. Having done a good bit of reading on this recently (some of it horribly boring, let me tell you), I feel that I can state that all of these efforts show a recurring theme of Progressive thinking. This belief in larger and more onerous government control, in egalitarianism through wealth redistribution, and in a ruling elite of those best suited to leading runs through all of this like a recurring melody. Like the music of Neil Sedaka and Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons (whoops, really dated myself on that reference), Elton John and Billy Joel, or Fergie and Kelly Clarkson; there is a repeating theme to all of it. 

We began to see the shape of this music with the passage of the Stimulus Package, the the bailouts, and the most recent budget. We likewise began to see the shape of that which is to come with health care legislation, cap and trade, and the internet fairness doctrine. And though I find this particular form of music abhorrent (much as I feel about rap music), these are not tunes with which I am unfamiliar. The lyrics change subtly in these Progressive compositions from one generation to the next, and the beat speeds up or slows down as it suits those wishing to dance to the tune of the latest pied piper ... but the Progressive Hits Just Keep On Comin'. 

A Hope For Change

With a little luck, the last of the political primary debates were over this week. The election process is not over by any stretch of the imagination however. With the economy in the doldrums, gas and oil prices at an all time high, and inflation rearing its ugly head; naturally everyone hopes that things will change. Coming out of eight years of a Republican president, the Democratic candidates have based a lot of their campaigning on both hope and change. Even the Republican candidate, facing a disgruntled electorate, recognizes that hope for some kind of change is essential. The question is, "What kind of change?" 

So many things are timing in our lives, and in my case this manifested itself in a book that I recently completed reading, "A Time For Truth" by William E. Simon, written in 1978. Mr. Simon was a Treasury Secretary under Nixon and Ford, and the Energy Czar during the oil crisis of 1973-74. The clear thinking that he brings to the subject of energy and the US economy both as it existed then, and as he saw it evolving some 30 years ago is astonishing, and makes the book well worth putting on your reading list. 

More astonishing still in this book is the reference that he makes to a quote from one of my heroes, Winston Churchill. Being pushed out of office by the Socialists in England back in 1945, Mr. Churchill had some rather interesting insights on those who were taking power and where he saw it leading. These are thoughts that in the current debate over the potential coming to power of the social progressives of this country is worthy of now repeating:  

"I do not believe in the power of the state to plan and enforce. No matter how numerous the committees they set up or the ever-growing hordes of officials that they employ or the severity of the punishments that they inflict or threaten, they can't approach the high level of internal economic production achieved under free enterprise. Personal initiative, competitive selection, the profit motive, corrected by failure and the infinite processes of good housekeeping and personal ingenuity, these constitute the life of a free society. It is this vital creative impulse that I deeply fear the doctrines and policies of the socialist government have destroyed. Nothing that they can plan and order and rush around enforcing will take its place. They have broken the mainspring, and until we get a new one, the watch will not go. Set the people free - get out of the way and let them make the best of themselves. I am sure that this policy of equalizing misery and organizing scarcity instead of allowing diligence, self-interest and ingenuity to produce abundance has only to be prolonged to kill this British island stone dead." 

With the current struggles in the US economy and the coming changing of the guard that will inevitably occur no matter which way the election goes, my hope is that these words bring pause in the headlong rush. Hope is always a good thing. Change, not always so much. 

Government's role in this hope and change is a delicate and a dangerous one. Remember the inflation, unemployment, and chaos that Great Britain suffered for many years after World War II and which didn't truly end until Margaret Thatcher took the reigns of government. Take heed as you ask for government to take control of things and make it all right. And as always, be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.