This is an insightful commentary by a Libertarian whom I respect.
——
Harvesting Our Rotten Fruit
By: J.J. Jackson
For years liberals of all stripes from socialists to communists to all
out fascists have been planting seeds in our society. It became clear
to them in the early part of this century that America was not quite
ready for the revolutions that swept their fellow travelers into power
across the globe in places like Russia, Germany, France and Italy.
Something about the right of the people to keep and bear arms still
being believed in at the time put serious kinks into that plan. So they
opted for a more subtle approach on America’s shores.
Their approach amounted to what was the original “Operation Chaos”
where the goal was to sow enough seeds that would bear enough rotten
fruit and cause enough pain, suffering and ultimately chaos and then
blame the results not on their policies that caused these things but on
free-markets, liberty and everything America once stood for. Well, it
has worked. We now have orchards full of bad apples, vineyards full of
sour grapes, and many other types of rotten produce from these seeds
sown years ago that are ready to be harvested today. Now liberals are
merrily walking among the trees picking them one by one.
It has taken a while, but the biggest harvest of all is ready to be
presented to us. We have had smaller harvests over the years but none
this large. Even though it looked at times like Americans would turn
their noses up at being handed such unsavory sustenance, the nation
kept turning back to those that planted and tended these crops.
At one time the farm they now tend had been abandoned entirely as
settlers to the New World learned quickly that the rotten fruit of
economic collectivism was not palatable, lead to shortages, suffering
and societal collapse. But then, many years later, others found this
discarded tract of land.
It started small. A seed here. Then another seed there. And slowly but
surely those who started this farm rose to power. Woodrow Wilson
planted the seed of price controls. Franklin D. Roosevelt planted seeds
that would, among other things, blossom into trees whose fruit when
eaten brought massive takings from the paychecks of workers to pay for
the loyalty of senior citizens to the farm.
In the 1960’s LBJ bought stake in a small plot on the farm and planted
vines that grew quickly and entangled much of the other plants. The
fruit they bore brought forth grapes that provided for the
solidification of federal control over the public schools, taxes to
further wed seniors to government through Medicare, and brought the
“poor” on board the farm with Medicaid. And that was only the start.
Over the years since, many others have come along and have been given
their own plots and panted more crops, all only capable of bearing
rotten fruit, but that have flourished surprisingly well as the people
have demanded they keep growing such things. Some crops when planted
provided that banks would lend money to bad risks who had little or no
hope of paying the loans back and then saddling hardworking taxpayers
with the bill. Other crops as they were tended to caused the prices of
commodities to rise by artificially dictating that there would be
limited supplies either by laws that prevented their profitable
creation or by federal subsidy to simply not produce them. Still other
crops produced brown and putrid fruit that established a “minimum wage”
that made it unprofitable for businesses to hire low skilled workers
and increased unemployment or forced these businesses to consider
illegal labor.
Over here there is a patch of smelly pumpkins that ushered in the
belief that it was government’s role to bail people out who made bad
choices with their money. Just beyond those are trees whose pears,
brown and disgusting, brought to us public funding of art that most
Americans would not pay a solitary penny to see but makes aristocratic
wannabes bristle with pride, their noses are in the air, as they look
down upon the masses and such outdated concepts such as religion and
patriotism. And beyond that there is a well established plot on which
is growing fruit which pays people not to work.
Yes, and now the grand harvest is ready. It is being prepared and being
handed to us – all the rotten fruit of all this labor. We are told to
eat it. We are told to accept it. We do not want to, but hey – it’s
free. So maybe we will take it and be happy to make ourselves and our
nation sick.
Perhaps we will make ourselves so sick that we may never recover.
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