The 21st question
I thought I was a little harsh with the opening of my post of the 20 questions so I wrote a follow up trying to be warm and fuzzy. Not because I hope to score points with the left-wingers, not because I want to make my posts more acceptable but because my feelings toward them constantly move between anger and pity, contempt and indignation, frustration and desperation. I KNOW, we all know that they are just stupid but at some point we must ask: when does the refusal to take responsibility for the harm they do become morally condemnable?
At what point is it OK to call the socialists out for what they are?
The essence of being a leftist is a sense of moral superiority, a sense of moral indignation and the firm conviction that they are on the right side of history. They honestly believe that they know something that the mean spirited, selfish, religious, racist and exploitative, profit chasing, intolerant and close minded, tradition touting conservatives are just too stupid to understand. They are not doing a very good job explaining it but that does not matter because they are only talking to each other and all that conversation needs is the mutual affirmation of the credo. Leftist policies are not easy to explain because they do not make much sense – I am still waiting for someone to show me any that does – and their negative result are very easy to predict.
They also have a rather bad track record.
Communists are mass murderers. The number of their victims in the 20th century is close to 100 million. Socialists are bankrupting cities, states and countries. Planned economies produce abysmal results. Rent control destroys rental housing stocks. Minimum wage kills entry level jobs and shuts disadvantaged minorities out of the job market. Welfare rights create permanent underclasses around the world. Aid given to corrupt third world dictators hinders the development of their countries. The banning of DDT is killing children. Estimated number of victims is 50 million. (Yes, Rachel Carson is responsible for more death than Hitler) Excessive regulations are killing both innovation and productivity making all of us poorer. Government run schools leave a third of the children functionally illiterate. Government run health care has poor service and long waiting lines. ….and I could go on. Every socialist policy is doing more harm than good yet they are being pushed because they all manifest the good intentions of their advocates. They never work as promised, but that will never deter the socialists from advocating more of the same. Again we have to ask: at what point can we have the collective courage and intelligence to say that good intentions and stupidity do not excuse the harm they do? If we can predict the bad results of a policy (and we can) shouldn’t those who implement it be held responsible for the harm? The expense? Libertarians and conservatives keep pointing out that the leftists are wrong, but we hardly ever question their morality. The left owns the narrative. They claim the moral side of the political divide while they are actively hurting the very people they are claiming to speak for, while they are demonstrably doing more harm than their opponents. Can we have a political culture that evaluates results, costs and benefits instead of good intentions and rosy promises ? All of the above assumes the best and purest intentions. For the sake of the argument I will not consider self-interest which is very often part of the cause. Liberty is primarily a moral proposition, socialism is about power and it seems to be winning. So the question for the 21st century is this:
Can the socialists be stopped before they completely destroy the civilization that made their very existence possible?