“We’re Not Broke.” The words washed over me like a wave of relief. These words had to be believed because they came from the Oracle of Iowa, Senator Tom Harkin. Tom Harkinonomics Of course he has never created any wealth, but he is an expert at spending it. He actually says, “We, as a nation, are not broke.” This is a meaningful distinction. We will get to that in a moment. In this context he also says, “We are now the richest nation in the world.” He then says, we do not have a spending problem; to quote he says, “Do we have a spending problem? No.” He continues, “We have a misallocation of wealth.” Although this sounds like the usual mindless blather we have come to expect from the left, it is much, much more and every conservative needs to understand what has been revealed in these statements. This could be one of the most meaningful pieces I write about the left and so I pray for guidance. Their core will be revealed and you will come to understand the left in a way which will allow you to deal with them effectively. You may even get an answer to the nagging question, “What’s wrong with them?” Please proceed.
When conservatives made the charge, “We’re broke,” we never meant to imply that every US citizen has maxed-out their credit cards and mortgaged the family farm. Why would any rational person make that assumption? Notice the left, in the person of Tom Harkin, has expanded the charge, “We’re broke,” into “We, as a nation, are broke.” This is our first big insight into the thinking of the left. They make no distinction between the government and the population. A mathematically competent second grader, once they overcome the mind boggling number of zeros in a trillion, would confidently conclude, from comparing the government’s receipts to its obligations, that the United States government is broke. But the left is not populated with mathematically competent second graders. The left is incapable of distinguishing between the government and the population. The left sees no individuals, only a collective. If we take your income, your health savings account, your 401k, your retirement savings and investments, your life insurance policies, your dividend income, your child’s college fund, the change from between the cushions of your couch, the spare $20 from the hidden compartment in your wallet, the equity in your home and any other monies or assets you may have and add that to the accumulated wealth of every US citizen who is now or will someday be alive, we have plenty of money to cover all the profligate spending our government has already engaged in, assuming of course, you can stop them from any future spending. Therefore, according to the left, we are not broke. What a relief!
“We are not broke.” is followed by, “We are now the richest nation in the world.” Apparently they plan to apply all of these riches to their irresponsible spending. “Wait a minute; that’s my money,” you say. Again you are failing to see yourself as part of a compliant collective. This is the way the left sees the world and it is necessary in dealing with them that you understand this. Your outmoded notion of property rights is clouding your thinking. Congress casually spends money they don’t have with the firm belief they can always get it from you. You are little more than a caretaker for wealth which they assume is always at their disposal; and dispose of it they will. This is apparent from the left’s assertion that we do not have a spending problem. Even a casual observer marvels at the ease with which they spend the nation’s wealth. It is the left’s extensive training in the nation’s elite universities which allows them to easily see what you find so elusive, that, “We have a misallocation of wealth.” You see, markets are myopically focused on just the financial considerations of the parties involved in a transaction. It takes an advanced degree to make the market corrections demanded by social justice. The wealth of the nation must be delivered into the hands of leftists so that it can be responsibly reallocated.
In the archaic world in which we grew up, thousands of years had been wasted on social experimentation which led us to the mistaken belief that, if we respect the property rights of others, there will be created an abundance of property. Further, we mistakenly came to rely on the market for a fair allocation of reward. Just because someone risks their wealth and spends their time and energy producing something you value enough to purchase, hardly justifies their profiting from their activities on your behalf. What’s the sense in that? If one person is allowed to profit from making your life a little better, a little easier, a little more rewarding, what is to stop others from doing it too? What kind of world would that make? It would be pandemonium. People would just make things and provide, willy-nilly, whatever services people wanted. Isn’t that why we have government in the first place – to stop such exploitation? Apparently in the mind of the left it is. And I have no doubt that, if implemented in full, leftist ideas will bring to a grinding halt all of this crass commerce.
The most inexplicable observation of the modern age is that good people, who risk their savings and toil long hours to bring all of us the goods and services we so cherish, are vilified as greedy for their desire to retain some control over a portion of the proceeds from their risk and activity. At the same time, the very people who have not created a dime’s worth of wealth themselves and take by force the proceeds of these good people’s labors, present themselves as holding some sort of moral high ground. That people of such low character attempt this scam is not surprising. The surprising part is that people actually buy this argument and that there are so many of them.
In understanding behavior, in this case the behavior of the left, it is most instructive if a model of this behavior can be found in one’s own prior experience. We have already ruled out mathematically competent second graders as being a cut above the leftist mindset. Assuming that one gets better with age and allowing an exception in the realm of advanced degrees, I searched my memory of behaviors before second grade in search of a parallel. Cutting to the chase quickly, I realized that by age three one has started to grasp the notion of property rights. Most three year olds are astounded to learn how much of the world does not belong to them. By this time, a few things will have been given to the child, but the most fortunate of children will soon be taught that many more things can be earned. To the left, this is where the corrupting influence of civilization starts. The model must therefore come before age three. Let’s jump immediately to the crib. The infant experiences the world predominately through the sense of sight. Taste is important, but most of the world is too far away and cannot be fit into the mouth. Touch is also important, but at this point, hands are way too hard to control. The infantile nature of the leftist mindset is hard to deny. They want everything they see even though they seldom understand it. Much of what they get their hands on will be destroyed, or in some unspeakable way, be messed up. Mobility is the greatest limiting factor on the infant, but the left is little if not mobile.
It seems to me that the left is most like the two year old toddler. Like the infant, they think everything belongs to them but, unlike the infant, they are now mobile, but still have little control over their hands or their trajectory. It is what we call the “terrible twos.” Although their desires are infantile and they have the personal sense of responsibility of a toddler, they possess the energy of a teenager on energy drinks. Science fiction could hardly conjure up a more destructive force. They have come to this point with little interference from effective parenting and their formative years are behind them. It is time for tough love and strong parenting. Like the toddler, they require constant monitoring. Like the teen, they require firm direction. Civilization demands this. We must bring to bear our best parenting skills. The question remains, are we up to the task?
