House of Eratosthenes

Hmmm. Well, glad to see this is still making the rounds. Nicely captures the Obama-narcissistic-personality “You Should Be Thanking Me” aspect of the modern leftist movement.

I recently went through my day being mindful of what taxes do for me. I took a shower in clean water. I drove to work over safe, well-maintained streets. I was free to practice a profession of my choosing. I am able to do this work because I got my degree at a California state school and passed the California Board exam to earn my license.

On the way home, I stopped at an FDIC bank to take out some money that I had earned and am allowed to keep to support myself and my family. I stopped at a grocery store and bought safe food to eat due to various government regulations. I took my dog for a walk at a beautiful regional park. I picked up a takeout dinner at a restaurant inspected by state inspectors. And I went to sleep in peace.

Government exists to provide us with tangible things that an individual cannot provide for himself. I am so tired of people complaining about taxes as if they get nothing in return. It takes money to run a government that allows us to live our lives as we do.

So, let’s be grown-up about it and raise taxes to keep California from becoming a third-world country.

Got that? History always began yesterday…and California teeters on the brink of becoming “a third-world country”…because of, oh, nuthin’ in particular, but it needs to raise taxes to pay for more regulation to keep from becoming one.

California does.

Yup.

The “I am able to do this work because I got my degree at a California state school and passed the California Board exam” is particularly snort-worthy. Evidently the author, grown-up Susan Wong who I’m sure is paying extra taxes to reflect the level to which she thinks they should be raised, didn’t think it necessary to write such a letter while she was sitting on an unemployment line waiting for someone to make the key decision: That hiring Ms. Wong was worth the extra time, effort and money involved with meeting regulatory requirements. That part of it just wasn’t worth talking about?

This is precisely the point where it becomes a legitimate discipline of scientific research in the mental health field. Wouldn’t it be more productive to stretch leftist statism over a psychiatrist’s couch, and pepper it with questions about what its parents were like and what its phobias are, than to argue with it interminably over the innernets? The patient seems to have made up its mind to charge on ahead…Taxes! Regulation! …ignorant, or apathetic, or both, of its own goals, whether said goals have something to do with solving a problem, what the nature of the problem might be, how exactly it got here…

…whether the other 49 states are having any better luck dealing with the same problem, or what they might be doing differently. And meanwhile — government, for some reason, simply doesn’t have the capacity to do anything wrong. Corporations, on the other hand, simply don’t have it in their character to ever do anything right.

And by & large, these are exactly the same people who think it’s a good thing that the movie & teevee culture has turned its back on the “classic western” genre or anything anywhere built around straight-up good-versus-evil contests. Better to have these shades-of-gray people to reflect the nuances present in real life. Hooker with the heart of gold. “I have to steal it in order to save it.” He’s got to assassinate the ambassador or the super-duper bad guy will kill his daughter. Sure Anakin turned to the Dark Side, but he did it for love. It’s not the black hats & white hats the offend our liberals, it’s what is represented; they like having a little good in the evil, and a little evil in the good. It makes for a whole bunch of interesting debates. So it’s always too soon for a remake of Gunsmoke, but we can remake everything else…

But when it comes to their own plans, government can be Shane and anything in the private sector can be Jack Wilson. Simplicity is perfectly fine then. When…uh…when we’re talking about real life? The real life that was supposed to be emulated by these movie characters with all these shades of gray they needed to have, to better reflect real life?

An explanation is required. If one is not forthcoming, we need a sound theory. Three possibilities emerge:

1. It’s pure cognitive dissonance, and should be treated as a mental disorder.
2. I’m mistaken. This Susan Wong person who “wrote” the e-mail, or the author who originally wrote it, along with the many leftists who say it speaks for them…they’re different from the people who cringe at the classic western with the white hats and the black hats. There’s no overlap, it’s a figment of my imagination.
3. It’s not so much a conspiracy, more like a primal impulse or a gut instinct — things are generally more satisfying when people are “debating” what goes on in a movie and what it says about the characters, than when they skeptically inspect government policies that actually might have a measurable impact on large numbers of people.

Maybe there should be a fourth option that combines #1 and #3…a certifiable mental illness that calls for endless discourse about issues that bear little actual impact on things, and an “elephant-in-the-room” silent treatment directed toward other issues that bear much greater impact.

I’d lean toward that one.

But whatever the cause, it’s worth inspecting the thought process: Government can’t do anything wrong, or if it ever does, it’s wrong so little of the time that the lack of frequency of the wrong-ness brings the occasion down to the depths of statistical insignificance. Government is the clock in a roomful of clocks, the one that was synchronized down to the second to the official atomic clock a few weeks ago, or that enjoys the reputation of keeping the most accurate time, or is perceived to deserve such a rep because it is the most expensive (!) of all the clocks. There are no unintended consequences of government policies. There’s something about being on the government’s payroll, that makes a person instantly pure, ethical and wise. Government actions always work, or if ever they don’t, the thing to do is to double-down and try it again because you didn’t do enough.

But of course, more than half of the time the United States President happens to be a Republican…at which time, this same government turns wretchedly, abysmally evil. And then, government can’t do anything right. But we are not to think of this when we ponder the implications of having government manage the most intimate aspects of our lives. It’s like a complete non-starter or something.

Why do we allow these people to vote in politicians? And the ones who are politicians, why do we let them write legislation that, once voted in, cannot ever be repealed and just hang around like a fart in an elevator? Why do we give them such power? These people, crazy or not, shouldn’t be allowed to own potted plants or pets.

I’ll be generous and call it a congenital defect.

There’s a certain subset of people who react to the word “public” the way my dog reacts to the word “walk.” It could be a tsunami inside a hurricane inside a blizzard out there, but if you ask him if he wants to take a walk, he must take that walk or he’ll die. (That’s the expression he gets, anyway).

I hear the word “public” and I think “toilet” or “transportation.” They think things like “option” and “action.” (Also “transportation,” it should be noted, but they seem to always take the special bus that isn’t filled with hookers, schizophrenics, and drug addicts).

“Government” is just “public” on steroids, and they just can’t help themselves. It’s a birth defect. They should be given special classes (at public expense!) and made to wear safety helmets at all times.
- Severian | 05/26/2011 @ 17:08
What’s just as often overlooked in screeds like this…is that so many wonderful innovations that we take for granted, were originally brought to us not by government at all, but by someone working in the private sector in pursuit of a profit.

I also grant government no points whatsoever for “allowing” any of these innovations to happen or for these products and services to be brought to the marketplace. Most of the time, these were areas of regulation that government had no business being involved with in the first place. I’m supposed to thank our politicians for actually abiding by the Constitution and other written laws…and staying out of the way?

I’m sick and tired of this view over on the Left, that anyone in favor of smaller government must be some kind of anarchist. “We don’t view government as the enemy,” went the childish prattle from the so-called “Coffee Party,” the leftist answer to the Tea Party. I wanted to scream, “NEITHER DO WE, YOU IDIOTS! We just want it back within its proper boundaries. Stop misrepresenting us, you pack of filthy liars!” Geesh!
- cylarz | 05/28/2011 @ 22:23

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