Passion is Not the Same as Right
The freshman representative from New York’s 14th district gave an impassioned speech, which fired up her followers. She passionately explained to a Republican colleague how the New Green Deal is not elitist. She notes within the first few seconds she just recently got health insurance for the first time in her life and caring about the air one breaths and water one drinks are not elitist concerns. Her followers are thrilled with how impressive she was in her speech, and she is correct caring about the air and the water you use are not be elitist concerns. Although caring about the air and water someone else uses seldom rises as primary concerns for politicians, unless of course there is some political capital to be made.
Of course, what gets totally overlooked in this speech are the roles and the failures of government (at all the various levels) in providing the essential things like clean water and breathable air in the district she now represents. Her position has been clearly stated, a more overarching government, as long as it is the “right” government would fix all the ills of the world.
Unfortunately, her life experiences seem to be focused on the failures of governments led by individuals who share her political views and without realizing it she lays blame for the bad air and water on individuals who seem more attuned to her political beliefs in a progressive/socialist government, and acquiring personal wealth rather than actually improving the lives of the average citizen in their city. If you doubt this – just check the record for environmental wellness in NYC since the election of Mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio. Within their terms, while bowing to the will of the social reformers and socialist there has been a marked decline in the simple services like sanitation and improvements to utility infrastructure. Mayor de Blasio has famously said, “there is more than enough money, it’s just in the wrong hands.” I believe you find Mayor de Blasio’s wife has done quite well financially as city funds are diverted to her enterprises, while essential social services for the impaired have declined despite the rhetoric.
We can look to Flint, Michigan as a textbook example of the failures of local, state, and the federal government to place the needs of their most dependent citizens first, yet somehow a socialist government would make all this right because somehow under socialism greed and self-interest would magically vanish. Perhaps I am wrong but hasn’t Flint and Michigan governments been predominately liberal/socialist democratic bastions? During the eight years of the Obama administration just exactly how much did the EPA and the federal government do to fix the failures of Flint?
Sadly, I’ve not found evidence that her kind of government would actually accomplish all she says it will. In fact, I’ve seen other impassioned socialists make similar claims about how an all-powerful government would make life wonderful for its citizens. Universally, those impassioned leaders have failed. Here are a few specific examples.
Hugo Chavez – elected to lead Venezuela, he promised a socialist wonderland where everyone would have free everything. He nationalized the oil companies, supposedly using this wealth to enrich the people. In reality, he created a dictatorship, funneled most of the money to enrich his family, and dragged an oil-rich country into starvation and ruin.
Fidel Castro – overthrowing a politically corrupt government in Cuba, Fidel promised to rise Cuba from the cane fields into a perfect communist state. Along the way, he nationalized the agriculture of the island while counting heavily on subsistence from the USSR to enrich his family and maintain his domination of politics on the island. When people became a problem he effectively allowed their escape to the US. The policies of the Castro government have kept the island-nation locked into the economy of the 1950s, in part because of the sanctions placed by the U.S. as it tried to export its communist principles to other nations in the Western Hemisphere, but to a larger extent his unwillingness to compromise on his global vision for a communist/socialist world where political control remains with a few and the workers receive just enough benefit to continue. What is most fascinating is the fact the communists of Cuba have been lionized by those who would follow his beliefs that Communism is the wave of the future. These individuals are most often from the affluent class (where they’ve done little to gain their position) or academia. It is almost as if they seek a return to the divine right of kings.
Of course, we have those traditional socialist leaders who inspired their nations while actually destroying millions of lives as they pursued the workers ideal. I speak of course of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Together they are credited with the killing of anywhere between 7 and 75 million people[1] in an effort to achieve a worker’s paradise. By the way, this number does not include the deaths resulting from China’s one baby rule. Both of these socialists were known for their passion, mostly to keep their power, but let’s not quibble with the basis for their passion.
Finally, and I think this is a perfect place to stop, we have that great German socialist. No, not Marx but Adolph Hitler. Who better represents the appeal of an impassioned orator’s ability to rise up and instill a sense of power in their followers than Adolph Hitler. His speeches, first in Munich and then Berlin, crystallized a nation that had suffered at the hands of the French, English, and Americans at the end of the Great War. The fact is he passionately laid the blame for the depression and inflation that swept the nation at the foot of the German Jews and led his nation into a war that condemned roughly six million Jews to death because of his passionate anti-Semitism, and roughly another ten million from the war he started.
[1] The most popular number for Stalin seems to be 20 million deaths from purges, gulags, and abandonment, while Mao is credited or not credited with the deaths from the cultural revolution which could be as little as 3 million or exceed 45 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment