The Passive Aggressive Elitist

In case you hadn’t noticed, I tend to just say what I think, to impart whatever dim light I have, and then assume those in the dark corners of the room will appreciate a little glimmer in the coal mine.  Light is light. The world is a better place when you can see your way around it.

But I have come to believe, especially on the political front, there are those who just assume the blind will never see, and that, even worse, they don’t wish to see.   The best you can do is throw a few rations into the abyss.   In fact, that’s required.  Don’t let them know how they can get out of the dark.  Just keep feeding them, and pray they don’t wander out, where they might do some real damage.

Pick a Fight

If you look across the partisan divide and you consider people like Nancy Pelosi (net worth $26 million), John Kerry ($197 million), Darrell Issa ($141 million), Mitt Romney ($250 million) Diane Feinstein ($42 million), as well as the mega titans either bankrolling political careers or heavily influencing policy (Warren Buffet – $58.5 billion, George Soros ($23 billion), you have to conclude something a little strange about their take on the world: most of them have accumulated vast wealth within the span of their own lifetimes — and yet the cumulative effect of their policy making appears to hold the rest of the world in contempt.  The same route they maneuvered isn’t something they think you can handle, even on a small scale:  you peasants can’t possibly provide for your own health care;  you can’t possibly be trusted to defend your own families with firearms;  you can’t be trusted negotiating the rate for your own labor at a market price.  The world must be managed.  We’ll do it for you.

Pity the poor, idealistic, free-market, grass roots politician who comes along with some time honored Adam Smith ideas about small business being the best way to build prosperity.   Pity the lad who listened to his mother teach him about the Bill of Rights, or the Cuban immigrant who burns the midnight oil becoming a doctor, only to have the best health care system in the world savaged by rationing and bureaucracy.

I guarantee, the higher those folks rise in the system, the more likely they will face an encounter very much like the one Jesus endured when the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world.  The promise is dark, but it has powerful gravity:  “we’ve made it here to the precipice of power;  why not just close the gate behind us, and rule the world together?”

Of course, it’s never quite that bald a pitch.  You might get invited to a party. It’s on a yacht.  The yacht is so big the bathroom features a little man in a white dinner jacket handing out hot towels.  The whole thing reeks of so much power, you wonder if you even have the right clothes for this party.  Out on the top deck, you get cornered, in a conversation with three guys who all look like they went to Yale, along with a dishy female attorney, and they say something like, “listen, the average schmuck needs health insurance, but he won’t buy it, so since he’s not going to buy it, we need to make sure it gets bought for him. It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?  He gets struck down at 42 with a stage 1 cancer and we made sure he’s taken care of, so he can take care of his family, right?”  It might not even be the argument itself, which is emotional and flimsy and collectivist; it might be just that extraordinary sensation of power arrayed against you.  The numbers.  These are the king’s men.  They know the way.  They have the right heraldry.  You’re just a peasant, and all you have is the truth on your side.

What’s really happening here, on almost any issue, has nothing to do with maximizing personal liberty and protecting the rights of the citizens.  What’s happening is a consolidation of power.  Instead of a majority of yeoman citizens solving their own problems,the state — or the corporations contracted to the state — will take care of the problem for everyone.  There will be much less choice, but a lot more power for the king’s men — the guys on the yacht putting the screws to you.

Foggy progressives like Nancy Pelosi actually think they’re doing something good for the little guy, and I get that, because she’s an idiot, elected to represent, and grow rich off, her special band of merry idiots.

What I can’t understand?  The principled conservatives who know better, who could, if they choose to, use their power to educate, and reform the blinded masses who elect the Nancy Pelosis of the world.

So which is worse, folks?  The idiots, or those who might be able to educate them — were not the cocktail parties on that yacht ever so pleasant?

 

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