I had a chance to talk to a few hundred pre-college teens in Sacramento this past weekend. They were all members of JSA – the Junior State of America – and they all want to be involved with government in some way.
“So, most of you want to be politicians, huh? I think we should have you all arrested while we have the chance.”
Was I being serious? Well, when you get down to brass tacks, government is legislation. Legislators get to vote on things, and what they got to vote on are laws. As part of the seminar, each one of these kids had a bill they had written and were trying to get passed.
So why arrest these miscreants? Well, it’s because laws are restrictions on human freedom. Murder laws, for example, restrict my freedom to give Michael Moore the full flavor of the feelings I have for his work. Laws that restrict murderers are good and necessary, as are those against theft, assault, rape and so on.
But think about it. For almost 250 years, legislators have gone to Washington, and all they did during that quarter-millennia was write laws. How many laws, and how many of their illegitimate siblings – regulations – have been passed? It would be faster to count the stars in the sky.
No, I’m serious. There are between 2,000 – 3,000 stars visible on a dark night with no moon. The number of laws and regulations exceed the number of stars in the sky by many orders of magnitude.
And that’s just federal laws. State and local laws too, and there is a big difference between prohibiting murder and rape versus fining someone $1000 for throwing a Frisbee on the beach in Santa Monica. All these laws, all these restrictions: more and more each year, narrowing the list of things we can do ever tighter, like plaque on the wall of the aorta.
Anyway, that’s the kind of day it was. Their expressions – and they were wide-eyed and open-mouthed – were not expressions of anger, or contempt. They were surprised. They were amazed that someone could say things that challenged their carefully manufactured worldview.
And in the front row, off to the side, sat one of the architects of their narrowness of thought and lack of mental flexibility. It was, in point of fact, a perfect specimen of a Feral Socialist and if I had a lick of sense I would have taken her picture before she darted away.
This woman was unkempt. Unkempt isn’t casual. Unkempt does not look poor. (In fact, there is little more moving than the sight of poor children with immaculately clean clothes and faces and hair. Their poverty is only skin deep; someone loved them enough to give them the priceless gift of self-respect.)
Unkempt lives by itself. It is studied rumpledness, flagrant disregard for hair or clothes. It is perfected dishevelment; you have to work at being unkempt.
This woman glared at me the entire time, but I truthfully did not pay her any attention until one of these kids, during the Q&A session, asked me what harm there was by adding regulations and laws designed to protect people.
“I pay half of what I make to cover these regulations and laws,” I said. “Half.”
At this point the Feral Socialist began to crow. “Good!” she said.
Good? Turning to the white kid with the dreadlocks who had asked the question in all seriousness, I gave him a serious reply. I told him how if I got to keep more of that money, I could hire the two extra people we desperately need. The harm in all of these laws and regulations is not what you see but what you don’t see: all of the people not hired, companies not expanded, new houses not bought, vacations not taken and all the rest. I work about fourteen hours a day, which means I have nearly two full-time jobs. Running my company is a full-time job, and then I have to work a second full-time job to pay for these regulations and the people who write them.
Feral Socialist went into raptures at this. “Good!” she said again.
“Let me clear something up for you, lady,” I said. “Your Bernie Sanders seriously proposed a ninety-three percent federal income tax on anything beyond about $400,000. If that ever happens, I and the rest of the small business owners will contract and lay off people until my income is $399,999, because if you think I’m going to work for seven cents on the dollar so that your bitter, rather dull candidate – who has never worked a real job for one day in his life –can spend the other 93 cents buying affection then you are out of your mind.”
I added that nothing is so mobile as a wealthy person, and if you pass laws like that they will all leave and take their jobs with them.
“Good riddance!” croaked the Feral Socialist.
“So you don’t care if poor people get poorer. You don’t care if everybody gets poorer, so long as we are all poor equally?”
And with an enthusiastic nod, the Feral Socialist retreated into its sulfurous-smelling cave.
These people don’t give a single flying damn about the poor, or the middle class, or anyone else for that matter. Babies starving in the street, like so many places where Bernies get their way? Starving babies are a small, small price to pay for the pleasure of knowing that despite their comprehensive laziness and stupidity and bitter envy, no one is doing better than you are. You don’t get to cloak yourself in virtue when I’m at a microphone, you heartless, brainless, soulless commie swine.
The kicker, of course, is that this woman spoke out in favor of hardship and poverty from the ballroom of the Sheraton Grand Hotel, which then went on to serve this Feral Socialist a lunch that would have been the envy of Tsars and Kings.
What a repellent animal, this scavenger, this parasite that feeds upon the flesh and blood of the living.