| Lesson 13: Should Minus Can |
- I was once in an on-line forum for physicians, trying to explain to some doctors (a profession
not famous for economic acumen) how some of candidate Barak Obama's health insurance ideas
were designed to dismantle the health insurance industry. (His purpose is to create a vacuum for
government to fill). Requiring coverage of preexisting conditions, I explained, was like requiring
auto insurance companies to insure cars that had already been wrecked. It would defeat the
purpose of insurance and turn the business into a money-loser. Since nobody goes into business
to lose money, nobody would stay in the industry. One doctor responded (in typical Liberal
fashion) that people are more important than cars. My response to him is my lesson to you:
Yes, people are special, but we are not magical. We can no more defy the laws of economics
than we can defy the laws of gravity; and if you would not jump off a cliff, then you should not
jump off the economic cliff of Socialism.
Liberals have often been described as overeducated, utopian idealists who lack the common
sense that comes with experience. They are much worse. They are like heroine addicts: hooked
on a world of fantasy, reacting ferociously to any imposition of reality. The Liberal voter and
politician is a symbiotic relationship. The voter wants to pretend that money comes from
government, and the politician is happy to oblige (see Lesson 2). This relationship is on display
every day in photo ops in your local newspaper. The politician is holding a big phony check and
taking a big phony bow, while a community leader squeals with gratitude at the crumb that has
been "granted."
Perhaps even more dangerous is the Socialist delusion of a limitless supply of resources. All
resources are limited, including labor and talent (see Lesson 5). Even the air you breathe can be
polluted. This delusion can reach psychotic proportions, as displayed by President Obama's
current attempts to spend imaginary amounts of money. They are amounts that do not exist and
cannot exist for generations. Stay tuned for his next proposal: a zillion jillion dollars.
Resources are not only limited by the finiteness of their existence. They are also limited by
their alternative uses, and the competing demands placed on them. That is why ethanol
subsidies in the U.S. starve people around the world. They don't just divert the use of corn from
food to fuel. They also redirect the use of farmers, farm land and rain water.
This brings us to our second math lesson:
Should
- Can
----------
= Liberalism.
When you take all the things that should be, and remove all that is possible, the leftover refuse is
what occupies the Liberal mind. They don't need power, they need Psychiatrists. Liberalism
requires denial on many levels, including denying the historical evidence of its own failure.
(One only need compare East and West Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall). There is a
reason Republicans are the elephants: they remember. They remember that history is not in the
past, which is why they own guns.
The best demonstration of Liberal antipathy to reality is by examination of their two biggest
sins: discrimination and judgment (or "judgementalism"). Both of these mean basically the same
thing: thinking. Instead of thinking, we are expected to pretend: pretend that single mothers of
small children are equal in workforce value to married fathers of grown children; pretend that
small women (or men) are physically qualified to be patrol officers; pretend that a baby in the
womb is not alive; pretend that an ovulating woman belongs anywhere near a battle field;
pretend that homosexuality is just another flavor; pretend that crimes are just mistakes (except
crimes by CEO's and Republicans).