Effect then cause – the key to the progressive strategy for America

When I am not thinking about Quantum physics or working on my latest translation of the poems of Li Bai, I often contemplate the nature of the beast.  The beast of course is the progressive in America.  Occasionally I have an epiphany, something that strikes me like a lightning bolt and makes me say “Of course!” (no Eureka! here, I am not suggesting my new idea is unique to me), this happened to me last night while I was watching MST3K’s version of Hamlet, I should note the stroke of insight was not attributable to Mike and his robots only in that the episode was so boring my mind was left to mull over other things.

So what was the epiphanous moment fleece?  It relates to how progressives seek change.  As a conservative, I am a fairly logical person.  I look at the world around me and see what is wrong with it, and I can usually determine the reasons for the ills and can logically discern a method of correcting the problem.  I believe most conservatives, and in fact most people, are this way.  Maybe some people don’t do it so cerebrally, it is more a gut feeling, but the conclusions are the same.  The progressive does not view the world this way.  They see the world as an opportunity.  The problems we face as a society are not something to be fixed, they are reasons to implement pieces of the “grand strategy”.  If fixing the problem is a happy by-product, all the better, but that is not the goal.  In fact, often the problem needs to be created in order to enable the progressive to offer the fix.  Perhaps an example is in order.

Public Education

Let’s look to public education.  Most normal Americans look to our public education system and can not for the life of us understand why it isn’t being fixed, or at least improved.  Every year we dump more money into the system, and every year the graduation rates, the reading levels, the test scores, are either static or going down.  How can this be?  Because most people think of cause and effect.  The progressive tackles a problem in the exact opposite, effect then cause if you will.

If the goal of the progressives in regards to public education is to create a mechanism where unlimited public finance needs to be pumped into the system on an ever-increasing yearly basis, a program where teachers unions hold a monopoly on the education system, a mechanism to ensure a paying job and benefits for the rest of their lives, what must the progressives do to make that happen?  I can tell you one thing they absolutely CAN NOT do; they CAN NOT do a good job!

If they taught our children and raised the test scores, graduation rates and reading levels, then there would be no need to give them more money.  If the teaching system worked, there would be no need to implement new fangled concepts like “Expeditionary Learning” or any other progressive ideas for teaching.  In essence, America would cry out, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”  And that is the key to the plan, the system needs to be broke.  And the only way to break it, is to fail to do your job.  Actually, failing to do your job is too innocuous, they are in fact purposely screwing up the education system for their own gains.

The Deficit

Want another example?  America is really confused right now.  We can not understand the sheer idiocy it takes for the President to talk about deficit reduction on one side of his Janus-like head, and then out the other mouth drop on us the largest budget in American history.  We are so deep in debt the idea of spending more money than ever is incomprehensible.  Yet that is what we are doing, can you figure out why?  Remember, effect then cause, or put the cart before the horse.

Perhaps a little history is in order to explain what the president is doing.  Following the “Bush Taxcut Deal” he made with the congressional Republicans, his political stock with the base of his party (the base being the psycho nutjob progressives) was about as worthless as that of GlobalComm.  The calls for his head were ringing out loud and true from HuffPo, the Daily Kos, and other less notable sites like World Socialist Web site and Common Dreams – his peeps were pissed.  Now understand, their vitriol was not fueled by some out of character desire for fiscal frugality, no, they were mad because he wasn’t “punishing the rich”.  Don’t confuse the argument, that was the whole motivation behind getting rid of the tax cuts, it had nothing to do with the deficit or “saving money”, it was solely a vehicle to punish people who have more money than us.

Now, jump ahead a couple of months, and put the cart before the horse.  Obama releases his new budget, almost $4 trillion in spending.  How can this be?  We are literally drowning in debt, yet we are spending more money than ever.  Focus your thinking on the goal.  What is the goal?  To punish the rich of course.

The only way Obama can get the tax increases he (and every other progressive) desires is to make our financial state such a mess that we have no other choice but to acquiesce.  Again, just like in public education, if the President and congress were doing their job, and being fiscally responsible, we would never have to raise taxes.  They would spend the money they take in, and nothing more.  No, they can’t do that, because the goal is not to fix the problem, unless the problem is something else.  And it most assuredly is.  The “real” problem, the problem none of us regular folks even think of, is that rich people get to keep too much of their money.  So the solution is to make our finances so screwed up that the only solution is to take their money to fix it.

I say it is the only solution because our government has proven they will NOT cut spending.  That solution doesn’t even exist.  So taking that off the table, what other recourse are we given?  Taxes, taxes and more taxes.

Immigration

One last example.  The majority of Americans want our immigration policy fixed.  Well, actually we want it enforced, there is nothing inherently wrong with our current policy that a little bit of following it wouldn’t fix.  Yet, our government is doing everything in its power to do the exact opposite, to the point of prosecuting Border Agents who defend themselves.  Or suing states that have had enough of the failures of our Federal government.  Effect and cause.

This one might take a bit more explanation, because the goal is not so obvious.  Many people think the goal behind our politicians’ refusal to do anything about our borders is to increase the number of voters for their party.  That is ALMOST the goal, but you need to go one step further, a rather esoteric step.

I must credit Bastiat for the roots of this personal revelation.  His insight into what he dubs “legal plunder” are most definitely the reasons behind our failed immigration policy.  Legal plunder is an easy concept to get your head around if you think about it in the most simplest of terms – Anything you could not do to another person, but the government is allowed to do, is basically legal plunder.  The government can take your money, your property, your liberty – all legal plunder.  Can you go to some random person in the street and demand 35% of their property to give it to someone else?  Of course not, but the government does this every year.  Can you take someone’s house and give the land to a real-estate developer to build a shopping mall?  Nope, but the government does.  Our laws and police exist to protect us from “illegal plunder”, basically all the stuff private citizens are not allowed to do, but we have nothing besides our constitution to protect us from “legal plunder”, and we know where that has been relegated in the minds of our plunderers.

People who live in the United States understand in their guts the idea of legal plunder.  We know the government does this, and we also know the only way to change the system is to become a part of it.  Unfortunately, when someone becomes a part of the plunderers, they rarely fix it, instead they see it as the opportunity to correct past wrongs and to exercise revenge on the people who formerly were their plunderers.  In essence, they become the new plunderers.

Now, we must briefly look at universal suffrage so we can tie the two concepts together in regards to our immigration policy.  Part of the ultimate goal in our lack of enforcing the immigration policies of our country is to extend the voting franchise to our Southern neighbors.  We want them to vote!  In fact, they must be allowed to vote.  But why?  Why do these people who aren’t even a part of our country deserve the right to participate in our political process.  Some would argue because they pay taxes.  Actually, that is the main argument, and it is not used just for southern immigrants.  Cities like San Francisco and Chicago already have provisions allowing non-citizens to vote based on their paying of taxes.  The argument being, “if their money is going to the system, why shouldn’t they have a say in it?”  From that limited scope, I would actually agree with the assertion.  But lets broaden the scope.

What if we followed the constitution?  What if, legal plunder was, in fact illegal?  What if the government couldn’t take one’s property and give it to another?  What if the government couldn’t fund all the various pork projects and political payback schemes that so encompass the concept of legal plunder?  If these what ifs were true, then extending the franchise would be a non-issue, because there would be nothing to vote on.  Sure, we would vote on politicians, but their jobs would be so restricted that we wouldn’t be voting on the selfish concepts of “what can so and so do for me?”, because so and so would not be allowed to do anything for you.

So the true goal of extending the franchise is to promote the concept of legal plunder.  It is to load up America with more crying, needy voices; more people exclaiming the government needs to do this and that for them.  And who is more than happy to be standing at the dock extending those handouts?  We all know the answer to that one.

But remember, this is not about the sheer number of voters.  Our immigration woes are because the progressives want more people crying for more programs.  They want people demanding universal health care, they want more people demanding free college, more free everything – all part of the progressive utopia.  This isn’t about being elected.  Elections are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, what is important is changing the morals and principles of the majority of the population, if you can accomplish that, then who gives a crap about who is in office?

In Conclusion

If ever you are faced with a conundrum about our society, something that doesn’t make sense to you and most people, but the government continues anyway, remember to think effect then cause.  It works almost every time.  Obamacare? Sure, effect=government single payer system, cause=increase premiums and decrease coverage thus we “need a single payer program.”  Energy Policy, definitely.  Effect=we want high gas prices (Obama has said so), cause=stop domestic oil production thus we need more green energy solutions.

These are only the most glaring of examples, but many more abound.  The key is to think about who benefits from NOT fixing the problems we are facing.  Then to discern what that benefit would be.  It is a scary fact that the people we elect are more focused on purposely screwing up our lives than fixing them, but such is the case.  The cure is what it always is, a return to our Constitution and the legal Republic which it created.  Sadly, that dream seems more fleeting every day.

crossposted at my blog – fleeceme.net