Maxed Out

When I think about all the absurdities of the present political situation, I think the most striking is the degree to which the Left blames Donald Trump with all the crimes and intentions that they themselves are already guilty of.  They say he will be a dictator, lawlessly striking out against innocent people.  And simultaneously they have imprisoned old women and harmless men for protesting on January 6^th.  They claim insurrection against these people who wandered around the Capitol building without weapons.  And yet they incited and abetted the George Floyd riots that destroyed thousands of businesses and even killed a number of people.

They say that Trump will destroy democracy but they allowed election laws to be trampled on during the COVID panic they manufactured.  They say he will start World War III and yet during his presidency there were no wars.  But under the neo-cons we’re currently playing brinksmanship with both the Russians and the Chinese while simultaneously enraging both the Israelis and the Arabs by vacillating over the Gaza War.

I ask myself what is it that offends me the most?  Is it the hypocrisy or the fact that the American people don’t rise up and tar and feather these people for their mendacity.  Am I angrier with the American people than I am with the Left’s leadership?  So, it comes back to the Evil and the Stupid.  And since I’ve been a charter member of the Stupid, I guess I’m mad at myself.  I’m mad because we’ve always allowed ourselves to be shamed over supposed pieties.  We don’t want to seem selfish.  But we should.

So maybe the correct way to think about any political situation is by ignoring questions of morality and weighing its results according to how they affect me directly.  And that’s how we should talk about them too.  If Joe Biden tells me he wants to give Ukraine another hundred billion dollars, I should ask him what I get out of it.  And if he tells me, it will mean another victory for democracy, I’ll ask him who’s going to pay for the two hundred billion we spent on it and who is going to pay the interest on it too?  And if he doesn’t have an answer that means I’m paying for it and my answer, is I don’t want to give them anything.  And I don’t want to pay for any windmills or solar panels or upgrades to the grid to power electric cars for the same reason.  I don’t want to pay for them because they’re stupid and all the money they take from me to pay for these things is basically flushed down the drain (and simultaneously stolen by Obama cronies).

The same thing can be said about illegal aliens and legalized drugs and homeless encampments and defunding the police.  All of these things are harmful policies that cost me untold billions of dollars and make my life worse.  So, no matter how much they tell me these are the “moral and the smart” things to do, I weigh the cost and find them wanting.  So, it’s nothing personal.  I’m just applying the rules of identity politics and identifying as one of the people who get hurt by all of these policies.  My lived experience tells me that I will be the disadvantaged by all of these actions.  So why would I ever want to go against my own interests?

Now they’ll say all kinds of things about diversity, equity and inclusion.  And I’ll say fine, let the people who think these things are just and fair pay for them personally.  Let Barack Obama take in all the migrants from Haiti, Somalia and Guatemala that he cares to and let him cloth, feed, house, educate and employ all of them.  And let all of the other members of the Left who wants these policies pick up the tab.  But since they won’t, my answer is no.  And if all the Republican politicians were as forthright as this, it would cut through all the nonsense and eliminate the hypocrisy.

Why do we have to pretend we care about pieties that we don’t really believe in?  Why do I have to care if there are more boys in STEM fields than girls?  And why do I have to pay for forcing more girls in than currently want to be?  Because rigging employment fields costs me money too.  Quota hires like women in STEM cause all kinds of damage and inefficiency.  And that goes for quota hires of all sorts.  Affirmative action is one of the worst policies for efficiency and we all pay the cost.  If a company wants to hire more women engineers, let them.  But don’t force everyone else to have to employ them too.

So, I’ll say to Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama, “It’s nothing personal but I don’t want to pay for your problems.  Why don’t you find all your friends who believe what you do and pass the hat around.  Just don’t charge it on the government credit card.  It’s maxed out.”