The Left’s Central Delusion (or somethings are to good to not reprint part 4)

By  Thomas Sowell

The fundamental problem of the political Left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions. Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong.

A never-ending source of grievances for the Left is the fact that some groups are “over-represented” in desirable occupations, institutions, and income brackets, while other groups are “under-represented.”

From all the indignation and outrage about this expressed on the left, you might think that it was impossible that different groups are simply better at different things.

Yet runners from Kenya continue to win a disproportionate share of marathons in the United States, and children whose parents or grandparents came from India have won most of the American spelling bees in the past 15 years. And has anyone failed to notice that the leading professional basketball players have for years been black, in a country where most of the population is white?

Most of the leading photographic lenses in the world have — for generations — been designed by people who were either Japanese or German. Most of the leading diamond-cutters in the world have been either India’s Jains or Jews from Israel or elsewhere.

Not only people but things have been grossly unequal. More than two-thirds of all the tornadoes in the entire world occur in the middle of the United States. Asia has more than 70 mountain peaks that are higher than 20,000 feet and Africa has none. Is it news that a disproportionate share of all the oil in the world is in the Middle East?

Whole books could be filled with the unequal behavior or performances of people, or the unequal geographic settings in which whole races, nations, and civilizations have developed. Yet the preconceptions of the political Left march on undaunted, loudly proclaiming sinister reasons why outcomes are not equal within nations or between nations.

All this moral melodrama has served as a background for the political agenda of the Left, which has claimed to be able to lift the poor out of poverty, and in general make the world a better place. This claim has been made for centuries and in countries around the world. And it has failed for centuries in countries around the world.

Some of the most sweeping and spectacular rhetoric of the Left occurred in 18th-century France, where the very concept of the Left originated in the fact that people with certain views sat on the left side of the National Assembly.

The French Revolution was their chance to show what they could do when they got the power they sought. In contrast to what they promised — “liberty, equality, fraternity” — what they actually produced were food shortages, mob violence, and dictatorial powers that included arbitrary executions, extending even to their own leaders, such as Robespierre, who died under the guillotine.

In the 20th century, the most sweeping vision of the Left — Communism — spread over vast regions of the world and encompassed well over a billion human beings. Of these, millions died of starvation in the Soviet Union under Stalin and tens of millions in China under Mao.

Milder versions of socialism, with central planning of national economies, took root in India and in various European democracies.

If the preconceptions of the Left were correct, central planning by educated elites who had vast amounts of statistical data at their fingertips and expertise readily available, and were backed by the power of government, should have been more successful than market economies where millions of individuals pursued their own individual interests willy-nilly.

But, by the end of the 20th century, even socialist and communist governments began abandoning central planning and allowing more market competition. Yet this quiet capitulation to inescapable realities did not end the noisy claims of the Left.

In the United States, those claims and policies have reached new heights, epitomized by government takeovers of whole sectors of the economy and unprecedented intrusions into the lives of Americans, of which Obama care has been only the most obvious example.

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2013 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Politics win and the American people lose

The main stream media is having a field day blaming house Republicans for the inability of the federal government to get anything done.  This includes passing a budget resolution to fund the government. There is a continuing story line that seems to imply that the Democrats are more than willing to compromise but the Republicans will have none of it.

The President himself said recently in a NPR interview, “From the start I have said I am happy to talk to republicans about any issue”. Unfortunately when ask by the interviewer what he might be able to offer Republicans to forge a deal, our President responded, “what can I offer?....I shouldn’t have to offer anything”.

And there we have the Democrats idea of negotiations. “I shouldn’t have to offer anything”. In other words, there will be NO negotiations. To Mr. Obama the minority party and the millions of citizens they represent have no rights, have no voice, he won the election, that settles it, get over it.

But, as our supposed constitutional scholar President should know, that is not how it should work.  That is not how it has worked in the past and that is not how our founding fathers intended it to work - ever. The government was designed with separate branches and separate houses of Congress to keep the majority from steam rolling the over the minority. The rules were laid out to give the minority some power to affect the outcome of votes, to give the people the minority party represents some voice. Whether your party won the election or not your opinion as an American citizen is just as important as any other citizen

The Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obama-care, yes they ARE all the same) was pushed through with no input from Republicans.  This was at a time when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress AND the White House. A large minority or maybe even a majority of Americans see this bill as detrimental to the country, our economy and an attack on individual liberty. After the last election, we sent our elected officials to Washington with the instructions to attempt to do something about it.

The minority party in Congress has very limited tools to attempt to carry out the mandate that we elected them to carry forward.  Republicans will never be able to move a bill to the floor in the Senate, so the Republican controlled House is using the Budget Bill to attempt to force some concessions on the ACA. That is how the system works and all that is necessary is for the Democrats to come to the table and negotiate.

You would think that a bill like the ACA, that a majority of democrats have referred to as, “a train wreck” and the head of the AFL-CIO has said will, “wreck the middle class as we know it”, could use some work.

But in the recent words of a senior White House official, “we are winning, it doesn’t really matter to us how long the shut down last”.

Its fine for the Democrats to refuse to negotiate to score political points at the cost to the American citizen but let’s stop acting like it is all House Republican’s fault that the government is shut down.  The attitude of “I should not have to offer anything” is not how a real leader would begin to negotiate a settlement.

But then we don’t have a real leader with this President do we?

Extraordinary citizens make a extraordinary country

In recent discussions with many Republicans about the continued government shut down, numbers of people have expressed fear that the United States will lose its position as world leader if our government is to stay shut down for an extended time.  There is also concern that a government default would relegate our country to third-world status.

While a government shut down or default is serious and not the ideal situation, our over dependence on the government and government programs has lead us to forget a couple of things.

First, there is no doubt that some people will experience hardship because of the shutdown. But let’s not fool ourselves.  Someone suffers from every government action. Every time a bill is passed or not passed there are some winners and some losers.

Secondly and most important, the government is not what makes this country successful or extraordinary.  It is due to the individual citizen and the individual liberties that our government has, at least in the past, respected.

 The USA does not maintain the most lethal fighting force in the world because of the government. It is able to maintain a professional military because our amazing economy funds the entire thing and also because of the strength and resolve of the individual American service members. Every other western power has a robust federal government; but they do not have the economy to support a military like the USA nor do they have citizens with the deep resolve to protect our extraordinary way of life.

Our economy is not due to our government; it is due to the extraordinary individual business owners, inventors and workers that are, by far, the most productive in the world.

The amazing amount of public charity in the USA is not a product of the government. It is a product of the generous society and standard of living that affords ordinary people the finances and time to help their fellow man at a rate for beyond the rest of the world.

The individual citizen that pays all the taxes to make this government possible and produces all the wealth is not the product of the government put a by-product of limited government.

A federal government is an absolute necessity for a prosperous and functional republic. But a limited federal government is the one thing that makes this country so much more successful and prosperous than any other country in history. Every step the government takes that expands the governmental reach beyond the constitutional limits set forth by the founding fathers, limits the very liberty that makes the whole system possible.

The one thing that separates our citizens from those in other countries is our Constitution - the same Constitution that limits our government from the infringing on the very freedoms that were “endowed by our creator”.

People come to the United States of America from failed countries with failed governments all the time. They do extraordinary things with their lives that were not possible in their home countries. In American the government does not make individual, the individual makes the government. And that my friends is what makes this country so great.

The ACA and "if we only knew then what we know now".

Did you ever notice the number of unintended consequences to federal government action?

During WWI, federal farm policies artificially inflated wheat prices causing over production. That not only caused a huge surplus of wheat and eventually a bust in wheat prices; but they lead to the over planting of the land that then lead to the dust bowl.    

In an attempt to spur low income home ownership, Bill Clinton’s “Community Reinvestment Act” encouraged banks, along with Fanny Mae and Freddie Mack to make more risky loans to people who traditionally would not qualify for traditional mortages.  This law led directly to the housing bubble and subsequent recession. 

Mandatory air bag laws lead to the deaths of thousands of children who were buckled in child seats placed in front seat positions.

The banning of DDT chemicals lead directly to worldwide outbreaks of malaria that has killed millions.

Of course no one supporting these actions intended for bad things to happen, it’s just hard to see all the ramifications for huge far reaching programs on all 50 states when the programs are conceived and enacted in Washington.

This brings us to the so called “Affordable Care Act” (ACA).

In my home state of North Carolina, Blue Cross and Blue Shield has just announced price increases of 50-100% for many health insurance policies.  The “affordable” part is a little hard to see.  We have already learned that the President’s promise that “if you like your insurance policy you can keep it” was a bold face lie. And just in case anyone thinks criticism of the ACA is just from right wing extremists, we have Sen. Max Baucus, (D-Mont) calling the bill a “train wreak” and major union leaders calling for massive changes to the bill in the letter below to Democratic leaders in Congress.

               

Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi:

When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.

Like millions of other Americans, our members are front-line workers in the American economy. We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision.

Now this vision has come back to haunt us.

Since the ACA was enacted, we have been bringing our deep concerns to the Administration, seeking reasonable regulatory interpretations to the statute that would help prevent the destruction of non-profit health plans. As you both know first-hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and met with a stone wall by the White House and the pertinent agencies. This is especially stinging because other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their respective grievances. Most disconcerting of course is last week’s huge accommodation for the employer community—extending the statutorily mandated “December 31, 2013” deadline for the employer mandate and penalties.

Time is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for you. We have a problem; you need to fix it. The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios:

First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.

 Second, millions of Americans are covered by non-profit health insurance plans like the ones in which most of our members participate. These non-profit plans are governed jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act. Our health plans have been built over decades by working men and women. Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans.

And finally, even though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies. Taken together, these restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable, and will undermine the health-care market of viable alternatives to the big health insurance companies.

On behalf of the millions of working men and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.

We believe that there are common-sense corrections that can be made within the existing statute that will allow our members to continue to keep their current health plans and benefits just as you and the President pledged. Unless changes are made, however, that promise is hollow.

We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions.

We are looking to you to make sure these changes are made.

                               

I have no doubt that the bill was conceived, written and voted on with the best possible intentions. But as a wise man once said, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. It is time that the government stops making citizens pay for their bad decisions. (Actually it is time for our elected officials to stop making bad decisions!) Since the ramifications are hard to see and understand of a bill one thousand pages in length, maybe the government should take a line from the Hippocratic oath and at first “do no harm”.

A limited federal government is the only why I can see this happening.