Last week I received a heart-warming e-mail from a reader that said, in part: "You are among the most insane voices in this insane world. … You should be crushed like the bug that you are … along with your cohorts, Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh – all reptilian bugs who will soon become obsolete as their silly, screaming, obnoxious voices become a whimper and die out while the wise, compassionate and coherent voices of the left finally own their power. [RR note: If you like run-on sentences, try topping that one.] Please keep your poison to yourself!"
Hmm … no one's ever called me a "reptilian bug" before, but it does have a nice ring to it. I've become somewhat immune to those who extol the virtues of progressivism but want to "crush" dissenting voices – preferably through the barrel of a gun.
I was at the 9/12 rally in Washington, and I can tell you that, trite as it may sound, the men and women there really were everyday folks – people you see at the supermarket, at work, or at ball games. They were angry, to be sure, but polite and civil almost to a fault. And an awful lot of them had signs indicating that they watch or listen to the likes of Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh – those "silly, screaming, obnoxious voices."
By contrast, what never ceases to amaze me is the anger and violence that are the stock and trade of progressives. We saw it on display again at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh. It was like the 1968 Democratic National Convention all over again. Wonder what happened to all those "wise, compassionate and coherent voices" on the left?
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You may have seen Sean Hannity's interview with a couple of radical college girls who were protesting outside the G-20 Conference. They explained that they were with "Free the Planet," a University of Pittsburgh organization that wants to "make environmental change to help the planet." How do you even begin to have a rational discussion with young people who talk as though they have tapioca jammed between their ears?
At one point, Hannity asked, "Why are you against capitalism?" To which one of the girls replied, "Because it puts profit as the No. 1 goal and not people's well-being." Ah, yes, I remember how determined Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh were when it came to looking after people's well-being. I'm sure everyone in those countries misses the good old days.
Alert the media: The sole objective of a business is to make a profit. Charity is a wonderful activity, and most human beings are charitable. But a business has nothing to do with charity. It has to do with producing products and services that people buy for one reason, and one reason only: because they want them.
If a business is successful, then the owner is free to give as much of his earnings as he wants to others – others of his choosing. Bill Gates has already given $29 billion to his charitable foundation, and his pal Warren Buffett plans to donate most of his multibillion-dollar fortune to charity. Such philanthropy is, of course, devastating to the mindset of the progressive, for it is he who is the self-anointed decider of what is and is not fair.
Finally, Hannity asked one of the girls, "Do you support government-run redistribution of wealth?" to which she answered, "I support people-run redistribution of wealth." "How do you have people-run redistribution of wealth?" asked Hannity, pointing out that people will not give up their wealth unless government forces them to do so.
"You tax them," answered his self-assured, youthful guest. She then went on to say that if you divide the wealth up equally, every person in the country could receive $44,000 per year. Hannity showed a lot of restraint by sparing her the embarrassment of asking where the $44,000 per person would come from if Atlas decided to shrug.
The capper, though, was when she said angrily, "Tell me why someone ever would need to make more than $500,000 a year." Sounded like she was lobbying for the job of Wealth-Redistribution Czar.
All this '60s gibberish brought to mind something Rose Wilder Lane, the famous communist-turned-libertarian, once said in describing the precise moment when the incongruity of communism first struck her: "When the capitalist is gone, who will manage production? The state. And what is the state? The state will be the mass of toiling workers. It was at this point that the first doubt pierced my communist faith."
The truth is all-powerful, and it bugs the progressive mind no end. I believe that much of the anger the far left harbors is a result of not having legitimate moral or rational arguments for their points of view. Whether the anger be guilt-based or envy-based, it's always there … always advocating the use of force against individuals with dissenting views.
To actually give rational thought to an issue is frightful to progressives, because they are focused on their own utopian view of the world and can never explain why anyone has a right to take the fruits of someone's labor and give it to others. Lacking factual arguments, they instead speak in abstract terms such as "the good of society," "the common good" and "shared prosperity."
Bertrand Russell summed it up well when he said:
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought … is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is … indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.
Brace yourself. As the progressives in D.C. continue to evade thought and become ever more cornered by the facts – the name-calling, dismissals and threats are sure to accelerate. After all, when the uncovering of lies and corruption make it impossible to debate with a straight face, what other choice does one have?