Tuesday, January 13, 2004

 
"Stolen" Thunder

Great, just great. Drop the middle empress off at school and make the mistake of checking the Corner before the planned sleep deficit reduction. I really *do* hate Derbyshire at the moment. I can deal with the superiority of his intellect, but am really ticked off that his "Stealing Jobs," though somewhat clumsily written, covers something *not* flogged elsewhere and something that has sloshed through mah brain countless times for many years.(And I'd be grumpy if *anyone* other than Yours Truly had made something like his post) Not that this will be any less clumsy(actually far clumsier) but here's the gist of diminished thunder:
The belief that the national wealth and income properly belongs to us all and can be justly "distributed" is ugly. The conviction, no *knowledge* that we own, owe much to, and are responsible for the maintenance democratic capitalist *system* is something that should be drummed(to the extent not counter-productive)into the heads of students. This is true, perhaps especially true if one say, earns something like the minimum wage, lives in an apartment, and has no "net worth." (And is true, perhaps especially so(unlike, leftoids we conservatives are not so at ease with assigning group guilts and credits)if one's ancestors were of recent or of non-honkey, non-Protestant origin. You feel proud or at least less guilty that your ancestors didn't have a hand in conquering American Indians? You should light a candle for those glorious bastards who did -to your benefit) Lefties have argued that we are rich because of our natural resources, but as has been noted satisfactorily(sp) with great frequency in conversative lit, we owe much more to our system -which did not spring full blown from the head of er, Zapata. Well, the underpinnings or whatever of democratic capitalism *are* written about frequently, but the concept that they can be stolen because we own them is an angle not stressed enough. Capitalism 'n democracy do not easily flourish in societies in which they are despised. Plenty of thugish types and peoples(not all of whom are furriners)blather on about their committment to "freedom" and "democracy" but are in principle or culture or character highly adverse or toxic to them in the Western sense. One group of thugs tends to replace another after said blatherings in many countries. A *belief* that capitalism is to at least some extent *moral* is not universal in the world. Present day Russia, for example, is widely thought to suffer because of a deficiency in this sentiment. A relative lack of corrosive cynicism or fatalism regarding corruption, cronyism, electoral fraud in the populace etc. also distinguishes the U.S. from much of the world. Even groups that do well economically here come from "low trust" cultures whose countries suck mightily on that account. Yeah, its obvious that these ideas are nothing new, but that a sense that the American people(natives and those who have honestly sworn allegiance to them and their country)*own* the system as a whole is something that one wishes were *much* stronger. Also the "rich" should feel gratitude, not because they "exploit" others, but because others, rich, and not-so-rich support the principles of economic freedom and property rights. Now and then you still hear or read arguments that the rich benefit disproportionately from what are paid for by taxes because the police and army protect their vast wealth and companies. But even the "poor" would suffer more if because of a collapse of the armed services or police forces they(the poor) were overrun(well, more than they are overrun at this time)by foreign or domestic nasties. We own the marketplace, set the rules for it(capitalism)and are damn well entitled to keep out squatters. Yep, we stand on the shoulders of some remarkable dead(mostly) white guys, and countless individual and collective acts(voting for non-scumbags and decent policies, participating in our lil' platoons)that have led to a country with *relatively* good schools(yeah, that capital stock *has* been in many places here seriously degraded), roads, low population density overall, a relatively skilled and educated work force, a relatively low(and positive) birth rate, an enormous stock of housing(thanks in part to our armed forces which except for an embarrassing lapse with respect to our capital during the War of 1812 by some country the name of which escapes me at the moment), the best goldurn military in the world, and, of course a *high ratio of capital to labor.* We should thank Providence, of course, and not be *too* proud, but should not be ashamed of it either. We have given much to the rest of the world in all sorts of ways, and should continue to do so. ?We exploit the rest of the world? Don't go there, you fuzznuts out there; if you really want to know, the rest of the world owes *us.* -Really. We should continue to be a beacon to the world, *not* its colony.