May 16, 2019 What else, after the willing suspension of disbelief

May 16, 2019

What else, after the willing suspension of disbelief, compels people, supposedly rational, absolutely “non-deplorable people, to think that this time, with really, really smart people – not just really smart people – running “it” that this time Socialism will work.

White Privilege gives us the most obvious, the most compelling answer. It is, as the Great Dr. Johnson said

‘THE TRIUMPH OF HOPE OVER EXPERIENCE’

Capitalism, warts and all, is always judged on its results, on what it has done.  Hamlin Garland, the Beards, and Ida Tarbell spoke of a particular sub-set of Capitalism, not a universal one. Let the record also show that nowhere ever has Capitalism been given a bit-less ride like Socialism has. To state the obvious, the USSR, the 3^rd Reich, Bulgaria, North Korea, Cuba, most of Africa, Burma, & Venezuela have done what Robert Owen, Leon Trotsky, Adolph Hitler, Norman Thomas, & Michael Harrington could only dream about. [It is well to note that one of Stalin’s hit-men put a pick ax in Trotsky’s head 13 years and 8,000 away from the Workers’ Paradise, the beloved rodinya, that he was exiled from. More about that anon. It is a thread common to all true Socialists.

Imagine a man standing in a large bucket. With the best of intentions and cheered on by good people who want him to succeed, he tries mightily to lift the bucket by its handle with him in it. He may well pull the handle off. He may rip the bottom out. He may move it horizontally. But this is certain. Bet the ranch, Clock a ticket. The bucket ain’t gonna move vertically.

A wise man form Milan once said, “If no profit is possible, the risk is obvious.” As was frequently said on the assembly lines in Russia, “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” Why do Indians – Kipling’s Indians, not Cochise’s Chiricahua – do so well here?

One obvious answer is that the yoke of Gandhi and the cement galoshes of Nehru stayed in Agra. Gandhi decided that homespun, veganism, and drinking your own pee were the keys to sovereignty. Nehru decided that the forward-thinking policy of exporting surgeons and importing cement plants were the keys to 2, sometimes 3, chickens in every pot.

Neither succeeded.

Having dug ditches in 3 countries, I assure you there is one universal ditch digging rule that transcends borders. 

“If you are digging in the wrong place, stop digging.”

Simple enough, right?

Yes, for ditch digging.

No, for economic systems.

The Kingston Trio asked us in 1957, “When will they ever learn?”

Never, if you are running for the Democratic nomination.

Kevin Smith

WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET

PS – Orwell, the 20^th Century’s most hated Socialist – by Socialists, of course, by Socialists – said that the face of Socialism is a boot on your neck. The really smart people who run Socialist societies know that the only chance they have to make “it” work is to put an iron fist into an iron glove. [The smartest mule in the world sometimes needs a 2by4 across its nose to get his attention.] If people won’t act in the collective interest you must kick them in their individual asses. It is not too late to say Kaddish for the Kulaks. Churchill, and it always seems to come back to him, doesn’t it, said that the essential problem with Capitalism is Capitalists while the essential problem with Socialism is, and always and forever will be, Socialism.