The Pledge

Want to know why Republicans – especially Republican “conservatives” – are getting zero traction politically as well as philosophically against the “liberals” they claim to oppose? Why they are a spent force?

It is because they’re hypocrites. Pots calling the kettles black.

You cannot – to cite just one example of their intellectual-ethical disconnect – denounce welfare  . .  while defending Social Security. Because they’re both the same thing: The taking by force of one man’s property (his money – and if that’s not handed over, then his physical property will be taken and transmuted into money) in order to hand it over to some other person. That is the essence of the thing. It’s irrelevant whether the beneficiary of the largesse seems to you to be worthy – as “good Republicans” view the flag-waving oldsters on the dole who “paid in” to the system (but who were merely taxed in their turn and who now wish to prey on others to[amazon asin=1610162552&template=*lrc ad (right)] recoup their losses). What’s relevant – the only relevant thing – is, simply: Do you support use of government threats and violence to take other people’s property for your (or someone else’s) benefit for any reason? If you do, then you cannot object to other people’s advocacy of the same thing for their own reasons.

Not, at any rate, without being an obvious hypocrite. A Babbitt. A Grifter – who denies he is a grifter. Which is to say, the most odious sort of grifter. The one who brays about his morality – while denouncing others for being (as he styles it) immoral.

Which is exactly – and rightly – how Republicans (especially “conservative” ones) are viewed by liberal Democrats. To their credit, they – the Democrats – at least have a twisted type of honesty on their side.

They are openly for transfers-at-gunpoint.

Republicans are, too – of course. They merely regard those favored by Democrats as illegitimate. Republican support for the use of force to obtain the property of others is “different”  . . . somehow.

The how is hard to puzzle out.

Either it is – or isn’t – acceptable to take from Smith to give to Jones. To make an exception – any exception – is to surrender the field. No, worse. It is toembrace the enemy.

To be like him.[amazon asin=0982369751&template=*lrc ad (right)]

And that’s exactly what Republicans are – and why this country continues to descend ever deeper into the morass of redistributionist collectivism. Tweedle Dee – and Tweedledum. Is it not madness to expect a prison to cease the practice of executing prisoners by periodically giving the inmates the opportunity to vote for a warden who favors lethal injection as opposed to the gas chamber?

The only way to effectively challenge wealth transfer at gunpoint is to challenge theidea of it – as opposed to one or another particular transfer-at-gunpoint.

This, Republicans – and most notoriously, Republican “conservatives” – have manifestly failed to do. They defend the transfer-at-gunpoint programs they favor. Which they view as ethically acceptable.

Which is why Republican conservatism is a failed ideology. Because it is not an ideology at all. It is merely a watered-down (and hypocritical) version of the ideology espoused by its supposed opposite, the “liberal” Democrats.

They are birds of a feather. Opposing sides of the same Janus. They argue like hyenasover the spoils. Not about the idea of taking spoils at all.

This is why the Tea Party is a bad joke. Why there’s no debate about “the issues” – at the national level at least; and usually, at the local[amazon asin=1400320291&template=*lrc ad (right)] level, too. The basic premise – redistribution at gunpoint – is never challenged. Only the degree of the redistribution – or its object. Which is why this country – its people – will continue to practice a form of cannibalism that becomes more and more rapacious, since the “needs” upon which this cannibalism are based are limitless in principle – and increase exponentially with each election cycle – while the resources available to satisfy these needs are limited. And the incentive to produce the resources to be divvied up naturally declines with each passing year. It is inevitable that a critical mass of people will eventually shrug – or simply join the ranks of the looters. Which in fact is exactly what’s happening. Half the country is on the take , in one way or another.

Looting will eventually become a matter of literal survival. But only a temporary one. Because soon enough, there will be no one and nothing left to loot.

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