Welcome to Bergeron!

America is becoming Bergeron – a new country based on the principles laid out in Kurt Vonnegut’s depressingly prescient short story, Harrison Bergeron.

It is a country in which – as in the book – you may not act if anyone of lesser strength or ability or drive cannot act at the same level. You must accommodate yourself to their level.

Everything is leveled – ever downward.

Until all are depressingly . . . equal.

In misery. In poverty. In thrall to suffocating edicts limiting what they are permitted to do – and told they must not do – on the basis of what others can’t do. Or resent you for being able to do, which they can’t.

One of the most obvious expressions of this principle is on the road, where the law punishes competence as a kind of affront to the incompetent. If some people can’t handle making a right turn on red without creeping out in front of right-of-way traffic and causing a wreck thereby, no one else is allowed to make a right-on-red. If someone ignores the law forbidding it and makes a right-on-red safely and competently, by judging the flow of traffic and applying the necessary degree of acceleration to merge with it smoothly, he is punished for being competent. Making Economic Sense Murray N. Rothbard Best Price: $8.45 Buy New $1.99 (as of 06:00 UTC - Details)

For having ability – and daring to use it.

Some will say that, no, the offender ignored the law. True – but only superficially.

Consider that the competent execution of the action isn’t a mitigating factor. Just as health is no excuse for not Diapering.

Which is proof positive that the true offense – not mentioned but nonetheless – is lack of obedience premised on the acceptance of incompetence (and sickness) even in its absence.

At the first hint of snow, the roads are now inundated with liquid brine – if they’re not closed outright, as in my part of Virginia – where the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed even before it snows, stays closed if it doesn’t actually snow . . . because it might snow.

Because some people can’t deal with snow.

Highway speed limits are today what they were 60 years go – notwithstanding 60 years of improvements in tire/brake/suspension technology and half a dozen “safety assists” in addition to that.

Glaucomic granny sets the pace.

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