For my money, Thomas Sowell is the best political writer in America.
Overcoming adversity is one of our great desires and one of our great sources of pride. But it is something that our anointed deep thinkers strive to eliminate from our lives, through everything from grade inflation to the welfare state.
The anointed want to eliminate stress, challenge, striving, and competition. They want the necessities of life to be supplied as "rights" -- which is to say, at the taxpayers expense, without anyone's being forced to work for those necessities, except of course the taxpayers.
Nothing is to be earned. "Self-esteem" is to be dispensed to the children as largess from the teacher. Adults are to have their medical care and other necessities dispensed as largess from the government. People are to be mixed and matched by race and sex and whatever else the anointed want to take into account, in order to present whatever kind of picture the anointed think should be presented.
This is a vision of human beings as livestock to be fed by the government and herded and tended by the anointed. All the things that make us human beings are to be removed from our lives and we are to live as denatured creatures controlled and directed by our betters.
Those things that help human beings be independent and self-reliant -- whether automobiles, guns, the free market, or vouchers -- provoke instant hostility from the anointed.
Sowell understands the psychology of those people who "only want to help" better than anyone. This is my favorite line of the column:
Guns are completely inappropriate for the kind of sheep-like people the anointed envision or the orderly, prepackaged world in which they are to live. When you are in mortal danger, you are supposed to dial 911, so that the police can arrive on the scene some time later, identify your body, and file reports in triplicate.
That's a great line that mixes humor with the deadly serious.
One of the most dangerous things about the welfare state is that it breaks the connection between what people have produced and what they consume, at least in many people's minds. For the society as a whole, that connection remains as fixed as ever, but the welfare state makes it possible for individuals to think of money or goods as just arbitrary dispensations.
Thus those who have less can feel a grievance against "society" and are less inhibited about stealing or vandalizing. And the very concept of gratitude or obligation disappears -- even the obligation of common decency out of respect for other people.
The next time you see a bum leaving drug needles in a park where children play or urinating in the street, you are seeing your tax dollars at work and the end result of the vision of the anointed.
We work and pay taxes, and those who benefit from our work are mostly angry that they aren't given more. Whether you are jobless, poor or a pork barrel politician, you are being supported by our good deeds, not your own. But when we complain, we’re called greedy. But I would argue that anyone who gets something for nothing and isn’t eternally thankful, is really the greedy one.
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