Saturday, August 8, 2020

May the Force Passover You

 

by Joe Siano


Kamala Harris hammered Joe Biden for his 1970’s position on “busing” during the 2019 Democratic Debates.  Republicans are sure to reprise that to counter assertions of Trump’s alleged racism.

What did Old Joe say?  He asserted that “court mandated” / “mandatory” (i.e. forced) busing of children many miles from their homes to achieve the goal racial desegregation would result in “tensions having built so high that it is going to explode”.

When he’s right, he’s right.  But this is not about race.  It’s about force.

What accomplishments can Force claim on its resume?

Force did make Henry Ford revolutionize automotive  manufacturing and, in turn, transform transportation the world over.

Force did not compel Alexander Graham Bell to empower people to converse over great distances.

Neither did Force get the Wright brothers airborne, paint the Sistine Chapel, write the plays of Shakespeare nor the poetry of Dante.  Cultural cross-pollination gave birth to jazz, blues, rock, bluegrass and hip-hop.  Not Force.

Force and compulsion, on the other hand, sent to thousands of America’s young men into battle to be killed, maimed, mutilated or emotionally scarred in senseless wars.  It imprisoned, tortured and murdered millions in the collectivist experiments of the past century.

Force never enriched a nation.  We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us” was a running joke in the Soviet Union.  

Soviet Communism fell under the weight of inefficiency, despite being a land rich in natural resources.  China nearly suffered the same fate until it imported a veneer of western capitalism.

Even the enforced servitude of  slavery cannot compete with free labor.  Ludwig von Mises elaborated:

“The abolition of slavery and serfdom is to be attributed neither to the teachings of theologians and moralists nor to weakness or generosity on the part of the masters. There were among the teachers of religion and ethics as many eloquent defenders of bondage as opponents. Servile labor disappeared because it could not stand the competition of free labor; its unprofitability sealed its doom in the market economy. (Human Action, p. 625)

In this same article, economist Bob Murphy notes this irony:  

“it’s just taken for granted that the North was richer than the South, and that’s why it was able to blockade and invade it during the (inaptly named) Civil War. If slavery makes your nation such a powerhouse, why didn’t the South conquer the North?”

So, does force play any useful in human society?  Sure it does. I am grateful that my Mom and Dad forced me to change my underwear, comb my hair, brush my teeth, put on clean clothes, do my homework and do countless other things made me a somewhat functional human being.  But as children grow into adolescence and blossom into adulthood, reason and incentive serve as better motivators than threats and punishments.

In 1978 Senator Biden appeared to have a brief epiphany, that the use of force to effect social or economic change is destructive.  

It was seed sown on rocky soil. – or maybe just a cynical ploy to appease blue collar voters.

Joe never absorbed the essential lesson that force always hurts, divides, impoverishes and kills.  As a lifetime member of the D.C. shake-down establishment, that’s all he knows – taxation, regulation, intimidation, lies, deception and war.

Related Articles:

Beware of the White Democrats

Poking Holes in the “Anti-War” Left

 

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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
 
- Paul Simon

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