TownHall.com
Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time-- and with the same disastrous results.
One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course. It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.
In one form or another, this idea goes back at least as far as the French Revolution in the 18th century. As J.A. Schumpeter later wrote of that era, "general well-being ought to have been the consequence," but "instead we find misery, shame and, at the end of it all, a stream of blood."
The same could be said of the Bolshevik Revolution and other revolutions of the 20th century.
The idea that the wise and knowledgeable few need to take control of the less wise and less knowledgeable many has taken milder forms-- and repeatedly with bad results as well.
One of the most easily documented examples has been economic central planning, which was tried in countries around the world at various times during the 20th century, among people of differing races and cultures, and under government ranging from democracies to dictatorships.
The people who ran central planning agencies usually had more advanced education than the population at large, and probably higher IQs as well.
The central planners also had far more statistics and other facts at their disposal than the average person had. Moreover, there were usually specialized experts such as economists and statisticians on the staffs of the central planners, and outside consultants were available when needed. Finally, the central planners had the power of government behind them, to enforce the plans they created.
It is hardly surprising that conservatives, such as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Britain and President Ronald Reagan in the United States, opposed this approach. What is remarkable is that, after a few decades of experience with central planning in some countries, or a few generations in others, even communists and socialists began to repudiate this approach.
As they replaced central planning with more reliance on markets, their countries' economic growth rate almost invariably increased, often dramatically. In the largest and most recent examples-- China and India-- people by the millions have risen above these countries' official poverty rates, after they freed their economies from many of their suffocating government controls.
China, where famines have repeatedly ravaged the country, now has a problem of obesity-- not a good thing in itself, but a big improvement over famines.
This has implications far beyond economics. Think about it: How was it even possible that transferring decisions from elites with more education, intellect, data and power to ordinary people could lead consistently to demonstrably better results?
One implication is that no one is smart enough to carry out social engineering, whether in the economy or in other areas where the results may not always be so easily quantifiable. We learn, not from our initial brilliance, but from trial and error adjustments to events as they unfold.
Science tells us that the human brain reaches its maximum potential in early adulthood. Why then are young adults so seldom capable of doing what people with more years of experience can do?
Because experience trumps brilliance.
Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they preempt. The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole.
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Coulter: "With Friends Like These, Who Needs Keith Olbermann?"
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While engaging in astonishing viciousness, vulgarity and violence toward Republicans, liberals accuse cheerful, law-abiding Tea Party activists of being violent racists.
Responding to these vile charges, conservative television pundits think it's a great comeback to say: "There is the fringe on both sides."
Both sides? Really? How about: "That's a despicable lie"? Did that occur to you simpering morons as a possible reply to the slanderous claim that conservatives are fiery racists?
All the accusations of "racism" at anti-Obama rallies so far have turned out to be completely false. The most notorious was the allegation that one black congressman was spat on and another called the N-word 15 times at an anti-ObamaCare rally on Capitol Hill last March.
The particularly sensitive Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., perhaps walking too closely to a protester chanting "Kill the Bill," was hit with some spittle -- and briefly thought he was a Freedom Rider! When observers contested Cleaver's account -- with massive video evidence -- he walked back his claim of being spat upon.
The slanderous claim that a protester called the civil rights hero John Lewis the N-word 15 times was an outrageous lie -- never made by Lewis himself -- but promoted endlessly by teary-eyed reporters, most of whom cannot count to 15.
The media never retracted it, even after the N-word allegation was proved false with a still-uncollected $100,000 reward for two seconds of video proof taken from a protest crawling with video cameras and reporters hungry for an act of racism.
When St. Louis Tea Party co-founder Dana Loesch did make the point on CNN that no one spat on any black congressmen at the anti-ObamaCare rally, a liberal on the panel, Nancy Giles, told her to "shut your mouth," while alleged "comedian" Stephanie Miller repeatedly called Tea Party activists "tea baggers."
It's like watching Hitler hysterically denounce Poland for being mean to Nazi Germany while Polish TV commentators defend Poland by saying, "There are mistakes on both sides."
Meanwhile, we do have video proof of the New Black Panthers standing outside a polling station in Philadelphia in 2008 with billy clubs threatening white voters who tried to vote. And there is video footage of Sarah Palin, Karl Rove,
Condoleezza Rice as well as a slew of conservative college speakers being assaulted by crazed liberals.
We also have evidence of liberals' proclivity for violence in the form of mountains of arrest records. Liberal protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention were arrested for smashing police cars, slashing tires, breaking store windows, and for possessing Molotov cocktails, napalm bombs and assorted firearms. (If only they could muster up that kind of fighting spirit on foreign battlefields.)
There were no arrests of conservatives at the Democratic National Convention.
Over the past couple of election cycles, Bush and McCain election headquarters around the country have been repeatedly vandalized, ransacked, burglarized and shot at (by staunch gun-control advocates, no doubt); Bush and McCain campaign signs have been torched; and Republican campaign volunteers have been physically attacked.
It was a good day when George Bush was merely burned in effigy, compared to Hitler or, most innocuously, compared to a monkey.
In the fall of 2008, Obama supporters Mace'd elderly volunteers in a McCain campaign office in Galax, Va. In separate attacks, a half-dozen liberals threw Molotov cocktails at McCain signs on families' front yards in and around Portland, Ore. One Obama supporter broke a McCain sign being held by a small middle-aged woman in midtown Manhattan before hitting her in the face with the stick. These are just a few acts of violence from the left too numerous to catalog.
There were arrests in all these cases. There was, however, absolutely no national coverage of the attacks by Obama supporters.
Obama is in danger from the Tea Partiers! The Poles are mobilizing on the border!
Since Obama became president, the only recorded violence at Tea Parties or Town Halls has been committed by liberals. Last fall, a conservative had his finger bitten off by a man from a MoveOn.org crowd in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Two Service Employees International Union thugs have been charged with beating up an African-American selling anti-Obama bumper stickers at a St. Louis Tea Party in August 2009.
Respected elder statesmen of the Democratic Party have referred to Obama's "Negro dialect" (Harry Reid), said he would be getting them coffee a few years ago (Bill Clinton), and called him "clean" (Joe Biden). And that's not including the former Ku Klux Klan Democratic senator, the late Bob Byrd.
So I'm thinking that maybe when conservatives are called racists on TV, instead of saying, "There are fringe elements on both sides," conservative commentators might want to think about saying, "That is a complete lie."
Liberals explode in rage when we accuse them of being unpatriotic based on 50 years of treasonous behavior. They have zero examples of conservative racism, but the best our spokesmen can think to say when accused of racism is: "Man is imperfect."
Conservatives who prefer to come across on TV as wonderfully moderate than to speak the truth should find another line of work and stop defaming conservatives with their "both sides" pabulum.
I hear BP is looking for a new spokesman.
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Gunslingers Line Up
Carbolic Smokeball
PHOENIX – The state of Arizona resorted to “Plan B” last night to protect its citizens from marauding Mexicans in the wake of a federal court ruling blocking implementation of Arizon’s new immigration law.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer travelled to California yesterday and hired seven notorious gunslingers to protect her state, led by veteran gunfighter Yul Brynner, gambler Steve McQueen, and heartthrob Horst Werner Buchholz. The gunslingers intend to teach Arizona’s citizens to fight in order to route invading Mexicans.
Gov. Brewer also hired film composer Elmer Bernstein to come up with an iconic score to commemorate the pending battle.
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