Choose One

Circle one:

Which one of the following are idiots?

A. Republicans

B. Democrats

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Democrats say, “Republicans are “uneducated and misguided people guided by what the media is feeding them.”

Republicans say, “Democrats are “irresponsible, foolish, misguided or downright stupid.”

About half of Democrats think Republicans are ignorant (54%) and spiteful (44%). Likewise, about half of Republicans think Democrats are ignorant (49%) and spiteful (54%).

Thomas Sowell, born in 1930 is an American author, economist (Ph.D.) and someone who truly understands politics. He was a Democrat until 1972 and later turned down high positions in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan Administration. He is now a self-described “Libertarian” believing in minimal state intervention. Generally, libertarians are conservative on fiscal issues but liberal on social issues.

He wrote a book called A Conflict of Visions 35 years ago to explain what our differences are really about. 

He divides the world into two different “visions,” the constrained vision and the unconstrained vision. In the unconstrained vision, there are some among us whose wisdom and knowledge can, if they are empowered, guide us all to a better life. Those people are destined to lead and while others must follow. For the uneducated followers, George Bernard Shaw described them as “detestable people,” who “have no right to live.” Later, they were called a “basket of deplorables.” Reason should be allowed to be employed to remedy past constitutions, religions, and social traditions. 

Alternatively, in the constrained vision (Sowell cites Hayek), wisdom can be found not in the wisdom of the few, but in the accumulated knowledge of a “dynamic civilization.” In this view, the relative differences between the wisest and the most ignorant is “comparatively insignificant.” For the constrained vision, decision makers, even wise ones, are unlikely to be successful designing new economic, legal or political systems. 

The unconstrained vision sees equality and equity as a result which must be ordered by new laws and regulations. They also believe some have less because others have more, i..e, the rich have taken from the poor. In this view, success doesn’t come from personal risk taking and hard work, it comes from the work of others and government, i.e., “You didn’t build that.”

But in the constrained vision, a deliberate reallocation of resources is unjust, because it doesn’t arise from a fair process. The constrained vision sees these the distribution of outcomes as the result of processes that have been developed and tweaked over time and they are suspicious of attempts to rationally supplant them. Not just suspicious, the constrained vision views these movements with alarm as attempts to reorder society will likely have unintended and deleterious consequences on the motivations and conduct of people.

In criminal justice, the constrained vision finds that “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” In the unconstrained vision, the guilty are miserable victims of an unjust society. In this latter view, no cash bail is a just result because of unequal opportunities causing crime. In the constrained view, eliminating bail and keeping criminals on the streets is likely to engender more crime.

As equity is at the forefront of the unconstrained vision, forced redistribution of property by the government is necessary to achieve equity. Property rights are unimportant in the unconstrained view. In the constrained view, a fair process will ensure that distribution of property is based on hard work and talent. The constrained view believes that the incentives that come from owning property makes protection of those rights a key function of government.

So, which one is right? Maybe we should ask the people who come here in droves, both legally and those willing to risk death in the back of a closed truck or across a burning desert, what they came for? Or those who volunteer to go to war in far off lands – what do they think they are protecting? Is it the opportunity to live a life relatively free or an opportunity to start your own business and provide for yourself and your family? Is it something else? 

That’s my opinion, and maybe Sowell would agree with that. We should listen to them not only because it is smart but also because we wish to live in a civil society.

But if you don’t agree with me, you are a transphobic, cisnormative privileged white person, communist, snowflake, woke, sheeple, nut job, elitist, racist, deplorable, soft-on-crime twinkie, homophobic, purple-haired libtard, politically correct, triggered, Nazi, clinging to your gums and your pigeons and you should shut up and be cancelled. 

…There, I feel better, how about you?