Nothing Left to Lose
April 13, 2011 7:35 PM
In Janis Joplin's great hippie anthem, "Me and Bobby McGee," there is a refrain that has haunted me ever since I first heard it: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Up until now, not being a hippie, I frankly found that idea offensive. Freedom means having everything to lose, I thought, among which are the rights to life, liberty, and property. Now, however, I get it. Freedom creates the means to have many things to lose, but there are times, and this is one of them, where the price of freedom must be the decision that, no, there is nothing left to lose. I am writing specifically about a "government shutdown." I recently wrote several blogposts about that topic, always hedging about whether a "government shutdown" would be a good idea. Now, I am convinced: we must have a government shutdown. Otherwise we will lose everything. Read on:
Within a breathtaking span of days, the Republican Party leadership went for paying lip service to a repeal of Obamacare, to a "draconian" reduction in government spending, to standing on the "brink of a government shutdown," to a decision a government shutdown is to be prevented at all costs, to a false number, however low, of billions "cut" from the budget, to the funding of Planned Parenthood abortions, to trepidation about a "disaster" if the national debt ceiling is not raised, to exploitation of Paul Ryan's budget proposal as something to be fought for in the vague indefinite future, to a critique of Obama's proposal for a "tax increase on the rich," by which he means employers in the private sector. The handwriting is on the wall. We can see it coming as the express train on the track where we are standing: there will be a tax increase on employers, and probably on everyone else too. The Republicans will "go along to get along." The Republican moderates will cave. That's what they do. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Republican moderates gotta cave.
Being that that is the case, I must speculate what would have happened if a "government shutdown" had indeed taken place during the Boehner "deal" negotiation. Yes, there would have been overwhelming demagoguery, not only from the mainstream media and much of the international media, there would have been demagoguery too from the alternative media and bloggers, all attacking the Constitututional movement (the despised "tea baggers") as extremists who view the perfect as the enemy of the good.
Let us assume that the result of a "government shutdown" would have been a worst case scenario: a majority of Americans would be convinced by the demagoguery blitz that the Constitutional movement is a radical fringe group. The "Tea Party" would be over. Or so they would say, and they are already saying it. And then what?
The budget would be "cut" in a deceptive and tokenistic way, spending would continue to go up, Republicans would reach across the aisle to "compromise," and there will be a tax increase on employers after much phony protest and haggling to "reduce" deliberately inflated numbers. In other words, we would be right where we are now.
In other words, if there had been a government shutdown, we would still have nothing left to lose. We would still have been right where we are now. Except for a couple of things:
The "radical extremist tea baggers" (advocates of the Constitution, capitalism, and supporting our dollar currency) would have been energized instead of demoralized. To quote the mass murderer Mao Zedong, "a single spark can start a prairie fire." But something else would have happened:
The "Democrats" (Progressives/Leftists/Bolsheviks) and their "moderate" Republican lapdogs would have to deal with all those hungry mouths to feed, the mouths of furloughed Government workers. They would have learned a painful lession: fiscal irresponsibility has immediate, far-reaching, painful consequences. This is a lesson they must learn sooner or later.
The current behavior of our established elected officials indicates that a "government shutdown" would have been a metaphorical grenade thrown into the works of the ever-expanding government. I have written how California now has a perpetual "government shutdown," which they call a "budget impasse." The new "Democrat" party governor, who is the old governor Moonbeam recycled, has tried and failed to get a tax increase based on a popular vote. What, then has been his response? He just signed a bill to set a percentage limit on the amount of energy used in California within ten years that does not come from windmills, solar power, and other fantasy sources of "green energy," the unicorns of the Liberal fantasy universe.
Specifically, if the government were "shut down," the ever-falling dollar paycheck would have to be replaced with IOUs (as it is from time to time in California,) "essential" programs would grind to a halt, and the Liberal fantasy bubble, at last, would burst. The Republican leadership knows this, which is why they fight it with every fiber of their being. They know their careers would be over in the ensuing hubbub.
Private individuals and private enterprise, on the other hand, are capable of surviving. People who actually work would work for cash greenbacks, or silver dollars, or food, or rounds of ammo. People who actually know what it is to work would get together and start manufacturing things again. Their productivity might have to be processed "under the table," but processed it would be. The government employees of today would have to follow suit, or turn to crime (actually illegal crime, not union-funded crime), or starve.
Therefore I am calling here and now for a "government shutdown," the sooner and the more spectacular, the better. Our freedom, I now believe, depends on it. We have nothing left to lose.