POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

VDH on the metaphysics of contemporary theft

As usual, an excellent essay by Victor Davis Hanson over at Pajamas media, in which he uses some anecdotes of criminal behavior to illustrate how, as a nation, we are nearing a tipping point where those who are unjustly preyed upon will tire of the usurpation of the fruits of their labor and simply stop working to acquire the things that the thieves covet.

He sets the stage by relating three personal experiences, the theft of a chain saw, the vandalizing of irrigation pumps via theft of the electric lines that power them-simply to sell the copper in the wires for its scrap metal value!, and a neighbors home, vacant and for sale, that had all of the appliances stolen stolen from it's kitchen.

A majority would believe the thieves took things for drugs, excitement, or to buy things like an iPhone or DVD, rather than out of elemental need (e.g., the thief hawked the chainsaw to purchase the family’s rice allotment for the week). In this view, contemporary American crime arises not so much then from Dickensian poverty, as we see in South America or Africa, but out of a sense of resentment, of boredom, from a certain contempt for the more law-abiding and successful, or on the assurance that apprehension is unlikely, and punishment rarer still. After all, Hollywood, pop music, the court system, and the government itself sympathize with, even romanticize those forced to take a chainsaw, not the old middle-class bore who bought it.

I conclude that most Americans would agree that chain-sawing a peach tree or pumping irrigation water enriches the nation, while cruising around looking to destroy such activity does not. The latter represents the sort of social parasitism that I read about each Saturday night in our environs...gangbanger A shoots up gangbanger B; B goes to emergency room for publicly funded $250,000 worth of surgery and post-op treatment by C, an MD, who otherwise would have been insulted and intimidated by A or B should he have met either earlier in the day. Indeed, C is more likely to be ridiculed or sued by B than thanked. And yet C does not need either A or B; both need the former in extremis

Where does this all end — these open borders, unsustainable entitlements and public union benefits and salaries, these revolving door prisons and Al Gore-like energy fantasies?

He then goes on to make a fascinating connection between the parasitism of the petty criminals and the parasitic ideology of the progressive left. Just as the criminals don't really want equal opportunity, but just to get "stuff" without laboring for it, so too are the professional malcontents among the progressive Democrats not really interested in "social justice", the "green agenda", or any of the other connivances and talking points the usual suspects blather about; such talk is merely carefully scripted lines meant to be delivered as part of a stirring performance meant to elicit an emotional, and not rational, response on the part of folks who, by-and-large, are too lazy to think matters through themselves. I mean, why waste time gathering information and reasoning one's way to the heart of a matter when you can have your outrage du jour provided in a convenient soundbite; so you can get back to watching American Idol instead.  But VDH sums it up better than I ever could:

Watching the tastes, the behavior, the rhetoric, the appointments, and the policy of this administration suggests to me that it is not really serious in radically altering the existing order, which it counts on despite itself. Its real goal is a sort of parasitism that assumes the survivability of the enfeebled host.

That does not mean it has not done a lot of damage and will not do even more in the next two years; only that it never quite wanted to see cap and trade legislation enacted, blanket amnesty, Guantamo shut down, or Predators ended; these were simply crude slurs by which to demonize Bush, ways of acquiring power and influence, but not a workable plan of living. Note that Obama is now zealous on just those issues which he could have easily rammed through his Democratically controlled congress in 2009-10 when he had large majorities, such as amnesty and cap and trade.

You cannot fly to Costa del Sol on solar panels. The light switches might not go on at Vail without coal burning somewhere. The Holder or Obama children might not be safe in the Stockton or Parlier city schools. Some right-wing nut in the Dakotas is still necessary to pump the oil to refine the gas for Air Force One; there is no golf without an irrigation system and a supply of either ground or surface water.

In short, the currently insulted class is necessary and Obama knows it.

These are only some of the more choice excepts. As I often say, make sure you read the whole thing. As with most of Hanson's essays, you'll be glad you did.

Rocketman