«
»
 

The Hammer of Reality

I would say something about the ongoing slowmotion national suicide which is America’s infatuation with getting medical care free of cost from the Santa Clause which once was the US government, the last best hope of freedom on Earth, but another man has said it more succinctly than I. Hear him.

 

Then turns your eyes to the side of this page where I have posted the national debt clock. See it ticking? That is the future of your children and grandchildren, and the safety, and their liberty, slipping away. It is going, going, gone, because you, American public, could not be bothered to learn the basic principles of civics, of ethics, or of economics.

Americans, I have a word for you:

You thought the Constitution gave the President the ability to rewrite laws the Congress passed; you thought the enumerated powers gave Congress the ability to compel the sale of private goods to private citizens at such costs and terms as Congress deemed fit; so you flunk civics.

You thought electing a liar was wise, because you thought lies are appropriate and potent when used in a good cause, and truth is optional. So you flunk ethics.

You thought the insurance rates were set by the arbitrary or sinister scheming of Big Pharma, Big Oil or Big Somethingorother, and not set by the laws of supply and demand. You concluded that Caesar, divine Caesar, could with a wave of his dictator’s baton cause the price of goods and services in that part of the economy dealing with medical services to drop, while servicing more customers, while increasing the quality of the goods, all without any form of rationing or death panels. This conclusion was not based on your examination of the failures of socialized medicine in Britain and Canada, where the health care is notoriously bad, and horror stories appear each week in the newspapers, and which the Brits explain by calling the newsmen bad names, like children might do. No, you thought all-powerful and divine Caesar, the smartest man in the room and the best American ever to live, the Lightworker, could lower the cost and increase quality while increasing demand with the same power he uses to lower the height of the oceans. And he could so this without changing the current terms and conditions of your current contracts for insurance used to pay for these goods and services. But you do not even know which parts of the complex interaction of market place actors and behaviors include the medical industry, do you?

You thought you could get something for nothing, pay less and get more, impose price controls without imposing rationing. So you fail economics.

Now you will pay for those failures. But sadly, so will I.

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

About

John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.

November 22, 2013 @ 11:13 pm
Musings