At the heart of the decay of the American culture is the poisonous core principle of the left: “You are a victim!” What are you a victim of? Well that depends on the issue de jour. Today, you will be the victim of climate change, flash heated, with a side of steamed crony corporate campaign contributions. Tomorrow, you will be the victim of the broiled unnecessary wars that are Bush’s fault, with a dash of the military industrial complex, accompanied by the rampant sexism of the patriarchy. After that, you will be the victim of international banking cartels mixed with greedy off shore corporate manufacturing sweat shops, finished off with anti-LGBTQIA bigotry.

If you find yourself hungering to whine about something but you’re not a leftist, fear not, because this diseased victim ideology has infected the Republican Party too! There is an entire “alt-right” brand of grievance peddling to sate your need to blame someone else for things that make you anxious. Everything from exotic Islamic Terrorism a la mode served with unfair trade deals bisque to the more traditional Americana dish of greedy corporations expatriating rust belt manufacturing jobs flambes with a side of your choice of ethnic urban rioting or perhaps a more international “white genocide” creme tart. Everyone has something to cry about now.

Well, I just checked, and I am not a victim. I live in a nice and relatively prosperous country. I’ve a comfortable, air conditioned home. I don’t have to fear for the health or security of my family on a minute to minute basis. Because the sheer number of hunting rifles, shotguns, handguns per capita around me approaches military stockpile levels (God bless the Second Amendment!), any terrorist would get gunned down faster than a 20 point buck the first day of deer season. My life is pretty good, relative to 90% of the rest of the world. Really, my own government is far more a threat to me than practically any other foreign or domestic threat on the planet.

At the heart of both of these ridiculous victim ideologies is the same bizarre question: Is one man harmed by another man if he is poorer than the other? The leftist socialists believe that, yes, the poorer man is actually somehow harmed by the “richer” man, so they demand restitution be imposed on half of everyone so that government can subsidize their poor decisions. Because of my rather grievance free outlook, democratic socialists believe I am somehow unfairly “privileged” and thus obligated to pay for their double major in medieval tapestry and late 20th Century gender studies, as well as cover their living expenses while they sip coffee in trendy bistros whining about how unfair it is that they can’t get paid what they are worth, not realizing that they are.

Just as bad, however, the alt-right socialists believe that the poorer (American and/or white) man is harmed by a combination of foreign competition and minority ethnic groups that have “driven him out of” overpaid low skill unionized manufacturing jobs, so they demand tariffs imposed on half of everyone so that government can subsidize their poor decisions. The nationalist socialists believe that I have some sort of “patriotic duty” to pay tariffs so that otherwise unemployable low skilled manufacturing workers like them don’t have to actually compete with the rest of the industrialized world, because, you know, “‘Murica!” and stuff.

You know what? No, to both groups.

Ideological conservatives, unlike leftist and alt-right socialists, define harm as limited to actual physical or economic injury resulting from someone’s direct actions. That’s whey we approach the question of economic harm with a double helping of skepticism. Why? Because nine-hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, the disadvantaged situation any given individual is experiencing is the individual’s own fault. Yes, that includes everyone on the alt-right, too.

Reality check. Economic disparities are usually the result of a combination of complex political and economic factors well outside of the control of any single group either the left or alt-right want to blame their problems on. Systemic problems are the result of the system, not any group within the system, and the system has a name: “government“. What did Reagan say about government? Oh yeah. “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.“

Wake up, America. The pity party is over. You don’t get to trade in my or anyone else’s Liberty for your self-entitled priorities.

Be Brave. Be Free.

 

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Liberty is For The Win!