Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

One of the many amazing things about the left is that they have an inborn sense that the most heinous things are okay for them to do. Not anyone else, mind you. Just them.

A friend calls this “It’s all right when we do it because our hearts are pure.”

Another interesting—and by interesting, kindly read “appalling”—thing is how they make slavery the centerpiece of their “we have America show.” In their concept of America, slavery is the one unforgivable sin that caused America to be born tainted, and the reason the entire American population needs to be replaced via open borders… by groups that still own slaves (a lot of Africa, and particularly the middle East) and groups that did truly horrible things to enslaved peoples (Aztecs) etc. etc.

Yes, the lack of knowledge of history is wonderful: as in, it causes wonder. Terrific, even: as in it causes terror.

Look, I realize our schools go out of their way not to teach that slavery has existed since there have been humans on the planet. Maybe since there have been hominids. (The excuse I was once given by a doctor of education is that this isn’t taught “So as not to make our students of color feel bad.” I don’t know about you, but thinking my race alone out of all the races in the world was enslaved WOULD make me feel bad. Also scared. So I’d probably want the government– Oh, wait. I think I found the real reason.)

Yes, slavery was and is a horrible thing, but honestly until Western Civilization with its concept of the (literal, from Adam and Eve) brotherhood of humans (note Jewish slavery was also different. What we’d call debt slavery. And had an end) and its industrial revolution, there wasn’t even a lot of revulsion on slavery. Look, I know whence I speak. I read a lot of poems about the slave taking of moors by Christians and Christians by moors. Slavery just was.

And it was not—I know this shocks the living hell out of liberals, and to an extent all graduates of American education—RACE based in most cases. It was sometimes “ethnicity” based because of where slaves were most available from at the time. Which is why Romans were likely to have Celtic slaves. And yes, they had black citizens.

Also, when faced with the fact that the rest of the world also had slaves—I’ve come to suspect lately that the left knows very well they’re lying, even the rank and file. Like, you know, they say that no one is going to take our guns, but if you hear a group of them talking and they don’t know you’re nearby, they’ll say they want to take our guns. In the same way when you confront them with the fact slavery is universal, they look upset to be found out, not surprised—they claim American slavery was the worst form and not practiced anywhere else.

Which means they’re crazy (and/or liars). Sure, it was pretty bad, but by and large it was worse to be a slave just about anywhere else. In the Caribbean it was a thing of horror. And in parts of Africa (Dahomey for instance) being a slave COULD mean being sold onto America and Europe OR simply being slaughtered over the tomb of one of their recently deceased kings. Depending on when they arrived to Dahomey. Which, you know, was also a fairly normal thing to happen in antiquity all over the world: slaves might be killed to the glory of their masters or the gods. Or worked to death. Or….

But it goes beyond that. I really would like the left to answer ONE question: is slavery only bad when it’s done by one race to another? Or is slavery: the forcing of others to labor at things that benefit you for no or inadequate compensation, in general bad? Like, for everyone?

They must think it’s bad for everyone, because they complain about the “wage slavery” of Capitalism.

First let’s dispose of that semantically f*cked up sentence. Capitalism is what communists (or Marxists) call the system of humans trading freely with humans. “Wage slavery” is what they call the fact that “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.” I.e. the condition of humans on Earth, unless they’re very lucky to be born to very wealthy families. I mean, look, seriously: there is no entitlement to be able to live without working. And unless you inherited a lot of money or land or other value that people want, you will have to trade your time and skill for the money that will allow you to live and get the things you want.

Is the compensation inadequate? Sure, in many times and places it has been. Arguably the compensation for unskilled work is now inadequate. Do you know why? Because it obeys the law of supply and demand. The more unskilled workers the left imports (see, for instance the attempt to erase our borders and act like we’re some kind of charity organization, instead of a country) the less unskilled workers will be paid. Particularly since they can be undercut by people who are not trying to build a life here, but who are living 12 to a room and sending back what is to their coutnries a fortune, to build a life there.

You can’t repeal the law of supply and demand, anymore than you can repeal the law of gravity. Saying it’s horrible and artificially raising wages just causes us to be more of an attractive nuisance to unskilled workers looking to send money back to their native depressed economies, and…

At any rate, absent monkeying by the state or other attempts to “help” the workers, wage slavery isn’t: you cannot be bought and sold. You cannot be forced to work against your will. You strike a bargain to work for x amount. Yes, the pay and the market can suck, but it is still not slavery. Yes, trying to find a skill to learn that will pay, wihtout going into indenture (our current educational system is the result of government monkeying with it.) is difficult. But you CAN. It might be hard as hell—life is PAIN highness—but it CAN be done.

You know what IS slavery?

Well, most of the Democrat plans, really, now that they’ve gone full commie.

A planned economy is by definition slavery. You are told where to work. The government has tables of how much you will make. What you will make. In the crazier communist (or socialist, but they’re more subtle about it) regimes, you get told which of the “free education” you can consume. You’re selected to study this or that. You’re told if you can study at all. And if you study, you’re told how you can use it. And how much you’ll make.

HOW do you think “free college for all” will work? Sure, we might have a generation or two of everyone taking whatever they want. More likely 3 to 4 years. And then? Ah, and then…. the planned economy will dictate what you can study and when. Sure, everyone might go to college, but most of them will be taking some form of general studies. College will in fact become what High School has become. Not any kind of preparation for adulthood. Not even a last chance to teach people to read and write, but another four years “the better to indoctrinate you with.”

And in this brave new college, other than the few highly paid “political” professors, who do you think will make a living? (already assistants and adjuncts in college make next to nothing.)

What about doctors? Nurses? What do you think happens in socialized medicine?

Already the left, who are a kind of creature that is incapable of imagining anyone different from themselves, says things like “Why aren’t doctors paid the same as teachers?” Well, because no teacher in America (outside college professors, and even then) undergoes 8 years of under grad and post grad, plus 8 years of various kinds of training afterwards, years during which they are either unpaid or low paid. That’s why. Also because people, in general, are capable of teaching and learning, particularly at the elementary level, but very few people are able to do surgery. Rare skills are paid more. Supply and demand.

So, if you are going to make these people, after serious training, work at the same price as school teachers, you’ll be taking YEARS OF THEIR LIVES: the years they spent learning. And forcing them to work at things they benefit you, at a salary you dictate.

There is a name for that: slavery.

No, I don’t care how “expensive” healthcare is (hint: get government out of it. Allow people to pay their doctors directly, in cash. Get third party payers out of it period. The prices WILL come down.) You can’t make it free without some degree of slavery. And to make it wholly free, you need to enslave everyone providing it. Which btw. explains the horrors we hear from NHS. And trust me, even those are shiny and great, compared to “socialized medicine” in most of the world.

Because—and this is another insanity the left doesn’t get when they say shit like “Slaves built our wealth”—slaves don’t work well. They’re not efficient. They’re not hard workers. In fact, if they can help it they don’t work at all or they do what we used to call “A zeal strike.” Its other name is “White Mutiny”—per Heinlein, but not in his words, because I read it in Portuguese and don’t remember the exact words—A “white mutiny” is conducted against a commander one lacks faith in. One performs the orders given with the exactitude of a computer; namely, what is ordered, exactly that, and nothing less and nothing more, using none of your own good judgement to temper the orders to fit the precise situation. The ship usually comes crashing down about your ears.

Slaves do that exact same thing. Which is why every slave society has to apply the lash and have spectacular executions, and– and– and–

And it’s why socialized medicine, despite the pretty numbers they like to try to fool us with, is in general a disaster. Socialized education, ditto. In countries that have it, socialized housing sucks like a hoover too (as do our projects, which is our form of it.)

When Occasional Cortex runs her big ugly mouth on everything that the government should give you, what she’s saying is “We should enslave people to provide this for you.” Either enslave them directly, or enslave them sideways, by taking the majority of what they produce so the government can “give” people things.

The end result is always the same. Things produced by enslaved things suck. “The ship comes crashing down around your years.” Even if it’s the ship of state.

The end stage of the Marxian economy is “guaranteed employment,” “Guaranteed education,” “guaranteed housing,” “guaranteed food” and “guaranteed clothing.”

And what all those guarantees amount to is the government assuring you that pine needles are fine and nutritious because everyone is starving, and they figure if you kill yourself eating those it’s fewer mouths to feed. It’s not like you, as a slave, have any value to the state. You’re just a debit that they have to provide all the free stuff to.

Because in end-stage Marxian economy, everyone pretends to work, and the government pretends to pay them.

So, when they say that the US is the only “advanced” (please define advanced? You mean “nation moving towards Marxian enslavement economy?” Are you advancing towards the rear, again?) economy without “free” education or medicine?

Hoist up your middle fingers at the slavers, my friends. Tell them Master Lincoln done freed the slaves. And none of us, of any color, is hankering to go back into chains.

If they love slavery so much, they are invited to go to one of the countries that is walking into it, or has already walked into it. They’re welcome to partake of “socialized education and medicine” in Cuba and Venezuela. Hell, we’ll even splurge for a plane ticket. They don’t need to cross the waters in an inner tube or walk down the length of the Americas. What the heck, we’re feeling generous: we’ll even promise to stand in the airport waving goodbye and singing cheery songs as they leave. We can come up with a playlist, I’m sure.

What they can’t do is enslave us. Because their grandiose dreams do not make them our masters. Because their philosophy has never produced anything but mass graves.

Because America is the land of the free. Not the free stuff. And we aim to stay that way.

You want free stuff? Go live where they give it. And pay the price.

Me and mine? We’ll pay the price for our freedom. Even if it turns out to be blood.

 

Reprinted from According to Hoyt for September 18, 2019