There are no words more terrifying in the English language than “I am from the Government and I am here to help” said Ronald Reagan long ago in what now seems to be not only a different time but a different planet altogether.
Argentina is having its own “Katrina moment” after torrential rains that lasted for the best part of ten days. The province of Buenos Aires was the most affected. Buenos Aires is a huge patch of land roughly the size of France, fertile to booth. About 100 years ago it was home to some of the richest people in the world back in the day when Argentina was in the exclusive company of the 10 largest economies in the planet. Then populist politicians came, their heads inflamed with the political ideas that were all the rage in Europe. It seems that no matter how much time passes, the European ideas continue to arrive on our shores like a plague comparable to those that wiped out the aboriginal population of America from the 1500’s onward.
When the first constitutional republic was born in the US in 1789 someone asked Ben Franklin what kind of government was being devised to rule the young nation. Franklin’s answer was: “A Republic if you can keep it!” That may be an echo of another inspired phrase: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.” (Alexander Fraser Tytler.) The general state of the finances of the world seem to indicate that the bankers have found a way to raid the coffers of every nation. Take for example Detroit, a place where trade unions, city hall bureaucrats, and shortsighted company executives have managed to turn the most prosperous city in the world (1945) into a gigantic dump owing billions to banks and investors.
The common element between the province of Buenos Aires and Detroit is the doctrine of progressive socialism. Just like Argentinians have lived 100 years without wondering why their ancestors managed to be so prosperous, their American counterparts are doing the same. Like the proverbial madman they continue to try the same “solutions” even as they see how the problem gets bigger every time they try.
All things remaining the same, we can predict that some sort of disaster is about to awake the world from this dangerous dream because should this madness continue “no flesh could be saved.” (Matthew 24:22)
Quod scripsi, scripsi 