AJ DiCintio

Where’s the Guilt?
February 23, 2009
 

Every person who refuses to embrace the dogmas of the Liberal Church knows that the self-proclaimed superiority of liberal "reason” is a myth because much liberal "thought” is driven by neurotic guilt (to which we must never forget to add the love of power and the love of being ruled).

However, in as fine a piece of work as he has ever produced, Irony has given liberals something to properly feel guilty about while seeing to it that not a word about guilt is heard from all of Liberaldom, where celebrations over the administration’s multi-trillion dollar spending spree are all the rage — except for pauses that allow the revelers to scorn Americans who beg the nation to take full notice of Consequences, the huge, unyielding elephant in the room.

Unfortunately, history teaches that neither guilt nor reason has much chance of giving liberals pause about endangering our sovereignty through debt so large that nations holding it can exercise influence over us in a manner they could never achieve otherwise.

Neither does history provide good news regarding the possibility that liberals will vow to kick the pernicious habit of committing what John McCain excellently termed "generational theft” (the Senator’s creative coinage surely aided by his years of ruminations over how to describe the behavior of madly spend and blithely borrow latter-day Republicans).

But for good reason, hope does spring eternal in the human breast. So it is that I offer the following to roil up proper feelings of guilt in a few liberals — that very modest goal necessary because most of the gang lie beyond hope when it comes to controlling an appetite that increases with the sale of every federal bond.

Dear People of China,

I write to you as one who considers it a duty to offer some observations about the Obama administration’s attempt to borrow its way to prosperity through an Everest of debt — the lion’s share of which the president and his supporters hope your nation will purchase.

Without asking you to worry about the consequences this policy will wreak upon the lives of Americans (because you must rightly put Number One first), here’s why American liberals believe you are much better off using your wealth to purchase American debt rather than using it at home.

A tax cut to create more private sector jobs in China’s "one nation, two systems” society?

A very good idea — except to those who assert full employment China doesn’t need to jolt a single additional job into existence, firmly believing in their collectivist heart of hearts that upon being notified of the need, China’s central planners will immediately create a good job for any of its 1.3 billion souls.

Infrastructure development?

According to liberals, China has no need for new or improved roads, bridges, and airports because its population is so dense that 98% of folks never even think of traveling out of town.

What about sewer lines and the industries they would spur into life? Well, multicultural experts that they are, liberals explain that even middle class Chinese enjoy the social interaction and the health benefits they derive from walking to the end of the block to use a public toilet.

Education?

During the past two decades, tens of thousands of us ordinary folks (whom liberals prefer to call "Ugly Americans”) have visited China, where even in Beijing’s elementary schoolyards we have seen boys peeing into buckets.

Silly us. We think those beautiful youngsters would appreciate the convenience and privacy of indoor lavatories. But liberals demur vociferously with a dissertation on Chinese culture that explains China will zealously wish to preserve the "cultural integrity” of its schools even when the nation has completed its hundredth mission to Mars.

Energy research?

What for, if liberals are right that 95% of the Chinese people hate conspicuous consumption so much that they need only enough electricity to power a few light bulbs and a tiny television set? Not to mention the number of bicycles in Beijing alone, a deliciousness that sends Al Gore dreaming the sweetest of dreams (despite the very inconvenient drone of very private jet engines).

Health care?

Sure, China might wisely use a couple trillion yuan to develop a smartly structured private health care system. But liberals extol the beauty of the nationalized system China already has in place to provide fantastic health care full blast and free.

(Now you know why liberals argue ferociously that on health care, America needs money to imitate China, not the other way around.)

The environment?

Everyone with common sense argues that China would be wise to forgo buying American debt to use its wealth for sound environmental purposes. However, a very powerful someone named Nancy Pelosi maintains San Francisco has got an endangered mouse problem that of itself makes every last concern of China’s EPA look perfectly petty.

Yes, if Madam Speaker should visit China, she’ll be certain to beg you to buy our debt so that the new administration can reverse environmental neglect so vast that China is entirely justified in joining a hundred other nations that condemn the USA as "Ugly America.”

And consummate politician that she is, she’ll gush a San Francisco Bay of praise on China’s pharmaceutical, milk, vegetable, fruit, fish, fowl, pet food, paint, steel, drywall, and electrical power industries — though to appease her environmentalist supporters, she’ll allow they are in need of minor environmental tweaking.

I hope these few observations have helped you understand why liberals are all in a sweat to have rich China finance poor America’s renewal.

As I’m sure you have figured out, I hope, too, you’ll tell those liberals that if the American people want sustainable economic growth, they’ll have to earn it through morally responsible behavior that emphasizes individual initiative, hard work, saving, and sacrifice.

Of course, politics being what it is, deals will surely be made to encourage China’s autocrats to make suckers of the Chinese people.

If that happens, you can count on this consolation: