WEBCommentary(tm) - Harvesting Our Rotten Fruit

For years liberals of all stripes from socialists to communists to all out fascists have been planting seeds in our society. It became clear to them in the early part of this century that America was not quite ready for the revolutions that swept their fellow travelers into power across the globe in places like Russia, Germany, France and Italy. Something about the right of the people to keep and bear arms still being believed in at the time put serious kinks into that plan. So they opted for a more subtle approach on America’s shores.

Their approach amounted to what was the original “Operation Chaos” where the goal was to sow enough seeds that would bear enough rotten fruit and cause enough pain, suffering and ultimately chaos and then blame the results not on their policies that caused these things but on free-markets, liberty and everything America once stood for. Well, it has worked. We now have orchards full of bad apples, vineyards full of sour grapes, and many other types of rotten produce from these seeds sown years ago that are ready to be harvested today. Now liberals are merrily walking among the trees picking them one by one.

It has taken a while, but the biggest harvest of all is ready to be presented to us. We have had smaller harvests over the years but none this large. Even though it looked at times like Americans would turn their noses up at being handed such unsavory sustenance, the nation kept turning back to those that planted and tended these crops.

At one time the farm they now tend had been abandoned entirely as settlers to the New World learned quickly that the rotten fruit of economic collectivism was not palatable, lead to shortages, suffering and societal collapse. But then, many years later, others found this discarded tract of land.

It started small. A seed here. Then another seed there. And slowly but surely those who started this farm rose to power. Woodrow Wilson planted the seed of price controls. Franklin D. Roosevelt planted seeds that would, among other things, blossom into trees whose fruit when eaten brought massive takings from the paychecks of workers to pay for the loyalty of senior citizens to the farm.

In the 1960’s LBJ bought stake in a small plot on the farm and planted vines that grew quickly and entangled much of the other plants. The fruit they bore brought forth grapes that provided for the solidification of federal control over the public schools, taxes to further wed seniors to government through Medicare, and brought the “poor” on board the farm with Medicaid. And that was only the start.

Over the years since, many others have come along and have been given their own plots and panted more crops, all only capable of bearing rotten fruit, but that have flourished surprisingly well as the people have demanded they keep growing such things. Some crops when planted provided that banks would lend money to bad risks who had little or no hope of paying the loans back and then saddling hardworking taxpayers with the bill. Other crops as they were tended to caused the prices of commodities to rise by artificially dictating that there would be limited supplies either by laws that prevented their profitable creation or by federal subsidy to simply not produce them. Still other crops produced brown and putrid fruit that established a “minimum wage” that made it unprofitable for businesses to hire low skilled workers and increased unemployment or forced these businesses to consider illegal labor.

Over here there is a patch of smelly pumpkins that ushered in the belief that it was government’s role to bail people out who made bad choices with their money. Just beyond those are trees whose pears, brown and disgusting, brought to us public funding of art that most Americans would not pay a solitary penny to see but makes aristocratic wannabes bristle with pride, their noses are in the air, as they look down upon the masses and such outdated concepts such as religion and patriotism. And beyond that there is a well established plot on which is growing fruit which pays people not to work.

Yes, and now the grand harvest is ready. It is being prepared and being handed to us - all the rotten fruit of all this labor. We are told to eat it. We are told to accept it. We do not want to, but hey – it’s free. So maybe we will take it and be happy to make ourselves and our nation sick.

J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com