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July 6, 2005
Live 8 would work better as Live 1776
Demands were made for renewed commitments from the industrialized world to provide the resources (money) the performers believe will help solve these plagues. The G-8 conference of these nations was visited by thousands of demonstrators who, obviously having nothing better to do, laid out the same tired solutions that have failed to generate any meaningful change for the better. Simply demanding more investment without a long-term vision of what that investment will create will only continue the power of the dictatorships already in power. There isn't even a need for naming one because almost all have the same elected for life expectation for power. Sine the 1970s, world bodies individually and collectively have poured billions of dollars into the area with almost nothing to show for it but new names on the walls of oppression. And this, the need to change the social and political structures creating the problems in the first place, is not discussed by the entertainers seeking absolution through their good deeds. Why you ask? The answer is so glaringly obvious it begs to be stated in terms so elementary that even they should understand if they were only willing to look - liberty and the right to own property free from the ability of the latest warlord to take it from them. From the Sudan to Zimbabwe, from the Ivory Coast to South Africa, the people are constantly in need of someone or something to guide their existence. Their tribal past has never been eradicated and most are still forced to live in a village mentality more suited to life a millennium ago. A thousand years ago, in fact, the tribes were separated by distance as well as language and customs. Warfare between the tribes has been recorded since the days of the pharaohs and the practice of taking prisoners and reducing them to slavery for at least that long. Sadly, it remains as one of the only areas left on earth where slavery is still practiced. Today these tribes can attack, ravage and enslave rival tribes using the latest in modern warfare technology. For those who don't remember or choose to forget, the genocide in Rwanda was caused by the warring Hutu and Tutsi tribes. Elections have become a means for one tribe to legitimize its dominance over their rivals and nothing more. And if you are stupid enough to oppose the ruling establishment, you risk having what meager dwelling accommodations you might have razed to ground, as routinely occurs in Zimbabwe. When our President attempted to make lack of liberty an issue with regards to future assistance, he was branded heartless and self-serving by liberals who still believe money will solve everything. Even with evidence of half finished dams and aqua ducts, roads started but never finished and power systems that fail as much as they work, the stance remains that if only the rich would give to the poor their poverty would go away. They refuse to look at how much individual liberty has played a part in developing every country where a high standard of living exists. For more than 70 years now, our youth have been and continue to be indoctrinated into a fantasy world where individual effort and striving to achieve is secondary to feeling good about the things you would like to accomplish. The left wing extremists have been very successful in this endeavor partly because it is so easy to implement a program that allows failure to become acceptable. Perhaps this is why the education establishment comes up with excuses rather than meaningful programs to fix a system where less than half of all students graduating from high school are proficient in math, science or even their own history, but that's another topic. What none of the liberals will allow to be discussed is how absence of a middle-class has stopped economic progress not only in Africa, but the old Eastern Bloc and Russia as well. They will always refuse to investigate this aspect of national development because to do so would put every assumption about the role of government in jeopardy. What they will find is an American middle class that decided 229 years ago to do something no people had ever done before: declare their independence from a tyrant king whose unjust laws and excessive taxation had reached a point of excess they could no longer tolerate. Chief among their complaints was the ability of the king to deprive them of their property and, thereby, their liberty. The Revolutionary War they began would eventually cost many of the signers their fortunes, families and some even their lives. One percent of the colonial population would become casualties, a number equal to 3 million of us today. Their sacrifice provided the means for creating the greatest liberty-loving nation on earth - the only one with a Constitution written to limit government power and enhance the power of the people. Yes, if they were truly interested in helping the impoverished peoples of Africa they would study how the United States began. Of course, with the manner in which the liberal activists of the Supreme Court seem determined to undermine our liberties, they had better hurry or the example may be gone. Little writes from Pahrump. His column, "The Other Side," appears here on Wednesdays. |
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