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PROSPERITY:
Economic Policy | December 9, 2004
A
WARNING
FROM
THE
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
A
Posting in "Comments
From Left Field"
By
"The Scarecrow" *
Greetings,
ye on the Left! It is I again, The Scarecrow, returned from the
grave to avenge the wrongs perpetrated by the Right!
A
word to the wise is sufficient...or so said that sage of your
country, back in my century, one Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin
and the other Founding Fathers, and Mothers (for men had not a
monopoly on arms or reason), fought in the Colonies the same
enemy as my brave band fought back in the Mother Country;
namely, King George and his henchmen.
But
verily, the tyranny that oppressed us both was much greater than
that imposed by one demented man (the mind of our monarch was
becoming increasingly affected by the disorienting effects of a
disease of Venus that I believe he had contracted during a
misspent youth).
Our
enemy was the aristocracy, moreover the entire frame of mind
that holds some men and women -- and their entire lineages -- as somehow more worthy of property and liberty and wellness and
justice than others, who are condemned -- often from cradle to
grave -- to a status not unlike that of the beasts who bore our
burdens.
In
your present age, my most modern friends, there does, happily,
seem to be more opportunity for one of humble birth to achieve a
more comfortable position in society...although that seems to be
less and less a possibility for more and more hard-working
individuals with each passing generation. It reminds me not only
of our aristocracy in Old England but also of the
"caste" system in our old Crown Colony of India.
In
my day and place, King George kept power by ensuring, as through
the distribution of the burdens of taxation, that not only the
highest aristocrats but also the next several tiers of landed
gentry were kept fat and happy...at the expense of the remainder
of the country, whose labor is the source of all wealth -- that
according to one of our sages, the great philosopher
John Locke.
In
your day and place, what I see seems increasingly, alarmingly
all too familiar, although with power -- monetary, political,
and otherwise -- more in the hands of business corporations
than under the control of government institutions: The latter
reined in by your most admirable Constitution and its
inestimable Bill of Rights; the former -- the power of
employers over employees (moreover exercised over the public at
large) -- governed by laws and regulations enacted in the wake
great depressions and other calls to reason but slashed
in more recent, I must say more foolish times.
Your
humble servant doth try to speak most truly, to not insult your
conscience or intelligence. If I have misread the circumstances
of the world in which you live -- as opposed to that
mesmerizing, often fantasy-filled world so tantalizingly
delivered through those tele-vision and other devices that are
seducing as much as informing your world -- then I offer my
most humble apologies.
But
if I am even in some degree correct, then I offer not my
sympathies for your most serious plight -- not unlike the fate
that we and your Revolutionaries did face -- but this challenge
and admonition: If you who are enlightened, whatever your status
in society, do not speak up and stand up for what is true and
just, then who will?
My
world is gone; your world -- and that of your children and your
children's children -- is here and now. Take good care of it,
and of you and yours.
Your
obedient servant,
The
Scarecrow
*
My alter-ego, after the
classic 18th Century character created in the early 20th Century
by Russell Thorndike in his Doctor
Syn novels, adapted in various films. No endorsement of my
commentaries by any other individual or company exists or is
implied.
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