The Secret Knowledge

the wages of the accomplished will be reduced to parity with his lesser colleague—and, as the wages are reduced, so will be the quality, inevitably, of his work, for he will be told that in spending more time he is wasting the Government’s money.

But what, you might ask, of that surgeon so inspired that he, irrespective of the strictures placed upon him by that Government which has, effectively, reduced him to the status of a medical clerk or technician, what if he, in the age-old spirit of the Hippocratic oath, “bootlegs,” his own time, and expends his own resources to bring a patient to health according to his best lights? Q. Is this not the essence of the Spirit of Medicine? A. It has been down through the ages, but the tradition, for the reasons above, must cease with Government control. Q. But what if the courageous surgeon, true to his creed, insists in this traditional dedication, in excess of that which the Government prescribes? A. Well, then, shouldn’t he be paid more?

93

See the Wisconsin union teachers calling in sick (lying) and employing their stolen treasure picketing the state capital for greater “rights.” Many wore T-shirts reading PROUD TO BE AN EDUCATOR.

94

Some will doubtless cavil that the above is merely a restatement of the Victorian canard that “every man should be happy in the place to which it has pleased God to call him.” To the contrary, it is the assertion that he be allowed the freedom to improve himself, the judge of his accomplishments or “worth” to be not the State, but those individuals, his fellow citizens, whom he has pleased with his goods and services. This may or may not be “fair,” but it is the basis of a just society.

95

Note that even if all elected officials were wise, patient, and capable of all discernment—if they were not the power-mad vote-mad corrupt or corruptible individuals all human history has shown them, in the main, to be—if these officials were actually able to determine solutions to the ancient and heretofore ineradicable problems of unfairness, poverty, greed, and envy—if they were sufficiently capable to supplant the rule of law with their own intuitions, and to codify these intuitions into plans, the plans would still be administered by the same functionaries we see today in Government jobs, with whom we have to deal, pleading, begging, asking, stunned, for justice, and for fairness in the application of the laws (which is to say, for that result we desire).

96

Is it not evident that any organization believing itself “too big to fail,” will more likely, indeed, inevitably, make disastrous decisions? Why should it not—it is Too Big to Fail. But the first rule of any healthy concern is prudence.

97

Thomas Sowell replies, to the canard of the Left, “Yes, but what would you replace it with?” “When a fire is extinguished, what do you replace it with?”

98

Statism must devolve into totalitarianism, as, the state’s power growing, political antagonists will find more commonality with each other than with those not invited to the party (the voters).

99

Correspondence from a friend: “I remember, as a student at Columbia, Mark Rudd and his ilk would storm the Dean’s office and burn our transcripts. Of course he never bothered to ask whether we wanted them burned or not.” (R.T., 2010) But it was change.

100

“Things change. The world’s best rapper is white, the best golfer is black, and France is accusing Israel of Colonialism.”—Jacob Dayan, Consul General of Israel to the United States

101

“Multiculturalism” and “diversity”—now insisted upon as a basic tenet of education, is, of course, directed at Whites. What Black or Hispanic enclave or group insists upon the presence of Whites? Why should they? Why, then, is the White population devoted to this show-and-tell? It is the essential counterweight to affirmative action—the postmodern version of busing. The enormity of these programs is less that they, fatuously, endorse the exposure of whites to People of Color, but that they operationally support the inverse, the idea that these People of Color benefit from White condescension. As such, “diversity” is the stalking horse of affirmative action—it is a happy proclamation of Black inferiority.

102

As Thomas Sowell said, one might complain that this or that activity “ruins his neighborhood”; but that one does not own his neighborhood—he merely owns his house. The attempt to have governmental bodies enforce zoning (and environmental) rules for the benefit of incumbents is a misuse of the power of the State.

103

“The sense of community perceived in Cuba was not only nurtured by the political designs and ideology of the system, but had its subterranean reservoirs and supports in the stereotype of the joyful, life affirming attitude, attributed to the musically gifted song-and-dance loving natives, their natural and politically engendered vitality.” Susan Sontag wrote, “The Cubans know a lot about spontaneity, gaiety, sensuality, and freaking out. They are not linear, desiccated creatures of print culture.’ ” (Paul Hollander, Political Pilgrims, quoting Susan Sontag’s Some Thoughts)

104

In his book Political Pilgrims, Paul Hollander quotes Simone de Beauvoir on her visit in the 1950s, to China: “. . . not a model prison; it was simply the only one in the city area . . . what a difference between this and the American system. (Here) they have a field for sports at their disposal, a big courtyard with a theatre where a movie is shown or a play presented every week. The day I was there they were rehearsing a play of their own. There is also a reading room stocked with books and periodicals where they can sit and relax.” Quoted from de Beauvoir, The Long March.

Please note “the day I was there . . .” the coincidence between de Beauvoir’s visit, and the “happenstance” of