Dakota Beacon

Here is a little gem from A-I:

“The Law of Cause and Effect states that every action (cause) produces a specific reaction (effect) and every effect has a specific cause.  Often called the “Iron Law” of human action, it posits that nothing happens by chance; rather, success, failure and circumstances are directly created by previous choices and actions.”

Democrats in a panic today because of decisions they have made yesterday which have simple-mindedly caused economic deterrents to residents and businesses remaining in their domains, would do well to read the above straightforward statement and then read it again and see if they can generate any thought about what they’ve been doing.  It shouldn’t take a genius to figure this out.  It was all crystal clear from the get-go.  When you abuse people they don’t stick around for it.  We recognize those who do as having a personality disorder or mental illness.  

Forever, Democrats have been looking at the poor and blaming the wealthy for it.  Ronald Reagan summed it up succinctly back in 1964: "We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one".   And such is the case with much of the Democrat leadership.  

If you hold an anvil over your foot and deliberately drop it on said foot you will feel a great deal of pain.  Most of us, therefore, would not do that.  At least not the second time.  But this is not true of many of these Democrats.  It should be fairly logical that if you tell the players of a game that those who put their chips in the yellow box will have to forfeit half of them before they start to play, and those who put their chips in the green box will not only have the chance to keep all of them but perhaps win more in the course of the game, that the likely winners will not be putting their chips in that yellow box, right?  The strategy would, of course, be to put everything you’ve got in that green box instead and then go on and play the game.  This all seems too simple to have to write down or read, so I apologize for that.  But yet, however simple this logic is, politicians look it right in the face and ignore it as they concoct their mighty schemes to impoverish the wealthy as their bit to help the poor.

I hope my readers, if such there be, would already have this concept well in hand.  And yet many of our states and much of our country and our cities are run on the idea that Reagan described.  Hence the rest of the argument against “privilege” (or should we say “phantom privilege”?).  

After many decades of increasingly weighted taxes intended to suppress financial gain some of these blue states are finding themselves on the edge of the precipice, with major companies and wealthy and successful individuals and those who hoped to become wealthy and successful someday, packing their bags and leaving for sunnier prospects in “red” states like Florida or Texas.  Recently New York’s communist mayor, Zohran Mamdani has exemplified this style of leadership.  He is looking for anything nailed down or otherwise that he can tax.  This is so he can spread the proceeds of this taxation among the homeless, illegal migrants, the flotsam and jetsam of society who either have no idea how to work or simply reject the idea of work.  Governor Kathy Hochul is in a similar bind.  New York has taxed most of its people into a state of despair.  Hochul sees no problem with needing the wealthier people who used to live in New York to come back to her state from Florida or wherever they went because she needs them to fund all of her programs for “the poor”.  Brilliant.  But she hasn’t learned the first principle of making a deal with someone - it has to be good for both parties, not just one, or it won’t happen.  She wants to go down to Palm Beach and do what ?  Talk her prospective marks into coming back because SHE needs THEM?  Has she encountered the word “incentive”?  It seems that’s a hard no.

California, Illinois and New York together lost approximately $28 billion in revenue in the year 2022-2023.  That’s huge.  What is huger?  Florida, South Carolina and Texas increased revenue by approximately $30 billion during the same period.  Hmmm.  I wonder why that could be?  What is going on there?  Coincidence?  Or maybe the “Iron Law”?  

Because the people negatively impacted by these nonsensical policies tend to be the more capable - dare we say smartest - people, they have concluded that they are currently sitting in the yellow box and need to get out before the opportunity to survive is foreclosed to them.  They look around for reasonable taxes and other favorable conditions for success, such as adherence to the law and a non-tolerance of crime, large and small.  It just doesn’t work to walk up to someone who has earned a comfortable lifestyle through years of hard work and sensible decisions and say, “Hand it over.  Joe Blow over here, camping on your sidewalk in a tent wants it for a better life.”  The first guy will say no.  If that doesn’t get rid of the tax man at his door he will stick a “for sale” sign in his front yard and simply vamoose.  Because he is not dumb.

Now we have some blue states calling for a “wealth” or “exit” tax on people who want to pull up stakes.  This is a real Pandora’s Box of trouble.  Maintaining a property is no longer a good decision, much less improving it.  And with everyone leaving, property values won’t hold up too long.  We all know how that works, don’t we?  Even Democrats have probably heard of that other law of Supply and Demand.  Or maybe not.  

And businesses won’t stick around either.  And when they go, as is pointed out in the linked video, anything they hand over in excessive taxes will not be their money, but rather that of their investors.  Like you.  If you have a retirement plan, insurance, stocks, an annuity, a 401K, anything remotely related to investment in businesses, it will come out of your future.  So you will pay for California’s free needle program and shoplifting program whether you live in Kansas or Wisconsin,  Louisiana or Iowa.  So this should matter to most of us.  

Washington has a tax on those companies which prospered there and through innovation and application succeeded.  Instead of creating a climate to invite them to stay there willingly they think the way to go is to simply attempt to hold them as hostages.  What are they thinking?  Such a policy might slow the flight of individuals perhaps, for a time, but when a business begins losing big-time they will be nothing but a cloud of dust on the economic horizon quicker than you can say “Jack Robinson”, whoever he is, and poof!  There goes another source of revenue, never to return.  

Illinois’ population dropped by 1% over the past decade.  Its budget has increased by 70%.  It would have to in order to satisfy the demands of the kind of people they have attracted through their social and welfare policies.  California’s population increased, but by only !%, while its budget grew by 100%.  And when you have these kinds of numbers we know what happens with corruption.  California’s highly-touted high-speed rail system has so far rung up a tab of $126 billion.  Well, why not?  It’s been in the works for over a decade, spending enormous sums of money and not an inch of track has been laid so far.  Where did all that go?  Wherever it went, it didn’t go by train.  

All of this, which is so crystal clear to most of us (in fact, I feel embarrassed by writing something so patently obvious), is to say that communism, even communism disguised as socialism, does not work.  Again, something we shouldn't even have to say.  I mean, when you spill water it goes DOWN, not UP because of gravity.  If we promise to take Mr. A’s lunch away and give it to Mr. B we know where Mr. A won’t be in five minutes.  

And, of course, another outcome of this kind of policy making is that such an environment as it creates attracts only those who want something that’s free, not something they can earn.  It just compounds the problems for the earners - the innovators, the inventors, the workers and creators.  We can look at California.  In the 1960s, when I was there last, I remember Fisherman’s Wharf as a lively, exciting destination for dining and shopping.  It was demolished this year.  Due to “challenges following the pandemic”.  A pandemic is something that does not discriminate - it hits everywhere.  That’s what makes it a “pandemic”.  But somehow, the pandemic did not manage to shut down Florida.  Gee.  I wonder how that works.  California and San Francisco turned one of the country’s most interesting and vibrant destinations, with a 100-year history into rubble.  That takes a lot of thinking and planning.  And no one does it better than the Democrats.

In 1620, the Pilgrims, perhaps among the world’s most devout, money-where-their-mouth-was communities, sat on the Mayflower off the coast of Massachusetts and made a plan for how to govern themselves in this new wilderness.  Someone suggested they all pool their talent, their sweat and their meager resources and all work their collective butts off producing.  That sounded fair to these devout Christians, all so interdependent and isolated from any meaningful safety net.  No social services.  No EBT cards.  No free rides, no free lunches.  Within the first year it was evident that this simply could not work.  Some did put their shoulders to the wheel and made a gallant effort, but some did not.  Only when they revised their plan to accommodate free enterprise and a system that rewarded those who were productive, did they make this failure turn around.  

Over the hundreds of years since, we’ve seen a lot of failed attempts at creating a Utopia out of good intentions.  It does not work.  It cannot work because people need incentives to work hard, to produce.  That incentive disappears when the tax man comes to his door with his bag to take it all away so he can give it to Freddy the Freeloader down the road who lives in a tree and to whom the idea of “work” is an absurd novelty.  

People continue to hope for this and are as reluctant to give it up as a child is to admit that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy aren’t really bringing them loot.  Real life, it seems, is for adults, not Democrats.  

Maybe next week I’ll rant about some of their other dumb ideas.