“Inflation is a man-made scourge, made possible by the fact that most men do not understand it. It is a crime committed on so large a scale that its size is its protection.”
Ayn Rand
If the public opinion polls are to be trusted, the top issue for most Americans fresh off this Fourth of July weekend continues to be inflation. God bless Americans for it. Good to see most Americans still have their practical wits about them, at least on the surface level.
Yet, as their food and gas bills continue to balloon almost as much as their waistlines and the national debt, I wonder if most Americans also realize that the inflationary crime committed against them by the Washington elite is probably the most expensive and vast heist ever pulled off in human history.
After all, the prevailing policy this July 4th seems to consist of robbing the American people blind today so they may hopefully see themselves and the world saved tomorrow. Yet, funny enough, tomorrow never seems to come into view. What follows, instead, is an endless series of todays marked by one crisis after another to be perpetually pillaged for a safer, happier, and equitable future that is always on the horizon but never quite arrives.
The question then must be asked, cui bono? Who benefits, wittingly or not, from this long con? And is the benefit only of monetary value? Or is there something much more priceless at stake?
When Milton Friedman quipped inflation is “always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” he was only partially correct. Man is much more than homo economicus. Man is also a political animal (zoon politikon, as Aristotle would say,) and so too does inflation have a political element. Inflation forever walks hand in hand with the false promissory notes of centralized political control.
Indeed, the US federal government has so inflated itself with so many grandiose goals that it now uses inflationary measures as a matter, of course, to blithely steal from the people all while calling it a service — expanding the money supply while evermore expanding the government’s power and privilege. Just as inflationary bad money drives out good sound money, a badly inflated sense of national politics drives out good local institutions and sound civic traditions. Not only has the dollar lost its value over the last century, so too has local politics.
Yet listening to our global ruling elite is considered a good thing. It’s all part of the plan. In fairness, the fraud here may not even be conscious. The elite do seem to earnestly think the only way the world can progress into the future is if Americans are coerced into following some central global plan. From climate change to pandemics to Ukrainian independence to the war on poverty itself, we’re told sacrifices must continue to be made by the American people so that the experts may illuminate the way forward, even if there is no clear path anywhere in sight.
Call me cynical if you wish, but I suspect such noble goals are merely a Trojan Horse for more and more centralized political control. Aspiring omnipotent governments love to present their solutions to real and imaginary problems as selfless gifts from on high to the hapless people below. However, once these gifts are inside the city gates, witting and unwitting saboteurs always proceed to set fire to the people’s liberty, desecrate the people’s traditions, and saddle households and families under the conforming pressure of regulations, mandates, taxes, quotas, subsidies, penalties, and the like.
This Leviathan breaks your leg, hands you a crutch, and then claims you could never walk in the first place. This Goliath picks your pocket, gives you a pittance back, and then claims the money was never yours to begin with — and that you should be grateful for its gigantic generosity! This Colossus then insidiously goes on to use the reality of its imposition to teach you (and especially your children) to equate its own control with the very concepts of community, cooperation, and even the family itself — slowly but surely unmooring the people from those local and informal bonds that would otherwise keep them free and independent of power. And all this is done until the people only know how to say “We are the government; the government is us.”
Upon further inspection, a keen eye can see this long con plainly enough in the propaganda of the powerful. In fact, once you see it, it’s hard to unsee. Not only has our money been inflated away, not only has our liberty been debased, but so too have our local institutions been devalued, as the true bill of republican self-government “all politics is local” has almost been fully driven from the scene under the messianic banner and ominous shadow of making the world safe for Democracy. For example, consider Hillary Clinton’s favorite proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
Seems like a virtuous and true enough sentiment, right? Who doesn’t want to live in a village where your neighbors look out for you and your children while you do the same in return? But, this isn’t the village Hillary Clinton has in mind. Her appeal to the folksy wisdom of the village is merely a means to obscure what’s really on the agenda — one that goes far beyond the purview of our local villages, townships, cities, and even our childhoods. Apparently, in Hillary Clinton’s mind, a diverse nation of 350 million-plus people, a nation of nearly 20,000 actual cities, can be managed like a single “village” where childhood never ends. If only we surrender more of our dollars, liberties, and governing decisions to the globalist central plan, Hillary thinks “the children” of the United States can be prodded to live up to their God-given potential.
However, there is another way.
If Hillary Clinton and her ilk honestly believe it takes a village to raise a child, they will give power and liberty back to the actual villages and households of the United States.
If the American elite honestly consider themselves champions of the American people’s well-being and prosperity, they would be wise to remember the idyllic American democracy once praised by Alexis de Tocqueville was local, voluntary, and infused with the spirit of religion — held together by faith and hope in the villagers to manage their own affairs on their own terms rather than submit to a central plan.
And, if most Americans truly wish to address the issue of inflation after celebrating this Fourth of July, they must begin by training their eyes to see that their money isn’t the only thing that has been inflated away by Washington D.C. The inflationary crime committed by the Washingtonians is much bigger than most Americans ever wished to imagine — a crime committed on so large a scale that its size is its only protection against another 1776.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and currently, the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 9 am-12 noon. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback please email newsandviews931@gmail.com. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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