We've all heard of the ancient tale of the Pied Piper
of Hamelin, the German story of the fellow who played a pipe to lure the rats
out of the German village of the story's title. As the tale goes, the
mayor declined to pay the piper the agreed-upon sum for ridding the town of
vermin, whereupon he returned later and played his pipe, luring all the
children of the village away in revenge.
There are several variations of the actual story, but
in each case it includes the notion of the children being entranced by the
piper ("pied", of course, refers to his multicolored clothing) and
going off to whatever fate awaited them.
We have our own pipers around, and have for
centuries. Whether for revenge or just power, or whatever, they have the
mystical ability to get the young to follow them, regardless of the expected
fate from doing so. Advertisers, of course. The people who got
whole generations to think that only acts with a guitar and drums constitute
"music."
And, apparently, our latest pied piper, the candidate
herself, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Miss Ocasio, of course, is the candidate for the House
of Representatives from some district in New York City, who remarkably won a
primary victory against a long-time Democrat incumbent, possibly by persuading
a whole district not to vote at all -- the voting percentage among the
electorate there in the primary was barely perceptible (only 27,000 votes were
cast, although some 700,000 people live there in a nearly-half Asian district).
She is an avowed socialist who ran with that label,
possibly part of the reason that her incumbent opponent didn't even show up
himself for one of the debates, figuring she was not worth it.
As we know now, though, although she has a degree in
Economics and International Relations from Boston University, she fumbled
through a series of interviews after her nomination on issues in the Middle
East, clearly devaluing the institution from which she graduated and the
department which actually found her degree-worthy.
But she does indeed have the script down, even though
she appears not to have enough original thoughts to be able to answer simple
questions for which "the script" doesn't have a section. Ben
Shapiro, the brilliant young conservative speaker, offered to give $10,000 to a
charity of her choice for a debate, and she called him "sexist" and
declined. Go figure.
Having her script down, she is in a perfect position
to lead children to the slaughter. That was on view in a video where she
is addressing a group of children outdoors and introduces herself:
“I’m the Democratic nominee out here for Congress
so I’m going to go to D.C., and we’re going to be fighting Trump. This is what
we need to do: when you go back home, you talk to your mom, your dad, your
aunt, grandma, sisters, anybody over the age of 18 that can vote — first you
need to ask your parents to vote because if they don’t vote, then we can’t kick
out Trump."
This is socialism in 2018. This pied piper is
out there trying to influence kids to get their parents to vote for her.
So she can help those children? Um, no. So she can promote policies
on the economy, or foreign affairs, or the military, or immigration? Um,
no. So she can "resist."
Socialists have no ideas left that work, so all they
can do is chart a course straight for power, and in this case it means simply
resisting the opposition, in this case as exemplified by President Trump.
Would it have killed her to take the opportunity in front of those eager young
minds to explain what she is, you know, actually for? I still
don't know, because she is squarely in the bucket of identity politics and
seems not to say anything other than the usual scripted nonsense.
Assuming she gets elected -- it's a safe Democrat
district -- then Nancy Pelosi, as minority leader (we assume the Democrats
don't have the stones to replace her) will have to assign her to
committees. Can you imagine the committee chairs all lined up in Pelosi's
office begging that she not put Ocasio on their committees? I can.
Who needs someone with no skills other than the ability to recite a script
supposedly defending their positions?
The kids that Ocasio was telling to help her "get
rid of Trump" will likely forget who she was in a few days; they're kids
after all. But eventually, her piping will start getting through, given
that no one else is there to explain to them that there's no such thing as a
free lunch, and "free college tuition" is not actually free, and that
$15 minimum wage laws cost far more jobs than they help.
I can't recall what actually happened to the children
of Hamelin. But I can tell you what will happen to these children,
eventually. They will be encrusted into a welfare state in New York, as
governed by leftists like Gov. Cuomo and communists like the mayor, Bill Di
Blasio, and stuck there for life.
Ironically, the rats will also be there.
Copyright 2018 by Robert Sutton
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Economics? She was pushing Venezuala as an example? She won't be around long....
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