Friday, September 7, 2018

The Pied Piper of Socialist Nonsense

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
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton

1 comment:

  1. Economics? She was pushing Venezuala as an example? She won't be around long....

    ReplyDelete