Left, right, left, left right...

Well, as often happens, the conversation on Twitter last night turned to the ever-favourite topic of Left versus Right, where the argument on the right is for sensible, sustained economic probity and that on the left is for a pillage of all profit for the furthering of the mistaken goal of equality in some form or other.

Into last night’s mix, along with the usual dogged chewing of the socialist slipper was interposed the lovely, if fantastically deluded, views of one of my favourite and loveliest of Tweeters; that once upon a time (presumably in a fairy tale wonderland) mankind was egalitarian and generous and loveliness abounded. Then the evil ogress – you know who they mean - turned everybody, overnight, into grasping, waspish, evil malcontents. 

The left see it as greedy that people wish to hang on to the fruits of their own labours and decide for themselves how to spend it. They tell themselves that the right are incapable of compassion. The left believe that only they understand human nature and only they have the answers. Or should I say answer, for they have only one. Donning Lincoln green they assiduously steal from the rich to give to the poor. Or at least that’s what they think they’re doing. 

But it’s not wealth they steal, it’s freedom and responsibility. Those with wealth often have the means and now the motive to avoid punitive taxation. The greedy without wealth quickly learn how to milk the system. And always and for ever the honest few in the middle are alternately raped or denied; the middle classes pay out the lion’s share while the truly needy get shafted and nobody is happy about it. That’s socialism in action, right there. 

But arguing with a leftie - sorry I mean a lovely flower of the field - is a hopeless task. What we have actually works pretty well on the whole. The sick and the poor are better cared for than at any time in our history. Kids are not turned over to factories and mines at fourteen and everybody lives far too long for their own good. Where we are deficient it is most often down to the misuse of resources by a bureaucracy that just doesn’t trust you, but then spawns its own corruptions. Big state = bad state and everywhere it’s been tried has endured poverty and oppression. 

The Left's Final Solution

But despite the fact that we are now wealthier – all of us - than we have ever been, some would have us turn ever further left. In marching parlance that would be “Left, right, left, left...” In a little known and oft-denied study from the 1930s a European nation turned so far left they ended up donning uniforms, marching a lot and hailing a mighty leader as a demi god. There’s no such thing as ‘the right’ it’s just a euphemism for ‘as far left as you can go’.