The Chimera

posted at 5:44 pm on December 15, 2009 by Doctor Zero

In Greek mythology, the Chimera was a monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. The term has come to be synonymous with nightmares and illusions. Modern America is infested with these monsters, and politicians are very dedicated to fighting them… with swords forged from billions of tax dollars, and shields woven from the dessicated remains of your shriveled liberties.

The proponents of Big Government programs frequently excuse their waste and inefficiency by hinting at the terrible things that would have happened, if they had not taken expensive action. The recent stimulus bill, a fountain of pork-barrel waste and theft, is defended in these terms. You should be thanking the Democrats for saving us from a 5000 Dow and other economic horrors, instead of asking tough questions about how that money was spent, and how minimal its benefits to anyone except targeted Democrat constituencies have been. If the Democrats decide they need another $300 billion in stimulus spending, you should be quick to hand over the cash. The Chimera is always lurking in the shadows, ready to strike, and no price is too high for keeping it at bay.

One of the most laughable attempts to excuse poor government performance with phantom terrors is the infamous “jobs saved or created” metric employed by the Obama Administration. It’s the kind of reasoning employed by primitive witch doctors, demanding tribute and respect for keeping the demons of the night at bay, and taking credit for every morning where demon-related casualties are zero. It’s not even political rhetoric… it’s superstition.

The mythological Chimera was said to breath fire. The modern version breathes greenhouse gas. The global-warming scam is based on manipulating data to create the ominous shadow of a monster lurking in the indeterminate future – a shadow so terrible that questions dismissed as suicidal madness. Speaking in Copenhagen today, Tony Blair conceded the Climagate scandal renders global-warming science “not as certain as its proponents allege,” but quickly added that it would be “irresponsible” not to take this fraudulent science seriously anyway. There is no escape from the Chimera.

If the global-warming cult is given the fantastic amount of money and power it demands, it will spend the rest of history assuring its victims that only swift and unquestioning compliance with its agenda prevented a global catastrophe… which could return at any moment. Make no mistake: giving in to the climate-change elite will bring about the creation of the most powerful, lavishly funded religion the Western world has ever seen, and it will never stop issuing dire threats to maintain its position. The Chimara can never be permanently slain, and you will never be allowed to stop fearing it, or paying for protection against it.

Even when statists are given the power and money they demand, they are quick to excuse their failures by claiming they weren’t given enough. The absolute global failure of every form of collectivism – from fascism and communism to American-style liberalism – is always dismissed by saying enough money wasn’t spent, the State was not given enough control, or the “right people” weren’t put in charge. If 90% of a society comes under the domination of the State, every calamity will be blamed on the 10% who remain free. The American left demands more government spending, including a vast new government health-care system that will add trillions to a total government liability, including Social Security and Medicare, that already exceeds $106 trillion dollars. That’s nearly double the GDP of the entire planet. There literally isn’t enough money in the world to appease the Chimera.

It’s instructive to note that no private industry would be allowed to use the kind of rationalizations and evasions Big Government routinely deploys. A business that justifies no return for vast payment, on the grounds that various hypothetical disasters were avoided, would be prosecuted for fraud. No corporation would be allowed to cherry-pick positive developments as evidence of its success, and write off the negative consequences of its actions as someone else’s fault… or wave them around as further proof of its greatness, since things could have been so much worse. No business is large enough to make grandiose claims about controlling the entire economy, anyway. Politicians are small men who declare themselves titans, and expect us to pay for their battles against epic monsters. The idea that someone could control the commerce of a nation produces the imperative that someone had better try, or else.

The tendency to make grandiose promises, take credit for anything it finds worthwhile, and frighten the citizens with tales of hypothetical doomsdays that only Big Government can reschedule are hard-coded into its very nature. Few politicians can see a dead beast without feeling the urge to strike a pose of triumph over its remains. There will never come a day when government tells the voters they don’t need its help any more. No government project is ever finished, and no liberty it takes from the citizens can ever be safely returned. We should bear this in mind when evaluating government’s promises, or measuring its accomplishments… and most especially when we hear it describe the monsters it promises to protect us from.

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