Stupid Left Tricks

Which is worse? To have journalists jump down your throat every time you say something foolish? Or is it to have journalists politely ignore your stupidity?

Whenever TV evangelist Pat Robertson says something foolish, it gets on the nightly TV news, and we understand from the reporter’s tone of voice that this time preacher Pat has really demonstrated that he has got a screw loose.

But when a lefty does something stupid, we don’t get the same reaction.

For the last week French students have been rioting because the government wants to take a small step away from the policy of lifetime employment. The government wants to allow employers to fire employees under 26 during their first two years of employment without giving a reason. In the Anglo-Saxon countries this is called employment at will. But the French students are livid at losing the protections that they have not yet obtained. And so, writes Mathieu von Rohr in Der Spiegel “It's youth against the establishment.” But socialists are on the side of the students.

Ségolène Royal, the left wing's likely presidential contender, announced that employers in her départements would no longer receive government funding if they signed what she called "cheap contracts."

OK. A century ago you could still have argued that without protection the workers would be shockingly exploited by the bosses. But not now. We now have 200 years of capitalism and we know that the workers, especially well-educated students at the university, are not helpless. And we know that a rigid labor market, such as the one in France, is a labor market that doesn’t create jobs. Rigidity leads to stagnation; flexibility leads to prosperity.

If French students have not learned this, then someone has been hiding the truth from them.

Then there’s the stupidity going on in South America, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez playing the cacique and distributing low-cost heating oil to left-wing groups all over the Americas. According to Jorge Rueda from the Associated Press “Venezuela agreed Monday to sell fuel oil under preferential terms to an El Salvador association created by a group of leftist mayors.” This is similar to a program he has set up to send low-cost heating oil to the poor in the United States. And while he was at it Chavez lashed out at free trade, using

Monday's signing occasion to criticize U.S.-backed free trade agreements such as the one El Salvador joined March 1.

"They're making deals with the devil, the devil himself," Chavez said.

It’s a pity that when lefties say things like that nobody in the media responds in with lofty scorn. Because we know, as well as we know anything, that the road to prosperity is paved with free trade, low taxes, secure property rights, and an absolute minimum of special subsidies.

At least Pat Robertson gets to hear it when he says something stupid.