"We Get to Play-act on Your Dime"

I was exchanging emails with a friend about Colorado's Governor Jared Polis, who is putting a vegan on the state board that regulates livestock.

Polis is gay, and he and his "husband" have two children, who go to private school.

Up until now, I have proposed that one of the main aspects of the left's Great Reaction, its lurch back to the primitive, is the Activism Culture, that I say amounts to "play-acting revolution."

But now I am inclined to think that the whole culture of the left, from LGBT to climate change, is all about play-acting.

The idea is that the children of the educated Gentry get to play-act, with sex, with culture, with the environment. On our dime. And if any particular play results in negative results -- even disaster -- well too bad.

Notice how this goes against the notion advanced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his Skin in the Game. He says:

What should I do? I want to help mankind. His suggestion:

1) Never engage in virtue-signaling;
2) Never engage in rent-seeking;
3) You must start a business. Put yourself on the line, start a business.

In other words, don't do anything unless you have Skin in the Game, so that if your idea to help mankind turns out to be a dud -- and most such ideas are -- then you are the one that suffers the losses, not the rest of mankind.

See what I mean? Everything our liberal friends do is at other peoples' expense. If they are professors advocating for the Green New Deal, then it's all gravy for them. Government grants for now, and maybe Green Czar jobs down the line. But if the whole thing wrecks the economy? Hey. don't blame me; I only work here.

Oh no! A pandemic! Shut the economy down, because even one life lost is too much! But whatabout the millions of young people and semi-skilled that get furloughed and fired, while gubmint employees skate for a year and the bureaucrats that set the rules are entirely unaccountable for their mistakes? (And everyone makes mistakes).

If it is the Great Society, to give money to unmarried mothers, and results in 70 percent of children in the black community being born outside marriage? Hey, what's your problem, racist?

If it is gay marriage, suggesting to suggestible youngsters that it is kinda cool to experiment with your gender, well whatabout the kids? An American philosopher once told me that all children want a mother and a father: their mother and their father. I wonder what the social-science research says about children raised by gays and/or lesbians? Or is that even allowed?

If it is "affordable housing" and brilliant academic economists propose low-down-payment loans and liar loans, and the whole thing ends up in a generational financial panic where millions lose their jobs and millions more their life savings, where are the ones responsible? The academics with the brilliant ideas? The activists that sold the idea as a matter of justice? The politicians that bought votes with promises of home-ownership?

If it is electric cars, then electric car manufacturers get subsidies, electric car buyers get subsidies, Elon Musk makes a fortune, and German car manufacturers promise to stop making diesel-powered cars. What happens if renewable energy wind-turbines and solar cells can't deliver the power? Who takes the losses? The greenie activists? The rent-seeking billionaires? The ordinary consumers suffering power outages? The politicians that told us we had 12 years to save the planet?

There are literally dozens, if not hundreds of "issues" for which professors want research money, activists want to virtue-signal, special interests want to rent-seek, and politicians want to buy votes. But none of them have Skin in the Game. None of them will go bankrupt and lose everything they have if their brilliant idea turns out to be a dud. They are, in effect, play-acting on the public dime, kids playing on the jungle gym at the local park.

And what happens if all these grand plans all come crashing to Earth at the same time?

Hey kid. Grow up and stop with the play-acting. Learn what it means to have Skin in the Game and get a life!