A purported “peaceful protest” about “school funding” somehow evolved into a nationwide wealth redistribution program in France. Shop windows became suggestion boxes. Luxury handbags left their displays under the purest form of progressive taxation. Roughly 3,000 stores were “reallocated,” and young men who had arrived in Europe seeking taxpayer largess discovered that opportunity was on sale without the “sale” part.
By looking at the crowd, I purport that Palestine will not be free until every “French student” of North African or Antifa descent has a Louis Vuitton handbag.
Europe has been on a trajectory of government giveaways, which attract moochers and grifters. This is probably why Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moved back.
Even the USA tried to share our culture with an NFL game in Paris that had to be altered because of the uprising. That’s sad because it was Marie Antoinette bobblehead doll night.
France, accomplished at surrendering, started to wish the Germans never left. The fact that feckless Macron still runs France makes him the luckiest person this side of ChristaPike.
Video footage kept showing the same demographic pattern. Illegals from that region who can no longer get into the USA have poured into Europe. Ilhan Omar cannot marry them all. She is a woman of principle and would never cheat on her brother.
Even Greta Thunberg, who at 14 was the world’s leading climate scientist (according to the left), was in France egging the rioters on. She is demanding a homeland in Gaza, just in time for it to be destroyed by climate change in four years.
Economist Friedrich Hayek’s book, “The Road to Serfdom,” explains all this for those willing to read a real book. Hayek argues that government control of economic decision-making and the welfare state, through central planning, inevitably destroys individual liberty, erodes democracy and leads to totalitarianism. It is an economic theory that has been proven true 100% of the time.
The connection is not subtle. French leftist politicians (not the people) spent years arguing that mass immigration and large pensions and cradle-to-grave government munificence were moral imperatives. It is the logical endpoint of the theory that the more imbibed with entitlement have the strongest moral claim on whatever is still not bolted down.
I learned a lot traveling in Europe. You say hello in Spain by saying “Bienvenido,” in Italy by saying “Benvenuti” and now in France by shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
American Democrats, unfazed by this preview of the results of their policies, are running on “economic justice,” “every creature comfort is a human right” and “tax the rich.” Dems are watching the same film with the sound turned down.
Media began the required ritual of noting that “not all immigrants” participated and that the real problem is inequality. This is true in the same way that not all passengers on the Titanic drowned. The remaining passengers still had a wet evening.
For American voters eyeing the midterms, the French episode functions as a free focus group. Policies that produce large, poorly integrated immigrant populations combined with an ideology of entitlement always explode.
On Tuesday, American voters will decide whether to treat France as a cautionary tale or a promising pilot program.
A libertarian op-ed humorist and author, Ron can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on X.
A libertarian op-ed humorist and author, Ron can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on X.