Don's Tuesday column

       THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   1/14/2014

The values we all need from “Son of Flicka”

“Hey, Dad, I’ve got an idea that could make us a lot of money—it could even make us rich!” So went a line by a young Roddy McDowall in “Thunderhead, Son of Flicka” (1945), as he, his Dad and his dad’s friends (including a forest ranger) conversed in front of the ranch barn. It encapsulated so much about the values of life—so much that liberals seem to want to wish, will or ignore into insignificance.

“Dad,” of course, represents the preeminence of the nuclear family headed by a father. The father performs the essential role (aside from helping create offspring) of representing, to the boy, how to be a productive and valuable worker, provider and creator of a good or service. Tens of millions of dads, together with moms, create and sustain the economy by working for someone or hiring someone and, with little governmental guidance or interference, exchanging something for monetary value. Eons before there were state and federal governments poking their collective noses into the private affairs of citizens, people contracted to hire, get hired, sell or buy in honest exchanges with their fellow citizens. That image was absorbed and emulated by sons and daughters throughout history, thus assuring civilization of its sustainable and productive future.

The government was represented by the ranger, there not to regulate, mandate or supervise the family’s affairs but as a simple steward of the forest—the shared responsibility of the people (but not privately owned by them). The part of the forest owned by “Dad” was put to productive use for timber, range, animal husbandry or a homestead, thus showing the son the distinction between governmental versus private utility. They needn’t any ranger, official or politician to tell them to take care that what the father used was not despoiled or wasted, depriving the son or daughter of their future.

It would have been ludicrous to think that any use of their land and possessions was capable of affecting the weather, the climate or the world’s people. The sun, wind, rain, snow and earth preceded them and would go on long after the children, grandchildren and endless generations faded into memory. Extremes of weather or climate would be limited to what could be ascertained from records, such as were available; a normal, rational person would have to admit that, compared to ice ages of the past, a warm climate would certainly be preferable to a cold one.

Let’s then consider the universal and timeless economic lessons in that simple quote: Dad and Mom are the most basic of economic units, providing either a breadwinner and homemaker or multiple income streams. Children raised in such circumstances emulate what they see and become fascinated and inspired by the productive, and hopefully joyful, example that their parents set. Human nature aspires to self-reliance and usefulness, especially upon seeing and learning the rewards of having skills, ideas and industriousness—yes, getting ahead, making a lot of money and even possibly getting rich. Just as a warmer climate is preferable to a colder one, abundance is far preferable to poverty.

Indeed, only a free and open economy with few barriers to one’s skills, ideas and industriousness—an economy that has until recently defined America—can foster the most abundance for the greatest number of its citizens. The current fallacious obsession with so-called “income inequality” is precisely opposite to, and undermining of, such widespread abundance. Nearly one-third in the lowest economic sector rise over their lifetimes into the middle class, or higher; they don’t get there by governmental redistributive tax policies.

They won’t get there by higher minimum wages, which only affect a few percent of working people. Minimum wage laws have been shown in extensive studies, as well as by common sense, to inhibit those entering the workforce, with the least marketable skills, from getting jobs. The boy quoted above certainly didn’t get skills or talents from minimum wage laws; he probably learned the most valuable lessons from working alongside his dad and mom for a small allowance. Learning good work habits and having responsibilities alone hardly qualify a boy or girl for an artificially inflated wage but, combined with marketable skills from a job or school, will set them on the path to abundance.

“Political correctness” and multi-culti/diversity nonsense contribute nothing to their ability to work, earn a wage or salary, or come up with “an idea that could make us a lot of money.” They certainly are not motivated to “make a lot of money” so that the government has more to give to lazy people living on welfare, food stamps, disability, unemployment benefits, subsidized housing and income credits. Some say they’re not lazy; I say they should prove it by performing work or service, and test nicotine-, drug- and alcohol-free, before receiving any such handouts. Sound harsh? Let them subsidize their own bad habits, the way I see it, by working for their money like everyone I know.

Liberals do not cherish these values: traditional families with a father and mother; self-reliant people earning and keeping the fruits of their labor; and government limited to protecting constitutional rights, and placing a light burden on productive, wealth-and-job-producers. Those are, however, conservative and Tea Party values; if Republicans embrace them, they will keep the House, win the Senate and, ultimately, the Presidency.