Government: The Culture of Betting the Farm

but in a better world...

We have all kinds of narratives about government. That it protects us. That it guarantees our rights. That it make us safe.

But I want to advance the idea that politics —or government — in the end, amounts to a culture of betting the farm. Your farm.

We see this in the eternal practice of political leaders down the ages grabbing every resource they can and every man they can to provide funds and flesh to provision their current war.

The fundamental political act is to defend the border against the tribe or the nation next door. But why stop there? Why not take the neighboring state out, just in case?

Or you can go to the next stage and declare the neighboring state as not just an enemy threat but a moral danger. That is obviously the game that started with the American Civil War. What? You guys are seceding? How dare you, you evil slave owners!

You can certainly see that frame occurring in World War I, with the Triple Entente all riled up against the Teutonic Threat.

Then we have World War II with the Nazi Threat, the Cold War with the Commie Threat, the Gulf Wars with the Oil Threat and the Muslim Extremist Threat.

But underneath all this, I suggest, is a male instinct that a political leader is not a Real Man unless he risks everything to prove his manhood. This issues from the concept of male honor as courage.

Of course, no political leader really risks everything; he's got his nice little nest egg offshore, just in case. Instead he risks his nation’s everything: its credit, the value of its money, its industrial economy, its young men. its women. Usually, the result is not exactly encouraging.

Unfortunately for us Americans, the victory of the US in World War II was the most overwhelming military victory in all history. It has encouraged our leaders to believe that they are the heirs of a special divine intervention.

Our lefty friends of course just know that they are helping the arc of history bend towards justice, so no farm, no risk, right?

Hey, Mr Politician: you are not a real man unless you can repeat WWII!

But usually, I suggest, the average political campaign is at best a draw, and usually sacrifices national treasure and national lives and human well-being in a shabby campaign that tricks the people through a group psychosis into supporting the leader’s need to risk everything.

We have been treated to a number of examples of this in the last few years, with the COVID panic as Example No. 1. The COVID panic showed how easy it is to mobilize the people in a whole political entity against a presumed existential threat. For me, a particular facet of the COVID experience was the astonishing speed at which women got on board the whole thing.

Now, I am reading today about the real-estate crisis. Housing affordability is now at the lowest on record.

The housing market affordability index is now ~10% BELOW the 2006 lows. This is officially the least affordable housing market in US history. Mortgage rates in many states are approaching 8% and the median house now costs 560% of the median income. In 2008, the median home price was 360% of the median income.

Why, you ask?

Because of the government program that almost forces Americans to bet the farm on their mortgaged homes: Fannie & Freddie.

See back in the 1920s you couldn't borrow more than 50 percent of the purchase price and you couldn't get a 30 year fixed rate on mortgage and you had to refinance after 10 years.

Result? Housing was affordable.

But now that your neighbor can bet the farm on a low down 30 year fixed rate mortgage it means that you have to bet the farm too.

Back in 2008 it was “greedy bankers” that caused the financial crash.

No honey, it was gubmint.

And it's not just government leaders forcing us to bet the farm. It's the World Economic Forum and its leader Klaus Schwab urging us to make the Great Reset to reimagine the whole global economy without fossil fuels and enforcing their idea with ESG scores for corporations. Guess what: Klausi isn't betting his farm on a carbon-free future. He's betting YOUR farm.

Then there's the AIDS crisis. Did you know that there's a conspiracy theory — advanced by JFK Jr and others — that HIV the virus is not a problem but that AZT the drug, as pushed by Dr. Fauci and his NIAID, was the cause of many AIDS deaths? So Fauci & Co bet the farm of the whole gay community on his AIDS drug. But you are not allowed to disagree, or else. Especially if you are a scientist: nice little NIAID grant you got there; pity if something should happen to it.

You know what I think? I think that the meaning of “life, the universe, everything” is a world in which the ruling class does not, cannot bet the farm with the lives, the fortunes, and the sacred honor of their people.

Am I living in a dream world, or what?