Writing at the American Thinker, Lloyd Marcus asks, somewhat rhetorically, if California Governor Jerry Brown is mentally ill. My answer: Only if confusing what he’d like to be true of humans with what he knows (or should know) to be true can be so defined.
Many liberals, including Brown, simply cannot accept that humans are, by their lights, so terribly flawed. Doing so would plunge them into the very pit of despair. So they choose somewhat consciously to believe better of us all, by their lights.
Taken to extremes, you see the outcome of such willful self-delusion in Venezuela where a country rich with petroleum reserves cannot feed itself, or even produce much oil. The problem at its base - a refusal to understand how we humans “work,” what makes us tick, what set of incentives (and disincentives) motivate behavior.
What “works” is tough love, rewarding those who produce, in a word, “capitalism.” The Jerry Browns of this world cannot stomach this reality. Oddly, I believe his father Pat had a much better grasp of human nature, and was a far better governor; one in whose shadow son Jerry will forever stand.
Later ... in fairness, I guess I must add that if his son's present behavior is any indicator, Pat Brown was a better governor than he was a father.
