Who’s Afraid of France?
Is America at risk of becoming like France? This analogy is often used by pundits to argue against one point or another. If ObamaCare is not repealed, we will become like France. If we don’t get our fiscal policies in order, we’ll resemble France. If President Obama gets reelected, he’ll turn us into a France-like country. The problem with this comparison is that France does not bring to mind dire consequences.
Most Americans do not fear becoming like France. If they know anything about the country, it’s usually from being a tourist, and a tourist-eye view of France looks appealing. Having run a business there, I know that it’s not … unless you are politically connected or rich. To understand France, you need to work, not play, in the country.
In general, you can classify the French into three classes. There are the privileged that went to great universities and then settled into a cushy government job. If your job is in business – other than protected gastronomies – you definitely feel second rate. It’s considered gauche to be a capitalist – or a capitalist’s lackey. The French tolerate business, but only to finance their all-pervading government. The third class is unemployed and dependent on the largess of the government for food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare.
France has had snail-like growth for decades with a large portion of the population unemployed or semi-employed. Those who work in profit-oriented enterprises are ruthlessly squeezed. They must support both the comfy government elite and the under-class. France is a country run by rules, with bureaucrats as the rulers. On the surface, it looks good … and if you are among the elite, it is good. But this is not France as perceived by most Americans. If a slap-the-side-of-your-head example is needed, we must look closer to home.
Detroit, Oakland, or any other city that has suffered under Democratic control might provide a more illustrative model. When Democrats have controlled a city for decades, ghettos and barrios grow larger and more hopeless. The problem with a comparison to machine-run cities is that progressives have done a superlative job of blaming others for the misery of inner cities. Besides, Americans may not see the connection between city pay-to-play politics and what is happening at the national level. What’s needed is an example inside the United States where our national government has taken full responsibility for people – cradle-to-grave. Luckily, we have just such an example in our Native American reservations.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs holds Indian lands in trust for the benefit of tribes and has offices that provide for every aspect of Indian community life with a mission to “enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives.” The Bureau of Indian Education has a mission “to provide quality education opportunities from early childhood through life in accordance with a tribe’s needs for cultural and economic well-being.” The goal of Indian Health Services is to “assure that comprehensive, culturally acceptable personal and public health services are available and accessible to American Indian and Alaska Native people.”
Native Americans have the full benefit of a generous and benevolent government. How are they doing? According to the Indian Health Services Fact Sheet website, “The American Indian and Alaska Native people have long experienced lower health status when compared with other Americans. Lower life expectancy and the disproportionate disease burden exist perhaps because of inadequate education, disproportionate poverty, discrimination in the delivery of health services, and cultural differences. These are broad quality of life issues rooted in economic adversity and poor social conditions.” This doesn’t sound like the government is patting itself on the back for a job well-done. Despite the proliferation of gambling casinos, average household income on the reservation is $33,300, as compared with $46,200 nationally, and the poverty rate is 21.2 percent for Indian families.1 This is disgraceful.
If someone wants to see what life will really be like under pervasive officialdom, they should visit these websites: Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education, and Indian Health Services. Despite the recital of dismal facts on these very same sites, government bureaucrats use rosy narratives to disguise their abject failures. This is deceitful.
The Obama administration is doing more than spending a quarter of our nation’s production. It is propagating the idea that a fair world would put government in charge of more and more aspects of our lives, and an expansion of rights and entitlements will make us happy. This is deceptive.
The Founders had a different model in mind when they wrote and ratified the Constitution. They meant for the true shield of liberty to be enumerated, balanced, and decentralized powers with potent checks on abuses. They did not believe that government protected rights, they believed government threatened rights. The Framers strived to harness government powers to reduce the risk of tyranny. We move away from this model at our peril. We should be helping Native Americans escape the clutches of government instead of extending that lousy model to the rest of us.
James D. Best is the author of Tempest at Dawn. Look for his new book, Principled Action, Lessons from the Origins of the American Republic
