Cleverness is not wisdom

by BD Pisani - 2009 feb 15

Thus spoke the Greek playwright Euripides, on the folly of smugness stemming from knowledge. Knowledge does not necessarily equate to wisdom and oh, how knowledgeable our perfumed princes and princesses in Washington have become.

Smugly so.

Joint Session of Congress

Where do these nattering elites gather the confidence to imagine that their economic giveaway schemes, having never worked in the past, will now magically prove successful? Perhaps elected Democrat Party members are so ideologically driven, so blindly partisan, so beholden to their legion of special-interest cadres that they cannot do otherwise.

Perhaps they cannot admit their mistakes because to do so would be an admission of ideological failure. And so it is that rather than display wisdom, rather than forego their egotistical belief of infallibility, they steadfastly refuse to recognize indicators of a pending economic disaster their actions will surely bring about.

The folly of egoism

First, our condescending Congress passed the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) in October 2008. This inconceivable figure was supposed to relieve banks and lending institutions from the burden of bad assets forced upon them by "knowledgeable" congressional members such as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

$350 billion, or half of the TARP has already been released to the banks, yet no one seems to know what the banks have done with the money. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy about them getting the other $350 billion, doesn't it?

Next, the "knowledgeable" Obama, The One, and his congressional acolytes foisted the $787 billion spendathon on our already strained economy, with the stated objective of "stimulation." Pure dreck -- and filled to the gunwales with slimy, oozing pork.

How will nearly $800 billion in social bribes -- generational theft as Senator McCain aptly named it -- stimulate the economy and create millions of private-sector jobs? And exactly which producers are supposed to pay for all of this booty being redistributed to non-producers? And oh, by the way -- this is only the beginning.

William J.H. Boetcker There are Democrat schemes already in place to pilfer from the national treasure and eliminate yet more American freedoms for the next several years. The maturation of our fledgling Welfare State is upon us.

Wisdom trumps knowledge

In 1916, a German-born man raised in Erie, PA, a Presbyterian minister ordained in Brooklyn, NY by the name of William J.H. Boetcker, authored a wisdom-filled pamphlet (often erroneously attributed to Abraham Lincoln). In it, Reverend Boetcker included what he termed "The Ten Cannots."

If only our elected leaders and some of our misguided citizens would heed these words:

  1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift;
  2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong;
  3. You cannot help little men by tearing down big men;
  4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer;
  5. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich;
  6. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money;
  7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred;
  8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn;
  9. You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence;
  10. And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Reverend Boetcker also noted that "The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone." Where are such leaders today, when America needs them most?

Stay involved, stay focused

Finally, the following insights are what Boetcker called the "Seven National Crimes:"

  1. I don't think;
  2. I don't know;
  3. I don't care;
  4. I am too busy;
  5. I leave well enough alone;
  6. I have no time to read and find out; and
  7. I am not interested;

Do these statements apply to Americans today, America's Worst Generation, nearly 100 years after publication? It seems they do, else we would not have the deplorable representation with which we have been saddled.

And as far as the current ruling class is concerned, their expansive conceit has produced insolence toward the very people they allegedly serve -- and blindness to reality.

We must hang together and long enough to remove these elites before their blind hubris brings about an American calamity from which we cannot recover, because as Obama and Congress are proving:

Knowledge does not equal wisdom.