CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, July 12, 2021

The March of Folly marches on

History will record that, prior to January 20, 2021, our southern border was under control and getting even more secure. We had zero inflation. Iran’s nukes were neutered. We didn’t need foreign oil. Our economy was recovering from wrong-headed, state-imposed Chinese virus restrictions. Think: Pent-up demand.

But big city burning, looting, and killing, prompted by the untimely death of George Floyd were still problems. Democrats claim de-funding the police will stop the violence. Go figure.

Except for the continuing violence in the Democrat-run cities, all of the positive achievements of the previous administration started going down the dumper on January 20, 2021. So, one wonders if the people pulling the strings to the Biden Regency* are mentally impaired or cleverly following a hidden agenda designed to undermine the U.S. Constitution and turn the United States into just another miserable Socialist State? You decide.

But let’s be non-conspiratorial and assume the missteps of the Biden Regency* are merely exercises in government folly which, unfortunately, has plagued humankind ever since Fred and Wilma Flintstone said, "Let’s form a cave-owners association." Also, let’s not judge Fred, Wilma, the Greeks, the Romans, and even Napoleon based on 20/20 hindsight, but on what they knew at the time.

As Barbara W. Tuchman details so clearly in her The March of Folly, the story of the Trojan Horse is universally instructive. Faking retreat, the Greeks left a huge replica of a horse outside the gates of Troy and appeared to sail back to Greece. Trojan wise men cautioned, "Do not take that blasted horse inside our gates. The horse is some kind of trap!"

But the apparent defeat of the Greeks was just too delicious for the leaders of Troy. Hubris trumped common sense. You know the rest of the story.

One would think the Biden Regency* would know better than throw open our southern border and invite the world to "come on in." Recall, in 1990, the Schengen Convention abolished border controls and passport requirements between the E.U. nation-states. So doing, unleashed the Muslim invasion of Western Europe, resulting in a spike in the number of rapes of non-Muslim women and the creation of Islamic enclaves into which the police dare not enter.

Is the Biden Regency* blind to what happened in Western Europe or is the Biden Regency* trying to increase the number of people who are likely to vote for a Socialist state? You decide.

History is replete with other wrong-headed decisions that blew up in the faces of the men and women who made them. Wise men told the mentally impaired King George III (fortunately, nuclear-release codes had not been invented) to make some modest concessions to the American colonists. Had King George listened, July 4th might be just another date on the calendar. When Germany’s Weimar Republic (1918-1933) dove trillions of Reichmarks into debt, runaway inflation impoverished millions of Germans and set the stage for the rise of Nazism and Adolf Hitler.

Runaway inflation and unchecked illegal immigration on top of unsafe cities and towns have the potential for a massive social and political upheaval. Americans would be wise to recall that History repeats itself.

*Regency: A group ruling in place of an official who is absent or disabled.

Suggested reading: The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara W. Tuchman, 1984. (William Hamilton can be followed at GETTR.com, @WilliamPenn.)

©2021. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com