Conservative Error: The "Doesn't Work" Trope
Conservatives often claim that leftist policies don't work. They are wrong.
This is one in a series of errors commonly made by Conservatives. These errors result not from flawed beliefs but from flawed believers, all of whom are human and therefore fallible and corrupted.
None of the errors discussed is unique to the Conservative movement, but all of them are trending within it. My purpose in drawing attention to them is not to criticize but to warn, especially seeing as I've made most of these mistakes myself and would like to help others avoid doing the same.
Leftism doesn’t seem to work
While it doesn’t work as advertised, it does work as intended
Leftist policies are designed to leech power from the people
The leftist elite are not mistaken, they are evil
The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political Left is that they do not work.
— Thomas Sowell
In late 2021, Representative Jim Jordan (R - Ohio) posted the following on social media:
This is a great question because it highlights the gaping chasm between the utopia typically promised by leftist policies and the dystopia they typically deliver.
After decades of hearing leftists vow to end racism, have they? No, they've made it worse. Have they helped the poor to escape poverty? No, they've instead made them both poor and dependent. Have they improved education? No, they replaced it with comprehensive indoctrination. Have they made anyone freer or anything more affordable? Not without exacting a greater toll elsewhere.
Almost without exception, the Left's prescriptions worsen the very diseases they're alleged to cure, which naturally leads to the conclusion that they do not work. Our mistake in this analysis is that we usually stop here, considering ourselves victorious for having exposed their failures. But in doing so we overlook the reality that these are not failures at all. Their policies do work as intended, just not as advertised.
That's because the Left is not actually trying to "empower women," or "save the planet," or "end racism," or any of the other fist-in-the-air slogans shouted by its brainwashed foot soldiers. It is trying to replace God.
It mimics His omnipotence by amassing power, His omniscience through mass surveillance, His omnipresence by inserting itself into every institution (including the church and the family), His moral character by redefining right and wrong, and His veracity by equating its own declarations with truth.
All of its supposed humanitarian goals are simply misdirection intended to distract from the theft of our sovereignty. Every policy is designed to steal the liberty our ancestors fought and died to secure; liberty that, once lost, can only be regained with bloodshed.
It is imperative, therefore, that we stop mischaracterizing the Left's long history of betrayals and atrocities as mere dysfunction. Statements like "socialism doesn't work" paint the inoffensive picture of an ideology that simply fails to live up to its promises. But socialism isn't the tool of justice and prosperity that it pretends to be; it's a tool of enslavement, and to that end it works remarkably well.
When we say, "the COVID 'vaccine' doesn't work", we foolishly accept the premise that it was intended to stop people from spreading disease. It was not. The "vaccine" is a disease intended to stop the spread of people; and, while not safe, it is extremely effective.
We must stop accepting the Left's stated premises. Their destructive policies are not failed attempts at goodness, they’re successful attempts at evil. The people we’re up against are not making a series of honest mistakes, they are intentionally enslaving and murdering us. Pretending that they aren't -- that they have some other, more noble goal -- may feel better than reality, but it is a fantasy we indulge to our literal peril.