A VERY MODEST PROPOSAL

This past week saw two political issues dominate the national news: the border wall and the proposed “Green New Deal”. The arguments and the outrage from both parties were predictable. The Dems/Socialists supported Occasional-Cortex’s Green New Deal but argued that the border wall was impractical and ineffective. Republicans/Libertarians, by contrast, supported the wall but found the Green New Deal to be fanciful and dangerous. Rather than leaving the debate in the hands of the talking heads, I would propose that we put the issues to a practical test and see who’s right. Our republic was based on the concept that each state would have the freedom to experiment with different policies and thus serve as a “laboratory of ideas” to inform the national body politic. So, let’s nominate California (the most progressive of such laboratories) to act as the proving ground for the efficacy of both the border wall and the Green New Deal. Under such a proposal, California would immediately (a) build the wall along the entirety of its border with Mexico (with federal funds) and (b) implement the Green New Deal in its entirety as outlined in AOC’s well-circulated talking points/FAQ memo. We’ll check the results in three years and evaluate both policies accordingly. Is such a proposal unreasonable? Of course not, but everyone, on both sides of the aisle, knows precisely how that experiment would play out: the wall would eliminate essentially all illegal border crossings into California, and the Green New Deal would wreak unprecedented economic and political havoc. It’s precisely that clarity of outcome that the Leftists want to exclude from the description of, and advocacy for, their policies. Remember, they know what’s best for us, whether it is or not.