Wealth and Cluelessness

At Brushfires of Freedom, we’re about as pro-free people and pro-free markets as any voice on the web. The American free market system, built around individual freedom, limited government, low taxes and the rule of law, has unleashed human creativity and productivity on a scale never seen in human history.

The inevitable bad apples that come along and work the system beyond the bounds of the law—names like Bernie Madoff, Bernie Ebbers or Dennis Kozlowski—cause a few observers to blame the system itself, but for every one of the CEOs who wanders outside the moral and legal boundaries, there are dozens of CEOs who don’t.

About the only aspect of the American system that we consider highly unfortunate is the way the shallowest observers of it (read: the media) tend to equate the accumulation of wealth with the accumulation of wisdom. We’ve paid a big price for this in the last several years.

Put aside the fringe aspects of this phenomenon—such as our culture’s ridiculous habit of asking movie stars their opinions on global warming, or asking Arizona basketball players their opinions on immigration law. We’re talking more about the mainstream of business leadership—people like billionaire investor Warren Buffett and billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

No one can truly quantify the impact that Warren Buffett’s pre-election endorsement of Barack Obama had on the election results. But it certainly gave Obama an imprimatur of credibility with respect to the economy, and no doubt had a calming effect on many who were otherwise disturbed by what their gut feelings were telling them about Obama. After all, if Warren Buffett thinks Obama’s ok and he’s a billionaire investor, then surely that means the future under Obama won’t hold anything radical with respect to the American free market system.

Buffett may be a billionaire and worked hard to achieve it; he may have been trying to buy favor with his endorsement; he may have honestly felt in his heart that Obama was the right guy. Today he could probably give you a hundred justifications for why he was right to do what he did, or why it didn’t really matter, and he’ll probably be buried before he will ever admit he was undiscerning, unwise, and dead wrong. Michael Bloomberg is now the leading face and voice of the politically correct view of building the “Cordoba” mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan. Serious people have serious concerns about the implications and signals that are sent by such an action, but they are all dismissed by Bloomberg as bigoted, intolerant fools who should be ashamed of themselves.

Bloomberg has used part of his billions to buy election to the New York City mayor’s office, and he’s certainly entitled to his opinion on the Ground Zero mosque, whether or not he’s the mayor. But his view is the mark of the ‘spiritual shallowness of intellect’ that we’ve commented on before, that simply doesn’t grasp the God-given spirit and truth of America. Bloomberg invokes sixth grade civics lessons on ‘freedom of religion’, but has no earthly clue of the evil we are facing. Buffett and Bloomberg are peas of the same pod in this respect.

We’d guess the expression “individual freedom and responsibility under God” would get a smirk from both of them, or maybe a condescending smile and wink. We would also guess that the statement that America’s founding Judeo-Christian principles are the reason for America’s profound and unprecedented prosperity and are better than any other society-organizing principles, would also be given a back of the hand dismissal as purely a matter of opinion or, gasp, even worse, an unacceptable, non-morally equivalent comment on religion--as to which the only correct comment is no comment.

Society pays a price for honoring and elevating cluelessness like this. Extinguishing the light that is Judeo-Christian America will send the world into unimaginable darkness. Yet thanks to the high regard afforded billionaires like Buffett on matters of character discernment, we now have a President and an entire executive branch intent on destroying the America of the founding. Buffett still shows no public signs of understanding what’s at stake. And we have a billionaire mayor of America’s financial center who is inviting the malignancy of Islamic jihad into the very heart of Manhattan; at the very place Islamists proved beyond any doubt that their vision of society is irreconcilable with and repugnant to everything that is right and good about America.

So it’s unfortunate---the free market system produces billionaires, and the media treats them as sages on all matters (so long as they are certifiably liberal and PC as to their worldview). Some Americans get fooled as a result, and have to painfully relearn old truths: wealth is not a measure of wisdom; often, it is coincident with utter cluelessness on the most important issues of the era.

Paul Gable

August 10, 2010