Frank Speidel: Why they fought
On an April morning more than 250 years ago, an armed insurrection against the greatest military power in the world erupted.
Why? For more free stuff?
Some still think it was to secure our endowed, unalienable rights.
Last week’s Election Day ought to have been a ringing affirmation. Instead, we were given a wet, plopping warning.
Locally in Chester County, the poll books, maintained, produced and distributed by Chester County Voter Services directed by Karen Barsoum, did not include third party voters or independents.
Oh well, mistakes will happen, as when the office of Prothonatory, vacant because of the resignation of Ms. Debbie Bookman while under investigation, was left off the primary ballot in April of this year.
A primal truth we hold is the people chose to whom they will grant governance. Competence in assuring all the peoples voices are heard ought to be essential not optional in Chester County Voter Services. Leaving out the independent poll books speaks of incompetence.
Bookending Chester County’s failing and flailing at counting our votes is the election of an Uganda-born socialist as mayor of New York City.
The election of Zohran Mamdani warns of what New Yorkers view as the reason for governance, not securing rights but getting our fair share of free stuff.
Promising rent freeze, free city bus service, free child care, city-run grocery stores freed from profit driven management, a minimum wage of $30 per hour, and a two percent New York City tax on those making more a million dollars a year, Zohran was elected.
Channeling Sally from A Charlie Brown Christmas, all Zohran wants is what he has coming to him. He just wants his fair share
Mamdani, longtime member of the Democratic Socialist of America, benefited from our ignorance of socialism, the belief that public ownership of property and resources makes for a better society for all.
That threadbare idea, that government and committees are better than a free market place at allocating goods and resources has been repeatedly tried. The results shine and shimmer in the economies of post-World War II eastern Europe. But then they did not have the Zohran and his mom and dad to lead the way.
250 years ago, other good things happened. In Edinburgh, the Scottish Enlightenment bloomed in the writings of David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume’s aphorism that “Truth springs from argument amongst friends” is worth carrying around in these days of scolding.
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations explains the value of a free market in the optimally efficient allocation of resources, labor and capital through the “invisible hand” of individual self-interest. Smith also thrashes the foolery of tariffs, despite President Trump defining it as “the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.”
Politics, like misery, acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. We get to see Zohran and Donald both grasping for power to tell others what to do.
We have come a long way in 250 years.
Frank Speidel, MD, is a retired emergency physician, US Navy Flight Surgeon and former hospital CEO. He was EMS Medical Director for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Chester County. He is also a Gulf War veteran, honored to serve as Senior Medical Officer on the USS Dwight D Eisenhower (CVN-69) from 1990 to 1991. He is currently producer and host for The Doctor Is In on MLTV21.
