The Left: 233 years of failure and still going strong…
James Hickman

On the 1st of October 1791, the 755 freshly elected members of France’s brand-new Legislative Assembly took their seats for the first time in Paris’s famous Salle du Manege– an indoor horse-riding arena that had been converted into a giant meeting hall.

While there were numerous political parties in France at the time (and many of the members were independents), the legislators were ultimately divided into two ideological groups.

On one side were the Feuillants, who were in favor of a strong military, strong monarchy, strong economic production, and stable trade relationships with the rest of Europe.

On the other side, multiple groups formed a coalition that became known as the Montagnards. They advocated for the violent overthrow of the monarchy, price controls (punishable by death), export bans, prohibition of religion, rent forgiveness, and a constitutional right to public welfare.

When these two ideological sides first filed into the Salle du Manege in the autumn of 1791, the Feuillants sat on the right side of the hall… and the Montagnards sat on the left.

This is where the concept of the political ‘left’ vs. ‘right’ came from– the labels are based on where the two sides sat back in the early days of the French Revolution. And practically from the beginning, the Left burnished its reputation for destruction.

Even in the 1790s the Left controlled almost all of the newspapers, and they routinely ran idiotic horror stories about how the Feuillants represented an existential threat to France.

The Left claimed to be a party of the people. Yet the vast majority of their party bosses and representatives were well-to-do elites and middle-class professionals (mostly lawyers) who had never done a hard day’s labor in their lives.

They were totally out of touch with their constituents, and they were completely unqualified to fix the problems that their own policies were creating– inflation, economic depression, war, crime, and widespread social unrest.

This proud tradition of incompetence, hypocrisy, and subjugation from the Left has continued for more than two centuries, from the Reign of Terror to the Soviet Union to the extreme poverty of Cuba and Venezuela.

Today’s gifts from the Left include eco-terrorists who deface monuments and hijack public roads, while their leaders fly to climate conferences on their private jets.

They gave us “mostly peaceful” protesters. Appalling crime rates coupled with prosecutors who refuse to put criminals in jail. Gender-affirming care for children. Drag Queen Story Hour.

The Left also gave us vaccine mandates. They gave us idiotic rules, like the infamous six-foot social distancing commandment that turned out to be totally made up.

They gave us the worst lockdowns of the pandemic… and leaders who refused to follow their own decrees. While the peasants were told to cower in fear in their homes, Nancy Pelosi and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot went to the salon. Gavin Newsom dined with his wealthy donors.

And anyone who disagreed was erased off the Internet… for the Left also gave us censorship and cancel culture.

They gave us hoax after hoax, from the manufactured Russia collusion lie to the Wuhan wet market nonsense. They gave us a weaponized Justice system riddled with double standards and conflicts of interest.

They gave us 40-year high inflation. Skyrocketing food and energy prices. Modern Monetary Theory, which suggests that debts and deficits don’t matter.

They gave us the worst military humiliation in at least a generation with the shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan. They gave us a world where adversary nations and groups run wild with impunity. They gave us an epic border crisis in which millions of migrants enjoy taxpayer-funded benefits.

And rather than acknowledge their own failures, the Left gave us hilarious excuses for the problems they created, blaming virtually everything on either “greed” or “climate change” or “racism” or DJT.

It’s not just the US– it’s Canada, Australia, Europe… much of the world is infected by the Left.

Europe has become overrun with refugees. Once they set foot on the continent, Europe’s legendary bureaucracy makes it virtually impossible to deport illegal migrants. And lavish public benefits continue to attract even more.

(In totally unrelated news, violent crime, rape, and murder has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels in European countries that were once considered pristinely safe.)

Voters are sick of it, and the political pendulum may be finally starting to swing in the other direction.

Europeans took to the polls over the weekend and rejected the ruling class of incompetent fools who have been wrecking the continent.

Naturally the media has dutifully begun to wail that Europe’s parliament has been taken over by jackbooted far-right extremists. Their basic logic is that everyone who is tired of their failure must be irredeemably racist and prone to revolutionary violence.

This is, of course, a familiar line that goes all the way back to the 1790s when the Left painted their political opponents as evil existential threats, even though it was the Montagnards who destroyed the country and imposed the Reign of Terror.

With such a horrific track record that literally goes back more than two centuries, it’s extraordinary that human intellect hasn’t evolved sufficiently to become immune to the Left and all of its false promises.

And yet, even after three straight years of chaos, destruction, inflation, and national humiliation, there continues to be a serious possibility that the Left will prevail once again in the Land of the Free this November, potentially sweeping both elected branches of government.

Even the mere thought is exasperating… because we already know what to expect: more deficits, more debt, more inflation, more anti-capitalist policies, more military weakness, more border crisis. War would become far more likely. The dollar will almost certainly lose its reserve status.

It’s shocking how many powerful interests are deliberately trying to make this happen.

Last week, for instance, Time magazine published the most nauseating puff piece about Joe Biden, with page after page dedicated to selling an image of a fit, strong, experienced, mentally sharp professional who commands the respect of the world. Even the ‘fact check’ section is hilariously softball.

When asked whether he was able to handle the rigor of a second term at his advanced age, Biden shot back, “I can do it better than anybody you know.”

Yes. Out of 350+ million souls in America, he and he alone is capable of leading the nation. It’s the height of arrogance. (Yet they claim the other guy is the sole narcissist.)

These people don’t solve problems; they create them… and make them worse. And America cannot afford much worse.

I’ve beaten this drum for years, but I hope it’s obvious by now that any rational, thinking individual ought to have a Plan B.

  

Simon Black, as James Hickman is more commonly known, is the Founder of Sovereign Man. 

He is an international investor, entrepreneur, and a free man. His daily e-letter, Sovereign Letters, draws on his life, business and travel experiences to help readers gain more freedom, more opportunity, and more prosperity.

Hickman is a lifelong entrepreneur and investor that’s traveled to more than 120 countries on all seven continents. In addition, he’s started, invested in, or acquired businesses all over the world. 

He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the US Army as an intelligence officer during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Hickman founded a South America-based agriculture company that has become one of the leading producers in its industry. A few years ago, he acquired a prominent retail brand in Australia, purchasing the business from the former 1980s era rock star who founded it. 

His other business ventures have included starting a boutique, private investment bank that boasts some of the highest levels of liquidity and solvency in the world, and investing in companies from Colombia to Uzbekistan. He also serves on numerous Boards of Directors, and previously served as Chairman of company listed on a major stock exchange. 

Writing under the pen name Simon Black, he has also written extensively on business incorporation and tax residency establishment in Puerto Rico, and is a proponent of investing in gold and silver as a hedge against inflation.

He is a also a prolific writer on topics ranging from second residency and citizenship, Golden Visas and portfolio diversification, to estate and retirement planning, asset protection, tax optimization and US Opportunity Zones.

 

www.schiffsovereign.com