By now, most Americans are familiar with the term Stockholm Syndrome. It’s the bizarre phenomenon of a captive starting to thank, defend, or otherwise begin to feel affection towards his or her captor. As the Encyclopedia Brittanica writes:
The name of the syndrome is derived from a botched bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. In August 1973 four employees of Sveriges Kreditbank were held hostage in the bank’s vault for six days. During the standoff, a seemingly incongruous bond developed between captive and captor.
It also is the phenomenon exhibited by all captives of a government who, due to normalcy bias or sheer ignorance, forget that the normative “state” can exist only by committing threats, acts of intimidation, tax thievery, and compulsion directed at residents.
And so we witness the latest example of captors trying to appear “benevolent” and expecting people to thank them.
As James Pinkerton reports for Breitbart:
Four Democratic senators all up for re-election in 2022— Mark Kelly of Arizona, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Raphael Warnock of Georgia—are now in favor of suspending the federal gasoline tax, which is 18.4 cents a gallon.
Politico notes that the “holiday” would last until the end of the year.
Oh, thank you, great masters.
But, haven’t politicians told us that the tax is really important? It’s “for our own good,” isn’t it?
This makes it kind of hard to decide which is good. Is being forced to pay 18.4 cents more for every gallon to the thieves in DC the good part? Or is being relieved of the thievery the good part of our wonderful “relationship” with these parasites?
Politico observes something completely shocking. In the face of skyrocketing prices across the U.S., the Dems are:
…racing to cobble together an agenda that convinces voters that the party is responding to their biggest concern: rising costs.
Isn’t that nice of them?
They control the money we can use, cage us if we “counterfeit” it, and work with the Federal Reserve to print their own to facilitate their military excursions, welfare programs, and their own cronyist policies and fascist regulatory establishment.
Notes Pinkerton, for Breitbart:
We can pause to observe that rising costs, aka inflation, have always been a Democratic weakness because the party’s basic bent is toward high spending that has the predictable effect of overheating the economy and thus driving up prices.
Yet now, having ballooned federal spending and the money supply, the Democrats shouldn’t be surprised that inflation is raging. Notably, national gasoline prices have surged by 40 percent in the last year, from around $2.40 a gallon to $3.40. So sure, an 18-cent cut the gas tax might help consumer pocketbooks.
But, of course, Democrat policies, themselves (with the help of numerous RINOs) restrict the energy supply, even as they inflate the money supply: an explosive combination.
As Abigale Tardif explained in December, for Americans for Prosperity:
One of Biden’s first actions after taking office was to halt new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters — a move that results in higher energy costs for the most vulnerable consumers.
The administration canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and suspended oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and New Mexico (despite opposition from the Navajo Nation). It also resurrected the ‘Waters of the United States’ rule, which would increase barriers to energy projects.
And, as I noted in January for MRCTV:
That Biden move resulted in 14 states taking legal action in March, last year, to fight for their autonomy, and a court ruling that, for now, has stopped the White House clampdown.
But business owners and corporate boards change their behavior when faced with the likelihood that political forces could hamper their efforts to increase competitiveness or make their investment of time and resources nugatory.
They delay those investments or shift them into other areas.
So, despite the court the fact that, as of November, Biden has ‘reopened’ oil and natural gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, energy execs remember the president’s earlier move, and his vociferous claims that he wants to shift U.S. energy use away from efficient oil, coal, and natural gas and into less efficient sources such as solar and wind. And this can retard the normal course of energy company investment in increasing supply.
The federal excise tax on gas has sucked cash off of captive Americans since FDR pushed for it in 1933, another example of economic insanity and the presumptuous nature of politicians. At that point it was 1 penny per gallon.
Now, it is more than eighteen times higher, and the feds prohibit local sellers from telling you how much of your cost is imposed by politicians.
FDR was criminal for wanting it, and now, as his collectivist ideological progeny hint that they might lift the boot for a few months, it’s important to retain perspective, and know one’s enemy.
We don’t need to live in Stockholm to know about Stockholm Syndrome.
And we can protect ourselves and our progeny if we stand up to their petty games.