During my time in Honduras I had the opportunity to spend a few days in some villages in the interior of the Mosquito Coast, which are inhabited by the Miskito and Pech people who speak a language not at all similar to Spanish. I spent most of this time in a village called Las Marias.
Las Marias is in many respects a leftist utopia. Possessing no electricity (or even running water) they live a low carbon emission lifestyle, eschewing cars in favor of horses and dugout canoes for transport. The people there have no corporations and little income inequality. Instead they work for themselves, planting their own fields, raising their own livestock and even building their own homes. The village even has socialized medicine with -- I kid you not -- its own Cuban doctor who is prone to referencing Che Guevara and José Martí.The reality of the place is a dirt poor village where everyone is more or less equally destitute. Clothing often consists of American discards, most vividly demonstrated by a man who appeared to be in his 50s wearing a shirt that said "Cheerleading is my passion." When the sun goes down any subsequent activity has to take place by candlelight. The village pulpería -- general store -- sold about 10 items mainly consisting of candy, cookies, tomato paste and Colgate. A sudden flood from the river overflowing its banks -- as happened recently -- can wipe out crops and make an always precarious existence even more so. The one room hovels that most people live in do an adequate job of keeping out the rain but also trap smoke from cooking, harming indoor air quality. The list of deprivations is seemingly endless.
The point is that, contrary to what some leftists would have you believe, is that being poor is not virtuous or something to be emulated. Such people live this way because they have few other options. To either laud such an existence or promote policies that would reduce our consumption or standard of living is absurd. We've spent the majority of the human experience trying to raise ourselves up from such a lifestyle, and anyone who advocates a return to it or even a move in that direction deserves our ire.
2 comments:
i think that's a straw man argument (leftists cannonize the dirt-poor)
tho this guy is amazing:
>>most vividly demonstrated by a man who appeared to be in his 50s wearing a shirt that said "Cheerleading is my passion."
Well, I will say that anecdotally when I was in middle school that I had a teacher that passed a handout to all of the students that showed statistics about your average Indian and your average American. The handout lauded the Indians for consuming less stuff and generally leading a more econ-friendly existence while Americans were overfed and whose consumption would destroy the world.
And how many of us have heard that Aamericans are only 5% of the world's population but consume 25% of its resources. The point is that Americans should consume less and that other people who consume less are more virtuous.
So I stick by my contention that "some leftists" would love to see us adopt a lifestyle more akin to that found in Las Marias. Even if few would advocate an existence that mirrors that in Las Marias, many have no problem advocating policies that reduce our standard of living.
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