Clinton / Royal ----- No Difference?

A Clinton Puff Piece in Wapo:

The Washington Post ran a defensive story put out by her campaign staff that borders on hilarious. The context attempts to distance any similarities to the Clinton and her defeated counterpart in France, Ségolène Royal.

"But as presidential candidate Ségolène Royal was defeated by a conservative man who had been France's chief law enforcement officer, the Clinton campaign was quick to dismiss comparisons between their candidate and her Socialist counterpart across the Atlantic. "Other than the fact that they are both women, they don't have much in common," said Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director."

One has to wonder what the story would look like had Clinton's "Socialist counterpart" won a victory in a such a torned up society that the French are struggling with today. How many spin cycle settings are there on Clintons publicity machine? The very liberal and socialist policies that France has embraced under Chirac would have certainly continued under Royal. And the similarities to what Clinton's America would be, show many comparisons to that of Royal and Chirac. Tax-payer funded national health care ring any bells? Royal and Clinton have both embraced the centrist/Third Way policies that are only a form of appeasement that has produced nothing but failures.

"In the 1920s, Ludwig von Mises, considered by many to be the most important and consistent capitalist theorist, attacked the "middle way" of mixing capitalism and socialism. In his book Liberalism Mises wrote, "There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way."

When you profess that it is the governments responsibility to provide the economic welfare to the masses, it also force's the government to set the social policies for such a re-distribution of wealth. That is called socialism! And this nation was not founded on these principals.

While Hillary Clinton tip-toes in her centrist/third-way modus, that appears to appeal to much of the democratic party and some moderate libertarians, the only way to implement these policies are to raise the tax base-----take more of our hard earned dollars out of our pockets. It never occurs to Clinton or the democratic party that tax-based revenues generated from a free market can supply most of the needs of an infrastructure in our society. And supply side economics works best when the government stays out of the picture.

Any government that injects it's policys into a free market driven economy is a recipe for disaster, and invites the un-employment rates the likes of France.

Will Wilkinson writes in the National Review Online via cbsnews:

"The French economy, suffering a snail's-pace economic growth and double-digit unemployment, is widely regarded as a bit of a basket-case compared to the United States and other healthy, developed economies. This lack of economic oomph is often justified by France and its friends as the price of the vaunted French "quality of life." But a study published last week by Deutsche Bank Research shows that the French people, far from feeling fantastic, report decidedly mediocre levels of happiness. A lack of economic dynamism is largely to blame."

"Why so glum? The numbers show that high average incomes, a low unemployment rate, extensive economic freedom, and relatively open labor markets tend to boost happiness levels, while generous welfare handouts, lower levels of inequality, and bigger government have little or no positive effect. The areas where the French do relatively well, such as low inequality and size of government, tend not to make its people feel much better, while the areas where they do poorly, such as unemployment and economic freedom, take a real bite out of happiness." Read Wilkinson's complete article here.

This is what we can look for if this nation falls for France's version of Hillary-Care.

Update: Ed Morrissey at CQ has a relevant post up titled Desperation Of The Left