18 June, 2011

Liberalism And Robin Hood

A lot of people don’t understand Robin Hood. I think that statement applies almost equally to the left and the right. Perhaps it’s tilted more to the left though. I’m not sure.

Anyway, the left likes to portray Robin Hood as their hero, and the right lets them get away with it. We’ve all heard “Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor”, as if such a thing would somehow be heroic. At least the right seems to get that such a thing is not heroic at all, but liberals don’t. It’s their core philosophy. That’s what their fantasy of income redistribution is all about. They want to rob from the rich and give to the poor. They want to keep doing it until no one is rich and everyone is poor. I’m not sure who they’ll rob after that, but I imagine they’ll find someone.

However, anyone who has ever really paid attention to the Robin Hood story knows that, in fact, that’s not what it’s about at all. Robin Hood fought an oppressive, corrupt, and over taxing government, in order to give the money back to the people who had been crushed by this oppression and taxation. This storyline appears in just about every version of the Robin Hood tale.

So, here’s a question for you. If you fight against an oppressive and corrupt government that is taxing the citizens into the poorhouse, in order that these citizens might be able to keep their own money and live fruitful lives, are you a hero of the left, or the right?

Or, put another way, who is more like Robin Hood, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), or President Barack Obama (D-USA)? And which one is more like the Sherriff of Nottingham, or Prince John?

If you’ve been paying attention, you know the answers to these questions and don’t need me to point them out. The sad thing is that Obama probably thinks he’s like Robin Hood, and DeMint probably doesn’t. Not that DeMint doesn’t understand the Robin Hood tale. He may very well. But I don’t think he thinks of himself as a hero of the people. He’s just doing his job. Note: that’s not a sad thing.

So, the moral of this story is, as it often is when dealing with the left, don’t let the left control the narrative. Robin Hood is no more about “robbing from the rich to give to the poor” than it is about war against aliens in outer space. It is about fighting against a tyrannical government, intent on destroying the freedoms of the people.

UPDATED: Had promoted Prince John to King John (it is that way in some of the older versions of the tale). Fixed.

3 comments:

  1. That seems to be a common problem not just the Robin Hood story. The Left always tries to control the narrative. They seem to conveniently forget the true facts of every story.

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  2. Exactly right! Good post!

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  3. Kevin, couldn't have said it better myself.

    AE, thank you!

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