Concerning True Poorblindness

Wingnutettes and wingnuts, the most desirable of demographics from Fox-on-15th-Street's point of view, are well known to suppose themselves personally to be colourblind, which condition, far from being any sort of defect, affords the unafflicted endless opportunities for self-gloatin’ that if, perchance, there are still some remnannts of a racial problem in the United States, all least that fact has nothin’ whatsoever to do with wunnerful them.

Since this ploy has worked -- and keeps tight on workin’! -- so well for the ploysters, Neocomrade R. J. Samuelson and other movers and shakers of Rio Limbaugh might want to consider extendin’ it to the problem discussed this fine holiday morning: why don't they just proclaim themselves ‘poorblind’ as well?

"Some folks," R. J. Samuelson might neo-orate, "can perhaps never see a stranger without instantly classifyin’ her economically. But, ¡thank Father Zeus!, I am not like that! Dives an’ Lazarus are all the same to me!"

Needless to say, once poorblindness has become the prefered self-saucin’ for Neocomrade R. J. Samuelson and the F-15 crew and all their ideobuddies, it follows ineluctably that all the neocomradely community’s Uncle Sam must be poorblind as well. Anythin’ else would be unconstitutional. Obviously.

Not quite so obvious, perhaps, are the policy implications. I may be wrong here, but I believe on the whole they would be just what Neocomrade Dr. P. G. Peterson, Freelord and Kiddiemaster Concord, might have ordered: the Fedguv must be conducted on a strict fee-for-service basis.

PROOF: Sam can set prices for his services because to do so requires knowing only his own expenses. But even flat-taxers err against poorblindness insofar as they must demand to know what Neocomrade R. J. Samuelson’s income is in order to charge X.Y% of it for services (supposedly) rendered.

Hence a really strict "don't ask, don't tell" attitude towards wealth and poverty, that is to say, True Poorblindness, forbids anythin’ so un-American as taxation, in the sense ordinarily given to that word.

Q.E.D.

This plan may be rather too good to flourish in the real world, yet anybody who considers that a significant objection to it ought to find the True Colourblindness of Wingnut City and the G.O.P. almost equally problematical.

Such lieberals and demoncrats as doubt the latter to begin with should notice that in neither case do the neocomrades have to be *literally* blind to anythin’ at all. OF COURSE our Betters will know very well who is rich and white as opposed to poor an’ black-or-tan. The ‘blindness’ consists only in Their promisin’ never to make decisions, outside the secret sector [*], on such invidious bases as pigmentation and credit rating.

And who would venture to disbelieve promises made by Betters?

Healthy days.

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[*] Delineating the boundaries of the secret sector is itself a well-known can of worms.

In conjunction with the True Poorblindness Plan (Pat. Pend.), the immediate point is first to rehabilitate Neocomrade R. Paul of KY and then to comply with his unfashionable oracles. Individual entrepreneurs who waive their Zeus-granted secrecy rights to the point of operating, for example, a greasy spoon into which anybody may walk and maybe even sit down, cannot decently be required to pay no attention to whether they are dealing with Lord Dives and Kiddiemaster Peterson (not to mention well-salaried agitprop neocomrades from Fox-on-15th), or only with lazy Lazzy and Joe the Hobo and the occasional Mother Teresa.

The Panera Intergalactic Trust LLC seems to be attempting, misguidedly, to apply poorblindness in a secret-sector context, but I anticipate that the attempt will break down sooner rather than later. In a way, that attempt broke down even before it started: the Baní Panera feel obliged to suggest sandwich prices to the unimaginative.

That breakdown may point to the general solution, however. Let every customer exhibit her proposed payment to obtain admission to the sanctums of commercial secrecy. A twenty dollar banknote in hand ought to do the trick at Panera, and even Mother Teresa might accidently happen to have such a thing as that from time to time. In any case, there need be no *general* inquisition into anybody’s poverty or unpoverty: Dives and Peterson would not get in on the basis of how expensive their suits look or what their chauffeurs drive; they, too, would have to have the cash in hand. Should they find that prospect humiliating, well, they can always have lunch at the Union League Club or the Burnin’ Tree Club, refugia magnatum conducted in full compliance with the Randpauline regs.

(But Mammon knows best.)