From California to New York state, Arizona’s illegal immigration law has been making headlines. In what is perhaps a last ditch effort, the state chose to enforce border security and stop criminality that comes with undocumented immigrants.
But last Friday residents thousands of miles away in New York witnessed something similar but quite different: an aggravated, disheveled, undocumented senior citizen.
70-year-old Representative Barney Frank, (D-MA) was heading out to New York’s Fire Island. The New York Post reported that the Massachusetts congressman failed to contain his exasperation when a ticket clerk at the local dock rejected his request for a $1 discount ferry fare to the island. Frank did not possess the necessary Suffolk County Senior Citizens ID to take part. Something quite fascinating then unfolded.
The New York Post recounts a witness claiming that, ”Frank made such a drama over the senior rate that I contemplated offering him the dollar to cool down the situation.” One can imagine the horror of a Congressionally-pampered power broker confronted with a simple, everyday incident like this. Barney Frank lost his cool and that says it all.
And so the story unfolds. In many corners of our society a seemingly trivial incident like this from a man of such high authority would bring pause for no concern. Perhaps, instead – a laughing matter, or an excuse to muse over the representative’s strange proclivities, personality and arrogance.
But the story of the $1 discount fare points to much, much, more.
As Angelo M. Codevilla described in his stunning essay, America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution, Barney Frank’s actions are emblematic of the ruling class mentality. Frank would not have objected more if the Sayville, New York dock clerk had shorted him $5 or even five cents. Either would have signaled a failure to recognize the congressman’s ruling class authority and the power that thus brings over the public at large. It is through this prism of elitist thought that the ruling class and thus those like Frank, gaze upon the masses.
The ruling class disease of entrenched hubris and elitism has echoed the halls of the United States Congress for far too long and is the cause for many of the ills that we face now as a nation. In fact, it is a valid explanation for many aspects of the so-called ‘progressive’ agenda that simply do not make sense to many citizens.
Power begets corruption, corruption begets more lust for power, and powerful congressmen berate trivial, everyday life issues.
Barney Frank’s behavior and the public alarm toward the progressive agenda signal something significant.
Perhaps the nation has entered the final exclamation point, in the last sentence, of the final chapter of a 100-year progressive playbook.
And perhaps then, that is why a $1 discount to a senior fare would make one of the nation’s top progressive kingpins so excruciatingly mad.
Tim Daniel is a small business owner and entrepreneur who currently lives in San Diego, California with his wife and lovely cat. He is editor in chief of the southern California-based Left Coast Rebel blog.