The French are Running … Is This a Surprise?

“I’d rather have a German Division in front of me than a French one behind”- General George S. Patton

French president Francois Hollande has made good on his pledge (threat?) to pass a 75% income tax rate on all earnings over 1,000,000 Euros. That, coupled with severe anti-business regulations (the kinds that remove free negotiation from contracts) have led to a flight of French businesses and millionaires. The businesses are going where it is more profitable to conduct business, and the millionaires are moving to countries with lower tax rates.

The latest big-name mover is French actor Gerard Depardieu, who has fled to Belgium. French politicians are dismayed and incensed. The mayor of Paris has responded with this:

“It is sad because he is a great actor and someone I know and like,” said Bertrand Delanoe, the Socialist mayor of Paris. “He is a generous man but in this instance he is not showing that.”

Got that? Submitting yourself to punitive 75% tax rates on behalf of a socialist state is benevolent, and fleeing those egregious, enslaving rates is greed. Though I fear overstepping my bounds, I’ll lash out anyway – the Christian mind sees this for what it is: the state has assumed the role of God in men’s lives. Doing the “will of the state” – submitting yourself to the state as “Lord and Savior” is seen as laudable, good, moral, just, and benevolent. Fleeing the “will of the state” and choosing your own will instead is seen as selfish and greedy.

(Was this not the sin of the fall? We placed ourselves above God in our lives and disobeyed Him? The state has now seen fit to insert itself in the place of “God” in the above.)

This should not surprise anyone. The basis of progressive ideology (in a democracy anyway) is that “I” am better able to make your decisions than “you” are – and that all will be better if “I” am “lord” and you are submissive.

I confidently predict that more Frenchmen will flee, as will more businesses. The French economy will face utter collapse and the politicians will cast about  trying to blame anybody they can (one suspects those “greedy millionaires and corporate leaders” will be the first target).

The government will try what they can to stop the flight. Who knows what form it will take, but what’s the point of enslaving people if you just let the run away?

(Speaking of, America faces the same situation, though on a smaller scale. Folks are fleeing California and the left coast and heading to lower tax states. In some instances the Federal Government puts a stop to it – like they did 3 or 4 years ago with the Boeing move to South Carolina. But there’s only so much they can do to stop free people from moving … for now.)