The Darkest Period in Human History?

Yeah, I'm gonna go with the FDR presidency. Under this tyrant the top tax rate on our beloved wealthy Makers was increased to a mind-boggling 94%. This asshole even had the gall to suggest that rich folks should pay 100% after earning 350k (in today's dollars)! Which is obviously peanuts. Enough for a middle class loser to get by on, but clearly not enough for a worthy rich man to live in style. I mean, you've got to have enough to pay your servants.

As a runner up "darkest period" I'm going with when the gorgeous, delightful, and talented Polly Pergen left "To Tell the Truth" in 1961 and was replaced by the dumpy, acerbic, and difficult to watch Peggy Cass. What a fat uggo! IMO only good looking women should be allowed on TV. I'm even opposed to having uggos in "character" rolls. "Character actor" being code for unpleasant in appearance. Only men should be character actors, I think. I mean, why subject your audience's eyes to unnecessary pain?

The brightest period in human history? It might surprise you, but my selection is the years 1346 to 1353. This would be peak years of the Black Death. The Black Death being "one of the most devastating pandemics in human history". The disease swept Europe, killing an estimated 75 to 200 million people, or 30–60% of Europe's total population.

So, why do I consider this to be a "bright" period? Because (as I pointed out in a prior commentary) the Black Death raised the standard of living of many survivors who inherited estates from the plague's victims. Not that I necessarily care about the living standard of worthless poors. No, but that millions of these parasites were exterminated is a "good" that would surely have made Ayn Rand smile.

Rand would absolutely agree that poors going to an early grave when there is an overabundance of them is a positive, and definitely something that should happen at least once in awhile. I mean, we want their numbers to be high enough so that the price of labor is low, but not so high that they consume too much resources (think a plague of locusts).

There is also the possibility that, if they become too numerous and if their living conditions become too horrid (especially compared to their wealthy superiors) they could rise up. The execution of the Romanov family being but one historical example of a revolution of the lower classes leading to the deaths of superior wealthy people.

Something that might have happened under FDR if the wealthy individuals that the tyrant FDR plundered had resisted, given the fact that (ultimately) the theft of money from rich people (in the form of taxes) is extracted via the barrel of a gun.

Which is pretty fucked in the head if you ask me, given that the wealthy earned their money via entrepreneurship, ingenuity, vision, and risk-taking through a series of voluntary associations. Yet they're the criminals if they don't pay this protection money.

Byline: This commentary was authored by Willis "I Love Strawmen" Hart. Purveyor of unfacts. LLIN-261.