Robin: Rob? That's a naughty word, Little John, we never rob! We just sort of borrow a bit from those who can afford it.
Little John: Borrow? Boy! Are we in debt!
?Exchange in Walt Disney's Robin Hood
Even before the election, various media outlets hammered home the comparison between Obama and Robin Hood. A very brief Google search reveals hundreds of "Obama Robin Hood" hits, beginning with comments from Bob Barr. From the Wall Street Journal to the New York Post to Bloomberg to the Sydney Morning Herald it goes on, ad nauseum. (My personal favorite is the Barack Obama Robin Hood doll.) While some of these comparisons are intentionally critical (such as Barr's), likening Obama to such a well-known and well-loved folk hero as Robin Hood clearly sheds an overall positive light on both himself and his programs.
It is a comparison that needs to stop, out of respect for our own mythology and the future of our country. On closer examination, Obama's plans bear only a cursory resemblance to career and goals of Robin Hood.
The legend of Robin of the Hood is first and foremost that: a legend. While it is likely that there is some remote historical basis for the accounts, the adventures are really more inspiring stories (particularly enjoyed at bed time) than they are history. Robin is described as a noble or a small landholder who loses his status due to an indiscretion (sometimes trumped up, sometimes halfway deserved) and flees into Sherwood Forest to escape punishment. Once there, he gathers a band of good but similarly desperate men around him, and eventually decides to strike back at the persecutors of his people. He attacks only the rich, and then gives much of his takings back to the poor. In doing so, he obstructs the illegal taxation of the people by Prince John. John, of course, was trying to prevent the return of his brother, King Richard, in an attempt to seize the throne of England.
With a little spin, this can look a lot like what Obama is doing. His taxes are supposed to fall primarily on a vague segment of the population known to the American Left as "the Rich," which at the moment seems to be those making $250,000 a year or more (a salary the likes of which I doubt I will ever see). This definition remains fluid for the current administration, depending upon political expedients. While much of this wealth would be sucked up by the government bureaucracy run by his Merry People, what was left would be funneled through his government programs and then redistributed to the "Poor," another not-so-well-defined group. As Obama himself put it, he will ". . . spread the wealth around."
And this is where the similarities end, it seems, and the stark contrasts begin:
-- Robin fought against the unfair intrusion of a government that wanted to add layer after layer of new taxes onto the people. Obama is the very manifestation of a large, intrusive government, and is actively laying layer after layer of new taxes onto the people.
--In the Hood legends, Robin was very careful to steal only from those rich who had not worked for their money. The presumption in the stories is that the ones he stole from had no moral right to the wealth they accumulated, since they had not earned it. Today, in a capitalist society, many people who enjoy riches have labored hard for them. Obama has made no practical moral distinctions on this question, as Robin did. If one makes X amount of money, then one is "Rich" and deserving to be robbed (or "encouraged by use of force to make donations," if you prefer).
While we all like to see slimy, good-for-nothing elitists get what's coming to them, Obama has not demonstrated any strong evidence that these are indeed the people he's targeting, or that the idea of earning one's way enters into this at all. To Democrats in general, the mere fact that a person possesses a certain amount of wealth is enough to show that he or she is immoral and undeserving of it ? unless of course suitable donations to the DNC have been made.
-- According to the stories, Robin was careful to oversee the distribution of his "tax rebates" and make sure that those who received them were truly worthy. If not, Robin stopped payment and at times even extracted a return on the wasted money. Once again, Obama has made no such distinctions. If one makes less than a certain amount, one is "Poor" and automatically deserving of the money robbed from the "Rich." His programs seem to presume the opposite of Robin's; in fact, as many have observed, his "spendulus" plan actively rewards the irresponsible spenders.
-- In the stories, Robin is really returning the people's own money back to them. Prince John and the complicit nobility had taken the money on false pretenses through illegal taxation. Obama's premise is something else entirely: taking one person's earned income and giving it to someone else who may or may not deserve it.
If not Robin Hood, then to whom might we compare Mr. Obama and his program? I would venture to suggest another well-used, perhaps tired, analogy: The Bread and Circuses of Rome. In a capitalist system, the very rich are always a minority. Money may talk, but people vote, and the Democrats are hoping to corner the market on certain populations in the American system by making them dependant on handouts. In a culture that is rapidly losing its grasp on even the idea of right and wrong (let alone that of principled action) this will probably be an effective approach.
But let's be honest about who we're dealing with here. Obama is no Robin Hood, but we just may need one before he's through
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