Us on the Right are accustomed to saying that the Left just doesnt understand us. Its easy to laugh at their talking heads, especially if youre hip to a few things. Such as this: remember the slogan you just dont get it? Why it was so jarring to the naove mind?

Television networks prefer people with a reactionary personality on the screen: it makes for more exciting debates. The patient man, or woman, doesnt bring the kind of excitement that takes the typical viewer away from the football channel, so he or she are not invited into the green room. If you ever wonder about a charge floating around the media world thats clearly frivolous, just remember that the medium is the message, and that the medium of TV prefers impatient and verbally combative people. Excitement is popular; boredom isnt.

The origin of you just dont get it seems to be a somewhat ironic remark made by Robert A. Heinlen, in his 1980 anthology EXPANDED UNIVERSE. He said that, if you show any initiative in university at all, youll do research worthy of a Ph. D. (You wont get it.)

No, we didnt get it. Instead, we got the slot reserved for those who show initiative: the McJobs circuit.

Because most of us rely at least partly on the media for political education, were used to thinking of the Left as a bunch of nags, their favorite nag word being fascist. This, according to left wingers, is what the Right has in common: all of them are unconscious fascists. Even though the aim of every fascist everywhere has been to govern from and for the center. (The name National Socialism, which translates into Right Leftism, should have given this away definitively.)

So fascist has to be a nag word, right? As long as the Right prefers to be accessible rather than exclusive, theres no way to avoid the taint of that word. So we ignore the left wingers that call us that, the more thoughtful interpreting it as self-congratulatory rhetoric.

But this time, the Left might be on to something. This is indicated by their recent interest in none other than Adam Smith.

If youve been in the university wilderness, you would probably greet this fact with a leap of joy. The Left might very well be converted from their perverse economics  they might even vote Republican, some of them! Its about time!

That joyful leap, from what Ive seen, would be a misinterpretation. The Left is at bottom unconvertible, as we should all know by now; the reason theyre dipping into Smith is different.

To put it bluntly, their anti-fascist routine is moving from Right bashing into something a little more serious. These guys are beginning to see real fascism bubbling up  and the smarter of them know that fascism is in fact anti-Smith.

Heres why. Smith had little else but contempt for the mere businessman, and would actually find the idea that hes pro-business laughable. Laissez-faire was a framework designed to keep everyones paws off the public treasury, and for people to stop using the government as a vicarious club to knock down a competitor, or someone thats had it too good for too long. The modern State, according to the Smithian mind, is a sort of broker of envies, and the mind enlightened by Adam Smith sees this kind of trucking and trading to be just another form of the vice trade.

This clearly would put Smith behind the anti- business table if he were asked to debate on CNN.

So, the Left is diving into Smith to use his works as a club against the Right, not to welcome themselves into the Right. Theyre as anti- business as ever; they just see the works of Smith as buttressing their usual case.

Since the Right is supposed to be the Adam Smith party, something seems screwy, doesnt it? It makes you wonder why the Left would have seen us as dropping the Adam Smith ball and leaving it for them to pick up.

The answer is simple: there is more than one critique of Smiths system. The one were used to  that the old Adam is a harbinger and promoter of a cold and heartless society  has been refuted nearly to death. Or, to put it another way, refuted beyond the point of diminishing scholarly returns.

But theres another critique that the Right has not refuted with any depth: that Adam Smith promotes inefficiency. According to these critics, Adam Smithians are not cold and callous, theyre wimpish and effete. The system of laissez-faire, according to these critics, leads to lackadaisical workers and lazy businesspeople because the market uses only carrots to motivate its participants, not sticks. This promotes a sort of social gluttony, and leaves gaps of inefficiency that are obvious to the eyes of the self-styled practical man. The system of laissez-faire, according to this critique, is bad for economic growth because it legitimates a sort of economic hippie- ism.

This critique of laissez-faire is, of course, the fascist one. Thats what the Left sees on the horizon, and maybe we should set up our own rescue shop for people that are annoyed by the growing busybodyism in society. Heres a short suggestion for an Adam Smith Pledge:

As a good Adam Smithian, I hereby acknowledge that:

1. People have a right to go to hell in their own way;
2. What seems hell to me might be heavenly for some other person;
3. This is why scientific answers in economics are usually wrong;
4. The principle that laissez-faire leads to wealth maximization is just as dependent upon tolerance to the same degree that the Quantity Theory is dependent upon the no-free-lunch maxim;
5. And that both principles can be sophisted to death by short-run and impatient critics.

The Capitalism versus Socialism debate has basically been confined to the reunion hall; for that, we can congratulate ourselves.

In the midst of preparing for the next debate...