Posted on 12/13/2001 7:37:16 AM PST by John SBM
Socialism is still a dirty word in American politics. But, like an obese person who looks in the mirror and see a thin reflection denying they are fat, America is in a state of denial. If we look the evidence is there, but rather than admit it we refuse to acknowledge the word. Does evasion of the fact change the reality?
Every major historic period can be categorized by the dominant philosophy of the time. We know them. The Dark Ages, The Renaissance, The Enlightenment. And we know what each label represented as the dominant, generally accepted ideas of the time. These labels are attached however, not during the period, but after, when we can see them in the context of history. Whether we label our current period as Post-Modern or whatever, in historic context it could be labeled as The Altruist Evasion.
Altruism is the dominant, generally accepted idea underlying all of our political and cultural discourse, and it permeates both political parties. The ideas that economic rights are the basic rights of all Americans, that the government exists to promote the welfare of some at the expense of others, that we owe “service” and must “give back” to society – these are the basic premises of every issue. And Pragmatism rules every action – action for the sake of the emotional benefit of action rather than the result. Altruism demands pragmatic approaches, because it is based on emotional arguments and collapses when faced with principled challenges. Altruism is the underlying support for socialism, where group rights are primary, individual rights are disposable.
Take a look. The tax code exists to transfer wealth; the total tax burden exceeds 50% and is the single biggest expense for most working Americans. Politicians gain power through the give and take of economic rights and benefits – look at the economic stimulus debate. We talk of the right to housing, to health care, to prescription drugs, to guaranteed retirement, without ever asking “at whose expense?”
Ayn Rand summarized this very simply – when you abandon one set of principles you adopt another. We have abandoned the principles of individual rights and accepted those of economic rights – the degree of socialization doesn’t change that fact. We can evade the word “Socialism”, but that doesn’t change the reality.
Heb.11/6
....These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Heb.11/13 .
Sunshine Patriots be damned, Stay Safe Leto....
Not really a yes or no question. Socialism has always existed in this country to some degree or another. It has been getting worse, but then again we are still better than most everyone else in terms of limiting Socialism. There are a lot of things that need to get done like getting social security under control and into the private sector. Reducing the size of the federal government from about 20% of GNP down to about half that.
the telling tale is "the total tax burden exceeds 50%".
besdes direct taxes (e.g. personal income taxes), we have property taxes, corporate taxes and sales taxes. then there are taxes we pay that we do not realize that much: gasoline tax, luxury tax, alcohol and cigarette taxes, import tariffs, etc. these all take their toll on productivity and our economy.
worse yet, the liberals have figured out how to tax us so that much of the people 'feel good' about it, or don't even realize they are being taxed.
and i did not even mention inflation, the cruelest tax of all...
we started down the path of socialism with a 4% personal income tax earlier this century and have been become one of the largest socialistic countries in the world. there have been attempts to repeal the personal income tax, all of which have ended in failure and irs audits.
Some of us ... I mean ... them choose to file that card, which isn't made of paper but rather is more like a secret agreement sealed by handshake, in a certain container. Still others openly wave the flag and preach The Teachings of the Constitution. Why, I know of ... someone ... who has bought several of his ... er... their co-workers (even my boss) copies of The Federalist Papers for Christmas. Whether I ... uhm... this person lasts much longer after said stunt is another tale surely to unfold.
Socialism is the revenge of the incompetent. It is the vain hope that, "because I am incompetent to make it in the market, I can use political power to coerce from the productive an income for myself." The socialist then adds a fake veneer of altruism to that little plan by saying, "and we'll take care of The Poor," or The Environment, or whatever the self-aggrandizing ruse happens to be today. Our satisfied leftist then goes and gets a safe government job enforcing just that.
The viciousness arises from that same self-hatred, that there is no propitiation or redemption for being one's incompetent self, and thus the demand for inflicting punishment upon the rest of humanity requires endless repetition to relieve the pain. This is of course only possible when government has the power to accommodate such sub-conscious desires, with the political pean to the democratic whim. To build that power then only requires a plurality of incompetents. All that remains is to collect these lemmings into an appropriate collection of "interest groups," that can be manipulated into exercising the VERY profitable strategies of their sponsoring mentors.
Ayn Rand was right about a few things, but any correlation with truth was purely coincidental. Absolute moral principles must come into play and Ayn Rand was severely deficient in this area. She espoused total personal autonomy did she not? Total personal autonomy is a totally selfish and self-centered worldview that has led to the euthanasia movement and other problems.
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