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Socialism is evil: Part II
Walter E. Williams (back to web version) | Send

August 17, 2004

Positive reader response to "Socialism Is Evil" was quite surprising.
 
That column argued that it was an immoral, not to mention unconstitutional, act for Congress, through the tax code, to confiscate the earnings of one American to give to another American in the forms of prescription drugs, Social Security, food stamps, farm subsidies or airline bailouts. It's immoral because it forcibly uses one person to serve the purposes of another. Indeed, that's one way to define slavery and other forms of servitude.

 Several letters of disagreement interpreted my argument as being against taxation. They used the sleight-of-hand approach saying that we need taxation for national defense, the courts and other constitutionally authorized purposes as if that observation meant that taxation for any other purpose was just as legitimate. Let me be explicit. Taxes to finance certain federal activities are indeed legitimate as well as constitutional.

 Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution enumerates just what federal functions Congress has taxing and spending authority. Among them are national defense, post offices and post roads, courts and a few other activities. Or, as James Madison, the Father of our Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.

 ?Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected."

 Nowhere in our Constitution is there even a hint of authority for most of what Congress taxes and spends for today. Don't be tricked by those who'd argue that Congress has such authority under the Constitution's "general welfare" clause. James Madison explained, "With respect to the two words ?general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them ?" Thomas Jefferson said, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." The "detail of powers" or those "specifically enumerated" refer to what's actually laid out in the Constitution. The Framers had the foresight to see that these powers might need modification. That's why they gave us Article V as a means to amend the Constitution.

 One reader criticized, "The essence of democracy is that the will of the majority conveys legitimacy to actions of the state." That's a sad commentary on both understanding and education. The Founders didn't intend for us to be a democracy but instead a republic. But more importantly, majority rule often confers an aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be deemed tyranny. Let's look at it:

 Consider a few everyday decisions such as: whom we marry, what food we eat, where we live and what clothes we wear. How many of us would want majority rule to determine those decisions. For example, your family would like ham for Thanksgiving dinner and vacations in Mexico, but you're prevented from doing so because the majority of Americans decided on turkey for Thanksgiving and vacations in Canada. Were decisions actually made this way, most of us would agree that we'd be living in a state of tyranny.

 Of course these particular decisions aren't made through a majority rule political process, but they do illustrate that there's nothing sacrosanct about majority rule; it can be just another form of tyranny. It's just as tyrannical for majority rule to determine other choices such as: retirement (Social Security), prescription drugs, health care and other unconstitutional uses of a person's earnings.

 When the democratic process reigns in matters of constitutionally enumerated federal government matters, we have the liberty that the Framers envisioned -- anywhere else it most likely means tyranny.

©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Contact Walter E. Williams | Read Williams's biography

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[GeronL]

Socialism is murder

[mlocher]

this is a great article. thanks for the post.

williams mentions god and the bible in attacking socialism. socialism is a stab at trying to make things equal among men/women on earth. we know from the bible that equality among men on this earth is an impossibility. yet, democrats continue to want "heaven on earth" through big government. i contend that big government is evil, not just socialism.

remember too, that as a christian, we are to help our fellow human. big government robs us of the joy of helping someone -- we default to the gov't. in a sense, big gov't, by implementing too many social welfare programs, gets in the way of individuals doing god's work, and gets in the way of our relationship with god.

[M Kehoe]

Reminds me of the old saying: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." A recipe for disaster.

5.56mm

[socialismisinsidious]

Excellent post. Socialism is evil and insidious too! : )

[ladyinred]

Socialism is evil I agree. I do think the leadership of the democrats have gone way beyond that, to total communism however. (and they of course, are the "state" who must be obeyed.)

[elizabetty]

The thing about Socialism that is so insidious is it does not better the lives of those it portends to help. It is not a "Raising UP" of some people but rather the "Cutting Down" of everyone.

[Juana la Loca]

ping

[hellinahandcart]

You'll like this one, and I'm bookmarking it.

[Socratic]

A socialist is merely a polite communist. A socialist believes himself moral because he only uses coercion instead of murder to gain his ends. (But the ends are ultimately the same.)

[Revolting cat!]

Typically for conservatives you are fighting yesterday's battles. Nobody proposes "socialism", nobody's "communist" any more. Today, they're "green", they're "progressive", they're for "choice", they're for "gaiety", labels that are pleasant sounding, acceptable to everyone, that you yourselves have cheerfully adopted ("gay" anyone?) Who's not for choice, who objects to being gay?

[tacticalogic]

A Communitarian Ethos

The Groton influence of Endicott Peabody showed in a speech Roosevelt gave at the People's Forum in Troy, NY in 1912. There he declared that western Europeans and Americans had achieved victory in the struggle for "the liberty of the individual," and that the new agenda should be a "struggle for the liberty of the community." The wrong ethos for a new age was, "every man does as he sees fit, even with a due regard to law and order." The new order should be, "march on with civilization in a way satisfactory to the well-being of the great majority of us."

In that speech Roosevelt outlined the philosophical base of what would eventually become the New Deal. He also forecast the rhetorical mode by which "community" could loom over individual liberty. "If we call the method regulation, people hold up their hands in horror and say ‘un-American,' or ‘dangerous,'" Roosevelt pointed out. "But if we call the same identical process co-operation, these same old fogeys will cry out ‘well done'.... cooperation is as good a word for the new theory as any other."

[headsonpikes]

The fruit of socialism is genocide.

[the invisib1e hand]

socialism is slavery. is this not taught in the public school system?

Marx argued (so I have been told) that the evils of capitalism would necessitate communism, through the stage of socialism, as WEW points out.

Of course, the only time capitalism's "evils" triumph over its virtues is when capitalists ignore moral restraint. Marx's prophecy is thereby self-fulfilling when the state hinders morality by setting itself up as the moral authority to its citizens, in place of God.

It really highlights the genius of the founders that they insisted on the sort of liberty and responsibility that would be the only way to allow for true self-government, and that only in a nation under God could it be pulled off. What an experiment!

[feedback doctor]

The Constitution is a Capitalist Document. Those who oppose that are enemies of the Constitution. Can Americans be unAmerican, you bet! The oath of office demands that the one taking the oath defend the Constitution against ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC!

[secretagent]

The libertarian Williams contradicts the constitutionalist Williams: An immoral action by an individual doesn't become moral when committed by a democracy, or a constitutional republic.

[traviskicks]

Most disturbing is Kerry's position on Communism. Communism is the greatest evil that man has ever known. It is responsible for more than 100 millions deaths (more than all the wars in history combined), millions and millions of refugees and the subjugation and slavery of over 2 billion people since WWII. Communist regimes always follow a similar pattern. A Communist regime has never been elected, so first Communists must orchestrate a revolution, often with the support of funding from preexisting Communist regime. Next, Communists dissolve private property, nationalize media and begin a brutal purge of political prisoners and the upper classes. To conduct it's class warfare and maintain control of the revolting people, the state will militarize, establish a large secret police presence, and create horrific labor/reeducation camps. The economy collapses, failed farm policies result in starvation, refugees flee, and the government begins to export Communist revolution abroad. How far the government is willing to push the Communist philosophy will directly equate with the severity of these events and the suffering of their people. This exact pattern has come to pass in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, Angola, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Cuba. A few countries on this list have not experienced the true hell of Communism because the governments either didn't last long enough to take full root, or total Communist policies were not pursued in earnest.

From 'John Kerry's Foreign Policy'
http://www.neoperspectives.com/johnkerry.htm

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Hilter Was A Socialist

[hosepipe]

[ When the democratic process reigns in matters of constitutionally enumerated federal government matters, we have the liberty that the Framers envisioned -- anywhere else it most likely means tyranny. ]

Walt pretty much hammered socialism good, but he seems to have lost it a bit when morphing to democracy.. Democracy sucks every time in every place in every way, always.. Democracy "IS" mob rule. The biggest mob or consortium mobs wins absolutely.. OK for primitive gov'ts like in URP or the middle east even.. But only a republic like ours, which is unique for any republic where the States are soverign and the fed. gov't is merely a client is unique.. Sad to say the U.S. has been morphed into a democracy by democrats and republicans never even saw it coming.. Mob rule is what we have, not the republic we started out with.. The only way the republic can redeemed AT ALL is by civil war.. The democrats and some republicans will fight it tooth and nail thinking they are patriotic.. The time is almost pasted for that civil war too.. If it does not happen all the whining here in this forum about will result in just that...

FOOTNOTES:
Democracy is the road to socialism. Karl Marx

Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. V.I. Lenin

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.- Karl Marx

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.~Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

[TigersEye]

Walter is great... bump.

[lainde]

bttt