What is Wrong With This Picture?

Liberals vociferously argue the assertion that socialism has not been a successful economic system because they claim it provides goods, services and benefits equally to all citizens with less disparity between individuals and special interest groups. They’re correct to a large extent, but their claim omits every chapter of the book except the first chapter. The first chapter is the ideology of socialism and reads like a fairy tale. The remaining chapters of the revered liberal Book of Socialism chronicle its consistent failure throughout recorded history.

For the American dream to flourish there must be both winners and losers in a capitalistic system that encapsulates a value system for winners. The American dream is to be one of the winners. The winners are most often those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, self-motivated, responsible, disciplined, educated and efficient.

Only if you knew you had no chance to be one of the winners, or refused to try, relying instead on government for a pathetic 'mere existence,' could an American possibly prefer socialism. The losers are most often those who are uneducated, shiftless, lazy, drug and alcohol impaired, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, indolent, and inefficient, typically constituents of the Democratic Party. Those few Democrats who do not fit the above description aspire to be the elites, the ruling class who regulate the lives of all others, living off the labors of those they seek to rule, believing with arrogant certainty they know better how you as an American should live your life and raise your children.

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to business executives and the carpenter, lawyers and the factory worker. Capitalism requires human beings to deal with one another as traders, i.e., as free agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent, because the sole criterion that determines the value of anything exchanged in a free economy is the unfettered judgment and voluntary choices of the seller and buyer.

Capitalism is superior to socialism in two critical aspects, morality and justice. If you acknowledge the concept that “envy” is both the desire to possess another’s wealth and failing that, the desire to see another’s wealth lowered to the level of one’s own, then socialism is the system which institutionalizes the morality of envy.

Residents of large “inner cities,” and New Orleans in particular, come to mind. Is that what you wish for yourself or the entire nation?

Consider for a moment professional sports, any one of them. Society too is like a team sport in that everyone must perform at very high levels for the team to be successful. A professional football team “hires” only the best athletes regardless of other social criteria. The goal is to win and that wouldn’t be possible if the team were required to employ people of my athletic skills. While I was personally recruited by Otto Graham for college football, by the time I got there, my physical stature and abilities had been far surpassed by my peers on the football field. (Otto Graham graciously suggested I try a different sport.) A professional football team has no obligation to hire and compensate a person of my comparitively minimal athletic skills.

Nor does society have an obligation to hire, compensate or carry on the national payroll in the form of welfare those who refuse to educate themselves and obtain gainful employment. You can’t run a professional sports team with socialism, where everyone claims a right to play and expects to be compensated by the team if they are incapable of performing at a productive level. And you can’t run society with socialism either. America cannot afford to keep on the team payroll non-productive Americans who contribute nothing to the team, regardless of liberal emotionalism and claims of racism and disenfranchisement. The "free ride" entitlement mentality is not compatible with Team America if America is expected to be competitive in the world arena. The team is more important than any one player (patriotism). Members of the U.S. Armed Forces understand the concept, as do most professional athletes. Liberals, by contrast, serve only their own self interests - hardly a model for team success.

Furthermore, capitalism acknowledges that the degree to which man rises or falls in society (class mobility) is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind and his work ethic. Capitalism is the only system that rewards education, merit, innate ability, achievement, excellence, initiative and integrity regardless of the location of one’s birth, racial heritage or station in life.

In addition to an endless list of otherwise questionable virtues, socialism is also the system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from its productive citizens. The confiscated income is then redistributed in exchange for votes to the parasites (those who refuse to work) and cockroaches (uneducated and ill-equipped, by choice and personal neglect), in addition to those determined by communities to be needing assistance beyond what can be provided by charitable organizations, churches and families.

Central control and shared misery, or individual freedom and responsibility, which will it be? Social mobility or class boundaries, which will it be? Income redistribution and entitlement mentality, or self-government, self-discipline, excellence, initiative and integrity, which will it be? It really is our choice - your choice. You make that choice each and every time you vote. If you think the choice should not be difficult, reflect on the relative closeness of the last two presidential elections and recognize the importance of your vote. Recognize also value systems and the motivation of those who choose socialism, i.e., to rule rather than govern, a quest in which you and I are expendable.

Red State Patriot

Posted June 16, 2006 01:40 PM
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