Slavery has Not been Abolished

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a liberal Democrat and very much in favor of 'the redistribution of wealth’. She was deeply ashamed that her father had always been a staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the academic lectures that she’d participated in, and the occasional chat with her professors, she felt that her father harbored an evil, profoundly selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she found herself challenging her father’s opposition to higher taxes on the ‘rich’, the need for more government and expanded welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.

Her father responded by asking how she was doing in school. She was taken aback by the question. Her father already knew the answer. She responded rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA. She went on to stress the obvious, that a 4.0 GPA was tough to maintain. She informed her father that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying. Her studies left her no time to go out and party like the other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, she complained, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened patiently and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”

His daughter replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. She takes all the easy classes. She never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. But she is so popular on campus. College for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.”

Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don't you go to the Dean's Office at the end of this semester and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend Audrey who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, resentfully fired back, “That wouldn't be fair! I’ve worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time and a lot of hard work! Audrey’s done next to nothing. She played while I worked my tail off!”

The father slowly smiled, and said gently, “Welcome to conservatism. Your friend Audrey is really no different than many others. It has nothing to do with race, gender, religion or economic circumstances. Your liberal friends in academia, plus many Republicans and most Democrats, will soon be demanding that you relinquish a portion of your GPA. They, knowing better than you, will redistribute your hard work to one of your classmates, or maybe give it to the child of an illegal alien migrant who is heavily taxpayer subsidized. If you should object, you will likely be denounced as a selfish right-wing racist and treated with contempt.”

“Yes, you should understand that if nothing changes in America very soon, you will be expected to subsidize the good times of many others, most of whom are unwilling, either through conscious choice or because of flawed decision making, to provide for themselves beyond a meager subsistence. They will expect this of you throughout the rest of your life.”

The daughter, angry and shocked at the thought, countered emotionally. “But that’s like slavery, like me being a slave to them.”

“Yes dear, that’s right.” her father lamented. “For all practical purposes, it is slavery for those who work hard at everything they do, from the beginning of their education through the rest of their working life. However, your social status of serfdom is necessary for others to achieve their egalitarian idealism. It is important to many people that you not have more than them. It is even more important to those who seek to rule that your situation is so desperate that you will vote for them and their promises. They’ll keep you and me, and the rest of the country, in desperate straits to insure their continued dominion at the ballot box.”

“Then, we have to consider those people who have exchanged their votes, traded them, in order to be arbitrarily classified as somehow disadvantaged. From their point of view, what you have and they do not have is not fair and it is not their fault. They expect the government will force you and me to support them. They want their circumstances and personal neglect to be your responsibility. They want you and everyone else to believe the fantasy that the victims of income confiscation (the taxpayers) are somehow evil, and the thieves (the recipients of income redistribution) miraculously have an entitlement to that which for them is unearned.”

“Politicians have come to think that people like you and me, and millions of other hard-working citizens, literally belong to the government. That’s the way of Socialism. The government owns you and me, and everything else. They assume they can arbitrarily take from us as much as they want, even what we think of as our private property, even including our children.”

Her father continued in a sad voice, “An incredible number of people, across this nation and around the world, live very well with the money taken from our family’s income. It all comes down to who works and who enjoys the fruits of the labor. If the government, any government, forces you to work to support other citizens, illegal aliens, and foreign nations, i.e., people other than your own family, it’s hard to think of it any other way than a form of slavery.”

“It should not make any United States citizen proud to ask their own family to sacrifice in order to serve a master class of indolent Americans and non-citizens in a land of ethical and moral anarchy.”

The daughter, disillusioned and with tears in her eyes said, “Like, that’s really wrong. I don’t want to be a slave.”

Lifting his book to continue reading, her father said, “Slavery has not been abolished as long as one man is involuntarily forced to serve another.”

Red State Patriot

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Posted March 30, 2008 09:20 AM
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