SOCIALISM'S LEGACY

Or How Socialism

Makes a Famine Where Abundance Lies

Trump A Dem?

Apparently, the Dems must believe that President Trump is a closet Dem because they keep blaming him for doing what the Dems do routinely. Who Knew?

VESTING

We Can't Win At The Ballot Box

You say you want to cut Big Government down to size and regain our freedoms by using the ballot box? Good luck with that. It can’t be done and here is the reason why. VESTING. 

That’s right fellow citizens, VESTING. What is vesting? Vesting is when you invest your money, time or other good and valuable resources into a program and then expect a return on your investment.

 Let me give you a real life example of how our elected Government uses Vesting as an insidious device to perpetuate and expand power by creating basically social programs that cannot ever be stopped or curtailed because of vesting. Let’s take Social Security as an example and here is how it works. You start a safety net program for old age and pass a law that says you must participate in the program by paying taxes to support the program. Viola, you are now part of the program and you can’t get out without losing all of the money you have paid in even if you could.

 After time passes you realize that you have paid a great deal of money into the system and you then demand that the program be continued in order that you receive your fair share of what you have invested into the system. In short, you have become VESTED regardless if you wanted to be or not, and the program can never, never ever, be terminated because the citizens have become VESTED in the program.

 It only gets better. The Government keeps on expanding the program (Social Security) into other areas and forces you to pay more taxes because you can’t or won’t get out of the program due to VESTING. I bet most people don’t realize that Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Aid to Dependant Children, etc. were all enacted under the Social Security Act. Insidious because those who don't even pay into the system are now VESTED. Now multiply all of the others program that use vesting to perpetuate themselves and you have a situation where the citizens of this country will never allow anyone to stop these programs because of VESTING.

 For these programs to be fair, they should include an “Op In” clause so that if you want the Government to run your healthcare or retirement, then you must Op In into the program and only you and others who Op In to pay the taxes to support the program. I am now laughing out loud! You should live so long. I’m sorry Brothers and Sisters, you can’t fix our Big Government via the ballot box, our big Government was designed to be unstoppable.
FDR quote upon signing the Social Security Act:
“I guess you’re right on the economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics.”

The Road To Hell

It may be true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions;
It may be true that the freeway to tyranny is also paved with good intentions.
Or as someone much smarter than me said:
"A society that puts equality (in the sense of equality of outcome) ((social justice)), ahead of freedom, will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests."
Milton Friedman

Socialism

Socialism and Flim Flam

   One of the most enduring mysteries is how Socialism continues to maintain a viable political position in the modern world. I say that because history has clearly shown us that all of the variants of Socialism, that have been practiced throughout human history, has been an unmitigated disaster for every class of Human on this Planet, save one. And the one class of people who exclusively benefits from the practice of Socialism is the establishment Ruling Class.

   You know, the establishment ruling class that could even take down the dictator Caesar back in the days of Roman power. So, the question is, how does the establishment ruling class benefit from the establishment of socialism in any of its many forms and variants? The short answer is, POWER.

   The reason the establishment ruling class finds Socialism so attractive is because it is the preferred political vehicle to obtain and practice unlimited POWER with the consent and approval of the people. And when Socialism is put into practice, it becomes a Tyranny, vested not in a single person, but with consent of the people by virtue of the establishment ruling class incorporating Statism as the necessary operational paradigm to force compliance by the people.

   There is little value in discussing why freedom loving Humans find obtaining POWER and using POWER more additive than gold had over Midas. Obtaining and exercising POWER is a means to many ends, most to the disadvantage of others. It is a sad statement to make, but history has also shown that the most educated often use their superior knowledge to obtain and exercise POWER over others. Perhaps we should never elect those with the most education and knowledge to positions of power. Oh well, that is another subject for another day. Enough said.

   So, you would think today's educated and free citizens would never embrace Socialism’s top down “Command and Control” government over Capitalism’s bottom up “Freedom and Liberty” laissez-faire  

Government. Au contraire mon frère!

    Most of todays inexperienced, and privileged youth are embracing Socialism today because of the ubiquitous indoctrination by our institutions of learning, even onto the primary and secondary education. It appears that those who manage and operate our educational system has been indoctrinating our youth that Socialism is the enlightened way for Human social conduct. They do this while teaching Capitalism is an evil and corrupt system that enslaves freedom loving people to work and toil for “The Man” in order for the rich to maintain their privileged and wealthy lives at the expense of the people.

   Other people who are responding positively to Socialism's siren call, are the well-meaning, but naive people, who have obtained a burgeoning altruistic streak enabled by a comfortable life brought about by the enduring success of Capitalism, free markets and the American way. They naively believe that their hard-earned comfortable life should be further paid for by sharing their good fortune with those who have less. And even more importantly, to support their altruistic feelings, they also insist that other people must be forced by government to share their earned wealth and freedom with all those who have less, regardless of circumstance.

   And then we have those who embrace Socialism because it's promise that they will enjoy all of society’s blessings by forcing those who have earned their way to happiness to forcibly share their earned wealth, property, individual freedom to all, regardless of circumstance. That is, they who have not earned free society’s blessings will now be able to equally share society’s blessings regardless of station, circumstance or earned right. These supporters of Socialism are the most strident of all because they are victims of the ancient practice of Flim Flam. That’s correct. Flim Flam is the operational paradigm used by the establishment ruling class to ensnare dishonest and gullible people into socialism.

    How so, you may ask. Flim Flam is the nonsensical use of words to promote one’s objective, and more importantly, it is a form of trickery to mislead people into believing that they will gain something of value without earning it. Or in advertising parlance, “We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you.”

   In socialism parlance, it is the Flim Flammer promise, that by embracing Socialism, the people will all finally usher in and experience the illusive social UTOPIA. You know, the UTOPIA where all are equal in all of human endeavors and equally blessed by society. That’s correct, like the UTOPIA that was brought about by the New Harmony and other UTOPIA experiments that always fail.

   And most importantly, the Flim Flam promise that all will gain free society’s blessings by not having to earn them but because they have a POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to all of free society’s blessings. Unfortunately, the establishment ruling class never explains to the people that socialism will mean that individual freedom and liberty will be required to be sacrificed in order for the promised Socialism UTOPIA to become viable.

    It is truly sad that Flim Flam only works because there are always dishonest people willing to believe in the promise by those practicing Flim Flam (Socialist and Opportunists) that you can get something for nothing. In other words, Socialists promise that you do not have to earn your way to prosperity, all you have to do is support your Socialist Government to force people who have earned their prosperity to share that prosperity with you. The old turn of the century saying, “You can’t cheat an honest man,” applies here. This is also, in essence, the same message of dishonest advertising that says "We cheat the other guy, and pass the savings on to you."

   If you think I'm off base here, well then, just listen to and marvel at the support Bernie Sanders and the burgeoning class of Democratic Socialists that are now embracing  Socialism as preferred government for the people.

Taxes

TAXES ARE POWER

If you never understand another thing while living and dying in the land of the free and home of the brave, this is it, TAXES ARE POWER, i.e., more taxes equals more power, less taxes equals less power.