Commentary: In the Wake of an Unnatural Disaster (Part Eleven)

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Given 26-Mar-16; 13 minutes

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Unscrupulous politicians have transferred trillions of dollars of earnings to 'taking care of the poor,' evidently with the ulterior motive of creating millions of dependents (and potential voters). These programs have succeeded in destroying the family structure of one major ethnic group, rendering the role of husband and father irrelevant. Former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney warned that as of 2012 48% of our populace was receiving part or all of their income from the Federal government. Dr. Walter Williams in a Whistleblower Magazine article, through a series of instructive analogies, demonstrated that socialism is a cancerous evil, robbing from the productive and giving to the unproductive, destroying all incentives for growth or real productivity. Confiscatory taxes allow politicians to legally steal from their hapless constituents, enabling them to pretend that they are benefactors when they are actually thieves. Socialism, Fascism, Communism, and any other form of Collectivism or Statism, does not bring about equality at all, but a cruel form of slavery, presided over by a smug, morally bankrupt elite. The welfare state leads to slavery of the masses.


transcript:

In last week’s commentary, I touched on an immorality that is easily seen. That is, trillions of dollars in earnings are being transferred through taxation ostensibly for the purpose a taking care of the poor in our land by means of social programs that never produce what is planned for them. Instead, what they have produced is an ever expanding group of American voters who never seem either to find work to earn an income, or if they do find work, the job doesn’t seem to last very long.

Social programs are, according to the government’s own statistics, a major force producing families without husbands. They are thus a force destroying family life. These husbands may indeed be fathers but they do not perform the true functions of a father since in some areas as high as 70% of the babies born are not born into a married family. What we have been expert at producing is in creating a very large class of people dependent almost entirely on social programs.

In the 2012 presidential race, Mitt Romney stated that according to the most recent statistics at that time, 48% of the American population had received income from a social program operated by the government in the last year for which statistics were available. That is a tremendous figure.

Winston Churchill stated that socialism is the politics of envy. He said that because he had witnessed socialism at work and saw what it produced in people’s attitudes and demeanor. It produces people who greatly desire the prosperity others have but the only way they can have those desires fulfilled is if money is taken from others and given to them by a socialist government.

It is also the politics of envy because the politicians in elected offices perceive Socialism as a means of retaining that elected office they so greatly desire through the giveaway programs that go hand in hand with that form of government.

In contrast, capitalism demands that people work. Capitalism demands that people create work, and thus income, even if a person has to create his own business in order to do so. Along the way, it also creates a great deal of independence in those following that system. Why? Because their lives and sense of well-being is not dependent upon the government. American capitalism with its focus on materialism is not found in the Bible either, but it comes a major, major step closer than Socialism, Communism and Fascism to God’s system.

I read a word picture presented by author Walter William in the latest issue of Whistleblower magazine that you might find helpful regarding how socialism works. Suppose there is an elderly widow in your neighborhood who no longer has the strength to take care of many household chores. She can no longer mow her lawn, clean her windows, repair a broken water line, or perhaps doesn’t know how to fix a leaking toilet, and also no longer has the financial wherewithal to pay someone to take care of those items.

Would you support a government mandate that forces you or one of your neighbors to mow the lawn, clean her windows, and do whatever else needs taking care of. Moreover, if you or your neighbor refused, you were fined or perhaps your property confiscated or perhaps even put in prison. That would be repulsive. You would complain like crazy and rightfully condemn such action because it is a form of slavery.

Would you have the same condemnation if, instead of forcing one of your neighbors to actually perform the tasks, your neighbor was forced to fork over $50 of his weekly earnings to the widow so she could then afford to hire somebody? Let's think about this. You no longer have to do the work, but you still have to pay for it, and the government is forcing you to do it by law.

Would that governmental order differ from one under which your neighbor is forced to actually perform the labor? Is there any difference between the two? In both cases, you are forced to do it. The answer is, "no." The only difference is the mechanism for getting you to do. The neighbor is still forcibly used by the government to serve another person.

I'm sure that you would want to help the neighbor. The government, feeling your pain, now decides on another approach so you will feel less pain. It decides to use its taxing authority, whether through an income tax or property tax, and then they would send $50 to the widow to hire somebody to do the chores. The mechanism changed again, and it is far less painful.

That is the way the socialistic government uses. That is the literal reality, and what they accomplish making our slavery invisible. Nonetheless, the taxpayer is still being forced to serve others. Putting the tax money into the big government pot simply conceals the theft: the transfer of your wealth to somebody else.

This principle has far reaching effects. It is really effectively used by politicians to favor those who finance his way into his office. If one American can use government to force another to his purpose, what is the basis for denying another American the right to do the same thing?

For example, farmers were able to receive subsidies from the government even for not growing crops, or in a bad year, to receive subsidies to make up for loses due to poor weather or some other bad economic reason. Those subsides were actually paid. They came from our taxes.

So then, why should a toy maker, or an automobile maker, or a clothing maker be denied the right to appeal to congress to give them cash subsidies when their sales slump? Do you see the mess we have gotten into, and why I said last week that we have a "government by bribery"? Congress has completely succumbed to the pressure to forcibly serve the purposes of another. Reaching into somebody else’s pocket is stealing, but politicians seem to be always doing it—legally.

One of the ways the Israelites became slaves was the unthought-of after effects of Joseph’s business acumen. During the seven unproductive famine year, the government of Egypt, rather than freely distributing the grain collected during good years, instead selfishly exchanged the grain for property, primarily land, to keep people alive. When the famine ended the Egyptian government owned all the money and all the land, and then everybody was dependent upon the government. The Israelites were then slaves. They were caught in this government manipulation.

Did you ever notice in the Parable of the Good Samaritan that no government took care of the injured man? The Samaritan bore the whole experience himself. In that case, Jesus was illustrating a general principle regarding this sort of thing. Nobody forced the Samaritan. He did it on his own. He was simply merciful and rightly sacrificial.

JWR/aws/dcg





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