WHY SOCIALISM REALLY SUCKS

Socialism sucks because it takes away the motivation to succeed. When success is punished by higher tax rates, it is, shall we say, counter-stimulative to the economy. My workaholic dad, a middle-income car salesman in the 70’s used to stop working half-way through the month, if he'd sold a lot of cars. “Why work, it’ll all just go to the government anyway,” he’d tell me. Little did I know, as a teen-ager, that the federal tax-bracket went as high as 70% in the late 70’s. Now, I doubt if my dad was in the top tax-bracket back then, but it didn’t take much to trigger his lazy streak, something I’d never seen from him before. I’d venture to say that the human condition is very much this way. I told this story to my wife, and she told me that her dad used to repeat the phrase, “The more you make, the more they take.” If there’s no incentive, why work? To pay my neighbor’s mortgage? Call me selfish, but I don’t think so. If I want to help my neighbor out, I’ll do it directly without laundering through the blood-sucking leeches in Washington, D. C., thank you.

Margaret Thatcher had it right when she said that, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Socialist countries with government run health care systems have shortages and lose their freedom of choice, because of this fact. This is why Canadians come here for surgery, rather than die waiting nine months to get their appendix taken out. You think health care is screwed up now? Just let the government run it, the Barney Frank’s and Nancy Pelosi’s of the world, and see how much “better” it is. Health care is expensive enough without piling on the inefficiencies of another bloated bureaucracy. We’ve seen how efficient government is with such fine, technically bankrupt/corrupt/poorly managed institutions as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Public Schools and the Internal Revenue Service. If you think your medical insurance company’s customer service is poor, just call the IRS, or take a trip down to the postal service, and you’ll immediately feel better. I don’t care how bad health care is…it would be many times worse with more government involvement. Do you want people in Washington, D.C. deciding what's best for your medical care?

Some would say we’ve always had a bit of socialism in this country, and I agree. That’s a good thing? Look at our socialistic experiments and tell me that they haven’t been abysmal failures that could have been improved with a good old-fashioned dose of free market competition.

When a good or service is “free,” there is no appreciation, respect, or consideration that “someone” is paying for it, so people abuse it. Look at the government’s recent string of bailouts. They have no idea where the money is going, so how do they fix it? More bailouts! It’s like raising kids and spoiling them. If you give them everything they want on a silver platter, they’ll grow up and spit in your face. This is true of all types of welfare, whether individual, corporate, or inter-national. The receiver doesn’t appreciate the “generosity,” and quickly asks for more next time. It's an endless circle of entitlement.

This is probably going to go over like a fart in church, but I’m convinced that we’d probably all take better care of ourselves, eat better, exercise more, if there were no health insurance whatsoever. We probably wouldn’t take little Johnny to the doctor every time he got a sniffle or a hangnail, either. With medical insurance, it seems like “someone else” is paying for it, so we all abuse the system, only to share the burden in higher premiums.

We are a nation of “individuals,” not groups. We are not a nation of groups, races, unions, or voting blocks. We are all Americans, unique individuals with rights acknowledged as being given to us by God in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Some would tragically and unintentionally trade these rights for the security of having our basic needs met by the government (other taxpayers, really, but that doesn’t sound quite so good, does it?). We would naively trade a little freedom for a little security.

If we as a nation do not vigilantly fight to destroy this creeping, deceitful disease, we become easy targets for eventual tyranny. Study history. It’s happened again and again, and we are not immune to this evil social condition. Of all tyrannies, the most oppressive is that one that is requested by its ultimate victims, “for the good of the people.” If we exchange our liberty and freedom for the perceived security of letting the federal government run our lives, then we deserve neither freedom, nor liberty. There’s security in prison too.

A nation that rewards failure and punishes achievement cannot stand (for long). Eventually, the achievers become tired of footing the bill and throw in the towel, and the party is over. According to the IRS, 97% of income taxes are paid by 50% of the taxpayers. The other half are in essence mooching, either willingly or unwillingly, from the top half. Eventually, you soak those that you deem to be rich to the point that there aren’t enough of them to foot the bill.

I have a couple dirty little secrets for you. The government does not care about you. Politicians don't care about you. Paying taxes isn't charity. You cannot have more government and more freedom. “The government giveth, and the government taketh away.” Let’s chose more freedom and less government. Socialism Sucks!