Government Socialism... I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya...
When is Socialism bad?
Apparently when it’s the other guys Socialism.
Here’s what I mean.
Since the day he was elected, President Obama has been
pilloried by center right partisans as hell-bent on making America a
socialistic third world country, as opposed to the free market capitalistic
juggernaut our founding fathers supposedly envisioned.
Obama the logic goes, wants to see everyone dependent on
government so that the government can control them and save them from their
inability to make good and right decisions. It is his desire, unsaid, but certainly evident as some
claim, to crush the rugged individualistic spirit that has defined America for
many years and replace it with a governmental “nanny state.”
We have been told that if government gets too involved in
the lives of the people, freedom
will evaporate, we will cease to work hard and then we’ll just take up a chair
on the front porch waiting for the next subsidy check to come via the US
Mail.
When government intervenes fiscally on behalf of the people,
instead of the people accepting responsibility for their own lives, this is
socialism. Or so we have been told
by many on the conservative right.
We should, at every turn, reject this socialism, because it is bad.
But let me ask this… if government aid for the individual,
who can just get a job and work hard is socialism, what is government aid to
corporations that are reaping record profits at a time when America’s deficit
is bursting?
If a government handout to an individual causes him or her
to not accept the reality of bad decisions in life, don’t corporate subsidies
shield businesses across America from the same responsibilities of bad
decisions?
Why is it that when it comes to defining who is the evil
socialist in the room, seemingly only President Barack Obama is guilty?
Is it because he, along with President George Bush ordered
the US government to intervene on behalf of two corporations, Chrysler and GM,
saving them from near certain bankruptcy?
Because if subsidizing poorly run corporations is evidence
of evil socialism, then surely all of the politicians and Americans decrying
the potential end of US Government subsidies for the dairy, farm and petroleum
industries would qualify too, wouldn’t they?
You see, Americans love socialism, when it benefits them, or more accurately, us.
In the recently past Presidential elections, candidate
Romney was partially derailed by his famous 47% comments that implied a
high percentage of Americans had become takers.
My fear is that the percentage is closer to 100% than we
care to admit.
To demonize one politician or another, or one class of
people over another with the charge of socialism, is just our discomfort with
admitting that reality and blatant partisanship, devoid of an attitude that is
truly seeking solutions.
Labels: 47%, Barack Obama, Chrysler, Dairy Farms, Energy, GM, Mitt Romney, Oil, Petroleum, socialism, Subsidies |