Posted on 07/13/2018 4:09:25 PM PDT by huckfillary
On a friend’s Facebook thread, I recently posted the following. It was in response to a rather sanctimonious rant saying things defending socialism since Venezuela isn’t the only socialist country in the world. Also, the person asked if the millions going without health insurance in America mattered.
Without the wealth that only free markets, free people and capitalism can create, there’s nothing to socialize. There’s nothing to redistribute. There’s nothing to steal or give away. Does that mean nothing to you? It should. Because in order to have wealth redistribution, you first have to get wealth! In order to socialize the means of production – which is what socialism is — we have to make everyone a ward and/or slave of the state. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Those are Karl Marx’s words, and that’s the essence of socialism. The capable and the hard working are the slaves of the incapable and the lazy under socialism. Not everyone in need is lazy, but socialism legislates and institutionalizes laziness. It treats someone else’s income as a legal RIGHT, merely because they have more and for no other reason. That’s morally wrong; what YOU’RE proposing is morally wrong, so you cannot and will not shame me. You’re the one who should be on the defensive for what you’re advancing—not me.
Authentic compassion and kindness – not the government-mandated kind — should be left to private charity, and individual acts of kindness, or to well-run private charities — not to an inhumane, bumbling, incompetent and command-and-control slave state. Sadly, you’ve been brainwashed into thinking that this isn’t what you’re advocating, but it is.
As for health care: If we had a free market in medicine in the USA like we have a (relatively) free market for groceries, clothing, smart phones, computers and automobiles, the vast majority would be able to afford it. Not that health care should be cheap. Doctors and nurses train for years and have huge bills to pay off. At times, their work is thankless but it’s still life-saving. They save lives, for God’s sake. And you want them to be the equivalent of postal employees or bus drivers? They deserve every penny they get. If you want doctors to make the same as just about anyone else, or perhaps just a teeny bit more determined by some corrupt politician who makes more than any of us through trading favors, then good luck with the kind of health care you will receive when you need it most. Most of our health care in the US is government subsidized and controlled – even before Obamacare, in the form of Medicaid and Medicare. Those programs started in the mid-1960s! If you don’t like the state of medical care in the US, don’t blame it on capitalism. It’s more socialism than capitalism. And it has been for at least half a century. I am in health care, and have been driven out of the whole Medicare reimbursement system. It’s not the low pay so much as the demoralizing and dehumanizing regulations and rules, which often make no sense and are insanely contradictory. Try working in the medical field—I bet you don’t—and then see how highly you think of these government-run programs.
Western European countries are floundering economically the extent to which they have a welfare state. And they’re only able to have a welfare state the extent to which they have lots of free market capitalism. Check your assumptions.
With socialism, SOMEBODY is providing the loot, goods and services that you’re prepared to give away (it’s not yours, by the way, no matter how sanctimonious your tone.) So your moralizing and shaming do not move me. The fact is, you will never be able to nationalize anything without either the consent or the neurotic guilt of the people who hand it over to the dictators you love so much. Venezuela is the consistent embodiment of the socialism you’re advocating. You can’t just write it off as a freak occurrence. The same happened in Soviet Russia (1917-1991), for decades in China before it moderated to state-run capitalism, and Cuba. Why does socialism fail every time it’s tried? Why does it fail the degree to which it’s implemented? YOU, not myself, have to answer those questions before you throw us all into the servitude of a welfare state, whether on the scale of bankrupt European states (who depend on the U.S. to prop them via low tariffs and other favors) or the totally devastated former Communistic states, along with North Korea and Venezuela today. If you like those places so much—go live there!
Socialism is another type of slavery. Slavery is defined as involuntary servitude. I don’t agree to having my stuff stolen and re-distributed to the less deserving.
Socialism’s morality is the justification to steal for the benefit of “the poor”, when actually the money goes to the government. But whatever the reason for taking someone else’s money, there can never be a justification for breaking God’s commandment: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”.
>>Also, the person asked if the millions going without health insurance in America mattered.
millions come to America illegally. It is not my fault or concern that they didn’t pack their health insurance with them for the journey.
in short, we will always have poor in America because we will always keep importing poor people
Norway doesn’t permit immigration by persons earning less than about $47,000 a year. So much for Socialists’ dream country.
Truly a masterfully written article
The title should be “...leftist who thinks they are morally superior.” Obviously they aren’t. Not to say that I consider myself morally superior to some of my liberal friends - but my conservative ideals are when compared to their liberal ones.
Bkmrk.
I find attacking the Left’s assumptions point by point to work very well. Once they realize that I can do that, they usually disappear on me.
Then I go back to my life of quiet.
ping
I was going to post something similar. So many, if not all of the leftists’ bumper-stickerisms fall into this simple pattern. I think it’s well worth pondering this phenomenon: This mechanism, whereby someone with no stake in anything and with little or no mental capacity nor effort can somehow place themselves on an imaginary moral pedestal by pointing out some societal injustice. And you can see how it fulfills some sort of need. All you have to do is to point towards a homeless person (for example) and make a vague claim that this is a form of societal unfairness. You don’t have to do anything about it nor do you have to understand how it happened. Then you get to go to the next piece of unfairness and claim that the rich aren’t doing enough to help this poor person. Over and over the pointer only has to point. They don’t have to think; they don’t have to analyze. How about if I point at a tree and make the claim that tree suffers from not being able to move around. That isn’t fair either.
“How about if I point at a tree and make the claim that tree suffers from not being able to move around. That isn’t fair either.”
Sorry - but you’re the one who brought up the subject of trees and “fairness”!
“The Trees” - by RUSH
“...And the trees are all kept equal,
by hatchet, axe, and saw.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4amV7__XFA
DING DING DING!
Leftist ideology is ALWAYS a “package deal” requiring uncritical acceptance of at least some unverifiables to achieve the larger goal of Social Sanctimony, and its attendant romantic opposition to the status quo.
Sweep the leg?
Their morals are tailored for antagonism. Socialism is a philosophical weapon to use against those who are successful (or just fortunate), whom they envy. There are two set of morals—one that comes from God and one that comes from the world. Those that embrace the latter believe themselves superior to God.
In other words, there is no such thing as a "morally superior" leftist.
Someone wants churchish benefits without churchish obligations (fealty to God).
Be careful about positing the “morally superior” rightist, at least the kind with a cafeteria faith as is so easy today.
However watch out for cafeteria faith. Often the bible does verge into what looks like a leftist screed. The correct answer is cooperative balance.
However watch out for cafeteria faith. Often the bible does verge into what looks like a leftist screed. The correct answer is cooperative balance.
(Under God.)
We have, in part, lackadaisical souls to thank.
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another–their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
“But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich–will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt–and of his life, as he deserves.
“Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns–or dollars. Take your choice–there is no other–and your time is running out.”
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