Creeping Socialism and the loss of personal freedom
Jun 6, 2018 13:22:25 GMT -6
Post by Todd on Jun 6, 2018 13:22:25 GMT -6
When we moved to Lawrence, Kansas, we subscribed to the local newspaper. It was of a reasonable size for the town it served, and the price was such that it posed no problem. We carried our subscription for years. During this time, it was owned by the family that had owned it since its inception. They were citizens of Lawrence.
A few years ago The paper could no longer afford to subscribe to the national and international news services, so they covered local stories only, and had USA Today print supplements for the paper and deliver them in time for them to be included with the daily newspaper. The news company was finally sold to an outside agency who was a “The-Bottom-Line-is-all-that-matters” company. Within two years, the price of the paper had increased three or four times, and the paper itself had dwindled to a fraction of its former size. Even the USA Today insert had dwindled to a single page.
We eventually had to cancel our subscription. When I called to cancel, the woman at the subscription desk said: “If you don’t mind my asking, what made you decide to quit subscribing to the paper?” I answered, “because its too much money for too little paper.” The paper was now a complete waste of money. The paper had grown smaller and smaller, and the cost had gone up and up.
As I hope will become clear, America today faces a similar problem: Too much government and too few people paying for it. We few are paying more and more money for bigger and bigger (and more unwieldy) government. The government is helping itself to our money and buying votes from the poor by showering them with it. People are leaving the country now because of this syndrome. There follow a couple of cases of the syndrome that produces these results.
One example of this economic syndrome can be seen in government growth and its relation to business. As government grows in accordance with services demanded it must do two things. It must hire the unemployed from various layoffs, downsizing, exports of jobs overseas or whatever other condition might prevail that can produce workers for the ever-growing number of government jobs, a la, Keynes. Second, it must increase taxes to pay for those services. We will notice after thinking about the history of taxation in America that we have had to increase the sources of government revenue as the government grew. Thus, we now not only tax, liquor, tobacco and gasoline at exorbitant rates, we have State sanctioned Lotto and organized gambling and so forth. Toll Roads are constructed with the expectation that they will be paid for with tolls. But those toll booths rarely come down after the highway is paid for. The fact that we are now supporting with government funds a plethora of “programs” largely explains the need for the newer sources of revenue. This, of course, leads to the welfare syndrome, which functions much as this one, and will be discussed briefly in a moment. But the expanded sources of Government revenue are still hugely insufficient to fund the ever-expanding government, so the Government borrows in myriad ways. We are now in debt so deeply that we can only just barely pay the interest on the various loans.
The layoffs, downsizing, and exporting of American jobs overseas by big business is a result of businesses’ slavery to over-taxation, to “the bottom line,” to investors, and, consequently, to a need for the smaller and more agile workforces made possible by computers and robotics.
This cycle of government expansion, business efficiency, and the decreasing need for workers in the private sector workforce constitutes a problem. This is not to suggest that government picks up all unemployed workers, or that taxation forces every business to send jobs overseas, but that these are essential elements of this particular syndrome. The problem constituted hereby is that eventually, fewer and fewer private sector workers, or at least a lower percentage of them, are supporting an ever-growing, already burgeoning government, and that the government, because of its growing need, is subsidizing more and more government workers. Jobs have been transferred from the private sector to the government sector in horrific numbers. Obviously, we need to privatize these agencies and jobs, but that is another topic.
We now must note a concomitant and unconstitutional situation that arises when big government hires people to be “watchdogs,” for the regulatory agencies created for them. These agencies, contra the Constitution, “must” have the power to enact law by fiat. Thus, the EPA, OSHA, the VA, and so forth, are tasked with legislating, largely at their own discretion, in their various fields, and more and more personal freedoms disappear on the altar of big government. There is an unavoidable and undeniable causation between the growth of government, especially by means of regulatory agencies and political “programs,” and the gradual erosion of personal liberty. But because our personal freedoms are disappearing slowly, or in areas we don’t pay much attention to, we barely notice and “never miss them.”
Subsidizing various sectors of the populace also produces a syndrome similar to the business and employment syndrome. Several things are obviously wrong with this picture.
Generally, the syndrome goes something like this: the poor, medically challenged, homeless, and one parent families have problems that need to be addressed. So the government steps in trades its help for votes and provides shelter, medical help, and food for those in need. The government also provides “job training,” of a sort. But the government is the last entity in the galaxy that should provide such help, because 1. Personal taxes go up. 2. New agencies and watchdog outfits are born, and 3. More personal freedoms “go missing,” (or are stolen).
Because a person’s aid comes not from dad or from uncle Fred, but from the faceless government, those on the dole are not answerable (in any meaningful sense) to anyone, and come to view the government handout as “free money,” to which they are “entitled” because of their circumstances. Dad or uncle Fred would know just how far their help should be expected to go, and then would shut off the tap. The government never does this.
Not only does “free money” appeal to those too undisciplined to work, it seems logical, when working people are fired, downsized, or laid off, for them to go on the dole as well. The other major option is to go to work for the government. It should not be forgotten that government work often comes with a very generous, taxpayer-funded pension plan that is itself ruinous to the economy, and that no matter how ridiculous, the Unions will fight to keep in place until the last dollar is spent. And with the time he now has available to him, the welfare recipient learns to “work the system.” This means, among other things, deliberately impregnating girls who then also go on the dole. Just as the more children a single mother has, the greater the amount of her “free money,” the more girls a man impregnates, the more “free money” he gets. Oh, yes, impregnating single girls is an industry. Informal arrangements between the man and single mother(s) allow him a percentage of her (or their) welfare check(s)! At 10 %, for example, a man has only to father 10 children to receive monthly the equivalent of an entire welfare check.
So the dole roll grows. And with education being almost nonexistent, and training being for those silly enough to want to work (and have taxes taken out of their pay to support their friends on welfare!), we must not hold our collective breath waiting for things to get better. As Ronald Reagan discovered, no society or segment thereof will ever voluntarily relinquish its government subsidy, and as long as those subsidies can be sold for votes, no government dependent upon elections will ever revoke them.
Again, there are fewer and fewer employed citizens being taxed to pay for more and more welfare recipients. At the risk of forming a hasty generalization, it seems that any time government plans something, a war, the economy, etc., it is axiomatic that it will be 1. Ignorant of much that needs to be known, 2. factionally ineffective or delinquent, and 3. eternally omnipresent in the lives of the working citizens. Government “Programs” may be “tweaked,” but they are never discontinued.
Three points are clear. The first is that Government practices, policies, and programs are never removed. This may be the worst problem America faces. It should sober us quickly to realize that our ruling elite will never, never, replace the problem policies it has produced. Welfare and Big Brother? They are here to stay. Obamacare? Despite promises to the contrary, it is here to stay. Abortion on demand? Here to stay. Legalized drugs? Here to stay. No problem created by the government will ever be eliminated by the government. This would be tantamount to admitting imperfection. Only alcohol consumption has been returned to legality, and it took an amendment to the constitution to do that.
The second point is that all these baby steps toward socialism undeniably and necessarily result in the elimination of personal freedoms. We may not recognize the fact until it is too late. We may only at a later date wake up and realize that thanks to our “planned economy,” we are now, all of us, in a situation not at all unlike the military, where personal freedom does not exist, and where permission must be sought for every trip to town.
The third point is that having embarked on this trajectory, there is no turning back, no hope of recovery. What will be required is a new revolution, as Jefferson advocated. But when the freedoms disappear slowly, one by one, and begin in areas that are seemingly unimportant, it will be difficult to find patriots willing to fight for their return. Put bluntly, our government, whether Republican or Democrat, is on a track from which it cannot turn aside. We do not need new programs. We do not need to lose more freedoms. But instead of statesmen who might want to deliver us from our growing enslavement, we have only politicians who want merely to “tweak” the system, in order to profit from it rather than to abandon it. In this, Marx appears to be right. At this point, socialism (of one variety or another, and with a greater or lesser nationalization of industry) is inevitable.
“Planned economy” is here to stay.
Consequently, our freedoms are disappearing.
The trend continues.
-Todd
A few years ago The paper could no longer afford to subscribe to the national and international news services, so they covered local stories only, and had USA Today print supplements for the paper and deliver them in time for them to be included with the daily newspaper. The news company was finally sold to an outside agency who was a “The-Bottom-Line-is-all-that-matters” company. Within two years, the price of the paper had increased three or four times, and the paper itself had dwindled to a fraction of its former size. Even the USA Today insert had dwindled to a single page.
We eventually had to cancel our subscription. When I called to cancel, the woman at the subscription desk said: “If you don’t mind my asking, what made you decide to quit subscribing to the paper?” I answered, “because its too much money for too little paper.” The paper was now a complete waste of money. The paper had grown smaller and smaller, and the cost had gone up and up.
As I hope will become clear, America today faces a similar problem: Too much government and too few people paying for it. We few are paying more and more money for bigger and bigger (and more unwieldy) government. The government is helping itself to our money and buying votes from the poor by showering them with it. People are leaving the country now because of this syndrome. There follow a couple of cases of the syndrome that produces these results.
One example of this economic syndrome can be seen in government growth and its relation to business. As government grows in accordance with services demanded it must do two things. It must hire the unemployed from various layoffs, downsizing, exports of jobs overseas or whatever other condition might prevail that can produce workers for the ever-growing number of government jobs, a la, Keynes. Second, it must increase taxes to pay for those services. We will notice after thinking about the history of taxation in America that we have had to increase the sources of government revenue as the government grew. Thus, we now not only tax, liquor, tobacco and gasoline at exorbitant rates, we have State sanctioned Lotto and organized gambling and so forth. Toll Roads are constructed with the expectation that they will be paid for with tolls. But those toll booths rarely come down after the highway is paid for. The fact that we are now supporting with government funds a plethora of “programs” largely explains the need for the newer sources of revenue. This, of course, leads to the welfare syndrome, which functions much as this one, and will be discussed briefly in a moment. But the expanded sources of Government revenue are still hugely insufficient to fund the ever-expanding government, so the Government borrows in myriad ways. We are now in debt so deeply that we can only just barely pay the interest on the various loans.
The layoffs, downsizing, and exporting of American jobs overseas by big business is a result of businesses’ slavery to over-taxation, to “the bottom line,” to investors, and, consequently, to a need for the smaller and more agile workforces made possible by computers and robotics.
This cycle of government expansion, business efficiency, and the decreasing need for workers in the private sector workforce constitutes a problem. This is not to suggest that government picks up all unemployed workers, or that taxation forces every business to send jobs overseas, but that these are essential elements of this particular syndrome. The problem constituted hereby is that eventually, fewer and fewer private sector workers, or at least a lower percentage of them, are supporting an ever-growing, already burgeoning government, and that the government, because of its growing need, is subsidizing more and more government workers. Jobs have been transferred from the private sector to the government sector in horrific numbers. Obviously, we need to privatize these agencies and jobs, but that is another topic.
We now must note a concomitant and unconstitutional situation that arises when big government hires people to be “watchdogs,” for the regulatory agencies created for them. These agencies, contra the Constitution, “must” have the power to enact law by fiat. Thus, the EPA, OSHA, the VA, and so forth, are tasked with legislating, largely at their own discretion, in their various fields, and more and more personal freedoms disappear on the altar of big government. There is an unavoidable and undeniable causation between the growth of government, especially by means of regulatory agencies and political “programs,” and the gradual erosion of personal liberty. But because our personal freedoms are disappearing slowly, or in areas we don’t pay much attention to, we barely notice and “never miss them.”
Subsidizing various sectors of the populace also produces a syndrome similar to the business and employment syndrome. Several things are obviously wrong with this picture.
Generally, the syndrome goes something like this: the poor, medically challenged, homeless, and one parent families have problems that need to be addressed. So the government steps in trades its help for votes and provides shelter, medical help, and food for those in need. The government also provides “job training,” of a sort. But the government is the last entity in the galaxy that should provide such help, because 1. Personal taxes go up. 2. New agencies and watchdog outfits are born, and 3. More personal freedoms “go missing,” (or are stolen).
Because a person’s aid comes not from dad or from uncle Fred, but from the faceless government, those on the dole are not answerable (in any meaningful sense) to anyone, and come to view the government handout as “free money,” to which they are “entitled” because of their circumstances. Dad or uncle Fred would know just how far their help should be expected to go, and then would shut off the tap. The government never does this.
Not only does “free money” appeal to those too undisciplined to work, it seems logical, when working people are fired, downsized, or laid off, for them to go on the dole as well. The other major option is to go to work for the government. It should not be forgotten that government work often comes with a very generous, taxpayer-funded pension plan that is itself ruinous to the economy, and that no matter how ridiculous, the Unions will fight to keep in place until the last dollar is spent. And with the time he now has available to him, the welfare recipient learns to “work the system.” This means, among other things, deliberately impregnating girls who then also go on the dole. Just as the more children a single mother has, the greater the amount of her “free money,” the more girls a man impregnates, the more “free money” he gets. Oh, yes, impregnating single girls is an industry. Informal arrangements between the man and single mother(s) allow him a percentage of her (or their) welfare check(s)! At 10 %, for example, a man has only to father 10 children to receive monthly the equivalent of an entire welfare check.
So the dole roll grows. And with education being almost nonexistent, and training being for those silly enough to want to work (and have taxes taken out of their pay to support their friends on welfare!), we must not hold our collective breath waiting for things to get better. As Ronald Reagan discovered, no society or segment thereof will ever voluntarily relinquish its government subsidy, and as long as those subsidies can be sold for votes, no government dependent upon elections will ever revoke them.
Again, there are fewer and fewer employed citizens being taxed to pay for more and more welfare recipients. At the risk of forming a hasty generalization, it seems that any time government plans something, a war, the economy, etc., it is axiomatic that it will be 1. Ignorant of much that needs to be known, 2. factionally ineffective or delinquent, and 3. eternally omnipresent in the lives of the working citizens. Government “Programs” may be “tweaked,” but they are never discontinued.
Three points are clear. The first is that Government practices, policies, and programs are never removed. This may be the worst problem America faces. It should sober us quickly to realize that our ruling elite will never, never, replace the problem policies it has produced. Welfare and Big Brother? They are here to stay. Obamacare? Despite promises to the contrary, it is here to stay. Abortion on demand? Here to stay. Legalized drugs? Here to stay. No problem created by the government will ever be eliminated by the government. This would be tantamount to admitting imperfection. Only alcohol consumption has been returned to legality, and it took an amendment to the constitution to do that.
The second point is that all these baby steps toward socialism undeniably and necessarily result in the elimination of personal freedoms. We may not recognize the fact until it is too late. We may only at a later date wake up and realize that thanks to our “planned economy,” we are now, all of us, in a situation not at all unlike the military, where personal freedom does not exist, and where permission must be sought for every trip to town.
The third point is that having embarked on this trajectory, there is no turning back, no hope of recovery. What will be required is a new revolution, as Jefferson advocated. But when the freedoms disappear slowly, one by one, and begin in areas that are seemingly unimportant, it will be difficult to find patriots willing to fight for their return. Put bluntly, our government, whether Republican or Democrat, is on a track from which it cannot turn aside. We do not need new programs. We do not need to lose more freedoms. But instead of statesmen who might want to deliver us from our growing enslavement, we have only politicians who want merely to “tweak” the system, in order to profit from it rather than to abandon it. In this, Marx appears to be right. At this point, socialism (of one variety or another, and with a greater or lesser nationalization of industry) is inevitable.
“Planned economy” is here to stay.
Consequently, our freedoms are disappearing.
The trend continues.
-Todd