Today on the Glenn Beck program he used an example of the “unfair” practice of socialism which coerces one person into paying for lunch for 40 people. It does seem unfair doesn’t it? Why should one person have to pay for 40% of the population? After all, this is America and we would like to see people work for what they have, not coerce one wealthy person into giving it to them, right?
Of course there is one small problem… how did that person get the money to begin with? How is it they have enough to pay for the lunch of 40 people? Beck talked about a billionaire who used to live in a home with eight other families and worked his way into billionaire status. The billionaire was not named by Beck but allegedly said he hoped to leave this life penniless by giving his money away. He (Beck) then said we need more of those people around. ABSOLUTELY!
In fact, I can think of a couple of billionaires that worked their way to money and are giving it away: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Oops, I forgot… they aren’t conservatives. In an ironic twist the people who understand that the real “forgotten man” has been forgotten by the yacht club, the billionaire example Beck used is still the exception; not the rule. I wonder how far and how long one has to look to find the one example of a person who lived in a house with cardboard walls turned billionaire to substantiate an ideology of “free-market” capitalism?
Leave that point alone for a second and consider this: the same conservatives who claim they want us to work hard for money and that competition is good for the economy simultaneously want to maintain wealth-fare, that is, trust funds and inheritance which carve out a particular portion of society and designate that they should never have to work again. Those who are on wealth-fare will never compete economically, they’ll never go on unemployment, they think COBRA is a snake, and that only rednecks drive American made cars. Since when did the welfare of society at large get replaced by the wealth-fare of a minority? And more importantly, is that really American?
2 comments:
That's an excellent point regarding wealth-fare, and one I've personally never considered from that exact angle, but I tend to agree with.
In contrast, I believe many social conservatives who oppose a socialist-type distribution of wealth do so not on the basis of the morals and principles of it all but rather on the concern that the government has, to date, exibited gross incompetence in redistributing wealth in such a way as to strengthen society instead of deteriating it through creating dependence (e.g.: Katrina).
I feel it's more American than taking money away from people who have it just to give it to those that don't, I mean, is it really American to be Communists?
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