Did you see the President’s state of the union speech last night? If not, you can read it here, courtesy of ABC News.
I’m deeply disturbed that what appears to be so popular in this great nation is the forcible taking from some to give to others. Is that ethical? So much of the President’s speech last night involved discussion of these sorts of things.
To be frank, if you believe programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are anything other than socialism, how would you classify them? The fact is I can count on putting much more into Social Security than I can ever hope to recover later, and the Social Security administration admits as much in this PDF document.
We’re getting ever closer to the terms required within the Communist Manifesto, as seen in the Wikipedia article on this subject. How many of these things have we already established within our society, even if through well-meaning programs and taxation? Consider the ten conditions required in moving from capitalism to communism below (quoted from the Wikipedia article:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Redistribute wealth. More programs, more spending, more debt. “Jobs” provided through something done by the state, ultimately funded by the citizens. Is this the America you want? Is this how you’d spend your own money?
The Senate just proposed (and passed) lifting the national debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion, per this Reuters article. That’s nearly 100% of our national GDP! If I had a full year’s worth of my income in unsecured debt, I’d consider myself in great financial peril, and perhaps bankrupt. How does adding to this figure help me recover? How is my personal situation different than our national situation?
Am I just being negative? Am I missing some reason for optimism? Feel free to let me know–you can comment on blog posts, or drop me an email (email addresses found on our Contact page).