Good morning all!
This morning I'd like to share with you a spirited conversation I recently had with a colleague regarding socialism. For the sake of this post I will call him "Archie".
We had just attended a meeting and everyone had left the conference room but Archie and I. He had been sitting towards one end of the table and slowly walked to the seat directly opposite me and stood, watching. I was organizing some paperwork for another meeting that I was to attend within the next half hour when I realized he was still in the room. I looked up and raised my eyebrows expectantly.
"You got a minute, Emily?" he finally asked.
"Sure. What's up?" Archie and I have known each other for many years. We had nothing more than a professional relationship, but I liked and respected him. He's a solid guy.
He sat down and leaned forward. "I'm a little concerned." He looked worried.
"About what?" We served on a committee together and were collaborating on a couple of projects. I assumed it was something to do with work.
"About your political views."
I chuckled and returned to my organizing. Surely, I thought, he was kidding.
"I'm serious. What's going on with you?"
I looked up again, shocked. Caught completely unawares, I just shrugged my shoulders.
"The whole socialism thing." His face was serious.
I suddenly became defensive. "What about it!?" Looking back, I was probably a little snappier than I had intended.
"Are you turning into some kind of communist?" He stared at me like he was trying to look inside my head.
I wanted to laugh but I was quickly getting upset. I opened my mouth to speak but Archie interupted me.
"I saw some of your books the last time I was in your office. You can't be serious. I mean, c'mon!"
"Do you even know what socialism is, Archie?" My paperwork was now forgotten.
"Damn right I do," he sat up straight and clenched his fists. "It's the first step towards communism!"
"Are you...." he didn't let me get started.
"You want to take our country and turn it into a welfare state! You want Americans to turn into a bunch of lazy a$$#@!%$! I can't believe you! You want to give our country over to the bums in the street!"
"Hold it!" We both stod now and I leaned across the table with my finger pointing directly in his face. "In about two seconds I'm going to come across this table and slap the $#!& out of you!"
Archie took a step back. I'm short and slight but I inherited a nasty temper from my father. He'd obviously never seen it before. I took a deep breath.
"What's government for, Archie?"
"What?" He looked confused.
"Answer the question." I pressed him. "What is government for?"
"I....I...." he stammered. "I don't know." He was thinking hard. "To...."
"Why do we even have a government?"
"I don't Emily....I guess I never really thought about it...." he was back on his heels.
"To protect us? To take care of us? To help us?"
"Yeah, sure." He nodded, but his eyes were skeptical. He thought for a second and I was his eyes change. "Yeah. To proetct us. To let us live a good life."
"All of us?" I asked.
"Yeah, all of us." He nodded again.
"Does that apply to the old and the sick?"
"Of course." Archie looked indignant.
"How about those down on their luck?" He nodded. "Those whom life had thrown a curve ball? Those that, through no fault of their own, suddenly find themselves unemployed, without healthcare benefits, unable to pay their bills?" His nodding slowed. "Those with less opportunities than most?"
"This is still America, Emily! Everyone has the same opportunities."
"Do they, Archie?" My hands were on my hips. "Do the children of poor and middle-class families have the same opportunities as the children of millionaires and billionaires? You know which ones I'm talking about...." He gave me a blank look now. "What about all the spending cuts the conservatives are proposing? Who's that going to hurt?"
He had no answer.
"I'll tell you who it's going to hurt. The poor. The elderly. The sick. The middle class." I ticked these off on my fingers.
Archie finally realized he needed to put up a defense. "What about our taxes? Do you want us to become like the Europeans?" He was becoming emotional about the thought of losing his hard earned money. "I, for one, don't want to pay in excess of 50% of my pay so that the poor can sit around and collect for nothing! I don't want to sacrifice my standard of living!"
"Listen to yourself, Archie!" I was getting angry again. "You're right. If America became socialist today, your taxes would probably go up. Mine too. And we already pay income tax and sales tax. But we also pay a lot out of pocket to secure our future, don't we."
He looked confused again.
"I'm talking about things we pay for like life insurance. Health insurance supplements. Retirement programs. 401k's. Optical. Dental. None of these are payed for with our taxes. What about all the charities and foundations that rely on private donations. There are too many to count and they perform necessary functions that fall through governmental cracks. Now imagine if all these things were payed for by the government, through taxes, and not one citizen would ever have to worry about them again.
"Never have to worry about getting sick, or retiring, or our children's schooling, or police protection, or road repairs, or clean water. Sounds kind of utopian, I know, but it's not. It won't be easy. We all have to contribute. All of us. The wealthy too. And we all have to work if we are able. That means more regulation to cut down on welfare and disability fraud. We would have to get stricter with healthcare fraud too. And labor unions would have to operate within reason. No free rides.
"And if some of our standards of living would drop, it would be materialistically. But overall, the quality of life in America would improve. We say the words: "One nation, under God..." but we can't truly be one nation until we are in fact one nation: all working together as one to make America a better place for all. Not just for the aristocratic elite."
Archie's head was cocked to one side like a puppy.
"Let's talk more later....I've got a meeting...." I left the room.
ejgw
Monday, January 9, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Margaret Thatcher
Good morning all!
I would like to talk about an article I recently read by Syndicated columnist Rich Lowery entitled "America needs to find its Thatcher". With all due respect to Mr. Lowery, he is conservatively delusional.
To summarize his article, Lowery compares the U.S. of today with pre-Margaret Thatcher England. England, in his words, had become "an embarrassing wreck" and Margaret Thatcher, when elected Prime Minister in 1979, set the country to rights by implementing conservative policies such as cutting taxes, privatizing industries and deregulating the financial industry. Lowery praises Thatcher for refusing to give in to the feeling of defeatism that prevailed during that time and for her "unyielding rejection of British decline". Lowery would like to see "a Thatcher-like figure" in the Republican presidential field (for the 2012 election), one that rejects the idea of America's decline and would put us on the path to economic glory.
Whereas Thatcher's attitude was commendable, her financial reforms were the same old conservative story. She subscribed to the mistaken belief that a free-market economy is self regulating and, if left alone (no government intervention) will always create a prosperous economic environment. How has that worked in the past? Not very well, I dare say.
Privitization, by its very nature, brings capital into the economic system. This in itself, creates an artificial boom where everyone seems to profit. Add to this the deregulation of the markets and the banks, and a whole new level of investing becomes available, a good portion of which, by default, is marginally unethical at best. Everyone wins. At least for a while. A boom. A bubble. Then a crash. We have seen this cycle over and over, the most recent crash being in 2008, and economists spend countless hours attempting to disect the process in order to find a way back to the boom. Instead of searching for a particular piece of the process that malfunctioned and acted as a catalyst, I have to believe that the problem is the process itself.
I have a bad habit of taking a complicated issue, trimming the fat and looking at it as simply as possible. Oversimplification can be dangerous at times, but it has served me well so far, so maybe you can bear with me. I like to compare free-market capitalism to a game of cards. In order for one player to win, another player has to lose. Too simple?
Ok, let's try another one. Cars. Unregulated free-market capitalism is a race car and socialism is the family station wagon. The race car is shiny, glamorous, sleek and sexy. The wagon is somewhat drab, boring, in fact, but relatively solid. The race car will do 100 mph and the wagon has a top speed of 50 mph. Mr. and Mrs. Capitalist load their children into the race car and off they go. Mr. and Mrs. Socialist and family climb into the wagon and they hit the road. Both families roll along the freeway towards their respective holiday destinations, the race car screaming at 100 mph and the wagon plodding along at 50 mph. The Capitalists, hooping and hollering and reveling in the fact that they are speeding past all other traffic, thumb their noses at the wagon and it's silly occupants far behind and fail to notice the sharp turn ahead. Unsurprisingly, they are unable to negotiate the turn, veer off the roadway and come to a halt as the reult of an ugly crash. The Socialists, still unceremoniously plodding along at 50 mph, reach their destination safely. At the end of the day, both vehicles averaged 50 mph, but the occupants of the wagon suffered no injuries and will be able to resume their trip on the following day. The race car will have to be rebuilt before the Capitalists can resume their trip and their casualties dealt with. Or, more typically, left on the roadside for dead.
Do you catch my meaning or do I have to bludgeon you with the tortoise and the hare story?
Did I mention that the major contributor to Britian's financial hardships pre-Margaret Thatcher was the fighting of two really big wars and not the result of wild and crazy social programs?
I'll stop for now.......
ejgw
I would like to talk about an article I recently read by Syndicated columnist Rich Lowery entitled "America needs to find its Thatcher". With all due respect to Mr. Lowery, he is conservatively delusional.
To summarize his article, Lowery compares the U.S. of today with pre-Margaret Thatcher England. England, in his words, had become "an embarrassing wreck" and Margaret Thatcher, when elected Prime Minister in 1979, set the country to rights by implementing conservative policies such as cutting taxes, privatizing industries and deregulating the financial industry. Lowery praises Thatcher for refusing to give in to the feeling of defeatism that prevailed during that time and for her "unyielding rejection of British decline". Lowery would like to see "a Thatcher-like figure" in the Republican presidential field (for the 2012 election), one that rejects the idea of America's decline and would put us on the path to economic glory.
Whereas Thatcher's attitude was commendable, her financial reforms were the same old conservative story. She subscribed to the mistaken belief that a free-market economy is self regulating and, if left alone (no government intervention) will always create a prosperous economic environment. How has that worked in the past? Not very well, I dare say.
Privitization, by its very nature, brings capital into the economic system. This in itself, creates an artificial boom where everyone seems to profit. Add to this the deregulation of the markets and the banks, and a whole new level of investing becomes available, a good portion of which, by default, is marginally unethical at best. Everyone wins. At least for a while. A boom. A bubble. Then a crash. We have seen this cycle over and over, the most recent crash being in 2008, and economists spend countless hours attempting to disect the process in order to find a way back to the boom. Instead of searching for a particular piece of the process that malfunctioned and acted as a catalyst, I have to believe that the problem is the process itself.
I have a bad habit of taking a complicated issue, trimming the fat and looking at it as simply as possible. Oversimplification can be dangerous at times, but it has served me well so far, so maybe you can bear with me. I like to compare free-market capitalism to a game of cards. In order for one player to win, another player has to lose. Too simple?
Ok, let's try another one. Cars. Unregulated free-market capitalism is a race car and socialism is the family station wagon. The race car is shiny, glamorous, sleek and sexy. The wagon is somewhat drab, boring, in fact, but relatively solid. The race car will do 100 mph and the wagon has a top speed of 50 mph. Mr. and Mrs. Capitalist load their children into the race car and off they go. Mr. and Mrs. Socialist and family climb into the wagon and they hit the road. Both families roll along the freeway towards their respective holiday destinations, the race car screaming at 100 mph and the wagon plodding along at 50 mph. The Capitalists, hooping and hollering and reveling in the fact that they are speeding past all other traffic, thumb their noses at the wagon and it's silly occupants far behind and fail to notice the sharp turn ahead. Unsurprisingly, they are unable to negotiate the turn, veer off the roadway and come to a halt as the reult of an ugly crash. The Socialists, still unceremoniously plodding along at 50 mph, reach their destination safely. At the end of the day, both vehicles averaged 50 mph, but the occupants of the wagon suffered no injuries and will be able to resume their trip on the following day. The race car will have to be rebuilt before the Capitalists can resume their trip and their casualties dealt with. Or, more typically, left on the roadside for dead.
Do you catch my meaning or do I have to bludgeon you with the tortoise and the hare story?
Did I mention that the major contributor to Britian's financial hardships pre-Margaret Thatcher was the fighting of two really big wars and not the result of wild and crazy social programs?
I'll stop for now.......
ejgw
Friday, January 6, 2012
Redistribution of Wealth
Good afternoon!
I'm back for a moment and would like to begin spelling out what I believe are some of the key issues concerning socialism and America.
Redistribution of wealth:
This is a big one! Recently, there has been much attention drawn to the belief that the Democratic economic policies are nothing more than the redistribution of wealth. That liberals would like nothing better than to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. A sort of political Robin Hood, you might say. Conservative propaganda takes it a step further and frightens the feeble-minded into believing that Democrats wish to take money from the middle-class and redistribute it to the poor, creating an ever-growing layer of societal bottom feeders that would suck the life out of all employed Americans. Conservative media contends that we would become a nation of unemployed ne'er-do-wells, lounging in socialistic comfort beside the mail box in anticipation of the next unemployment/welfare/disability check. And the tragedy is that there are many people out there across the land that believe this conservative fiction and are deathly afraid of the U.S becoming a socialistic state the likes of Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Democracy can flourish in a nation that employs socialistic principles.
But getting back to the idea of redistributing wealth. There are many varieties of socialism, many schools of thought and many economic theories. The type of economic socialism that conservative leaders accuse of, conservative media warns of and conservative voters fear seems to be the utopian idea of economic equality, where all citizens are equal, social classes all but eliminated and wealth is distributed equally. Imagine the horror! Realistically speaking, when Democrats speak of "redistribution of wealth", their intent is for the American Aristocratic Class to pay their fair share of taxes for the betterment of the country as a whole. And some of that increased revenue would, out of necessity, go to what has become a very fashionable word: "entitlements".
Whether one is an advocate of social programs or not, one must always keep in mind that an indication of a nation's overall strength is not the culmination of it's military might, but the srength and wellness of it's people. All of it's people. And even if taking from those with too much in order to help those with too little is considered socialism or bleeding-heart liberalism by conservatives, it is without a doubt the right thing to do. Just imagine the greatness we could achieve as a nation if helping those in need somehow became trendily patriotic, instead of the conservative's concept of patriotism through sensless and artificially manufactured wars.
ejgw
I'm back for a moment and would like to begin spelling out what I believe are some of the key issues concerning socialism and America.
Redistribution of wealth:
This is a big one! Recently, there has been much attention drawn to the belief that the Democratic economic policies are nothing more than the redistribution of wealth. That liberals would like nothing better than to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. A sort of political Robin Hood, you might say. Conservative propaganda takes it a step further and frightens the feeble-minded into believing that Democrats wish to take money from the middle-class and redistribute it to the poor, creating an ever-growing layer of societal bottom feeders that would suck the life out of all employed Americans. Conservative media contends that we would become a nation of unemployed ne'er-do-wells, lounging in socialistic comfort beside the mail box in anticipation of the next unemployment/welfare/disability check. And the tragedy is that there are many people out there across the land that believe this conservative fiction and are deathly afraid of the U.S becoming a socialistic state the likes of Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Democracy can flourish in a nation that employs socialistic principles.
But getting back to the idea of redistributing wealth. There are many varieties of socialism, many schools of thought and many economic theories. The type of economic socialism that conservative leaders accuse of, conservative media warns of and conservative voters fear seems to be the utopian idea of economic equality, where all citizens are equal, social classes all but eliminated and wealth is distributed equally. Imagine the horror! Realistically speaking, when Democrats speak of "redistribution of wealth", their intent is for the American Aristocratic Class to pay their fair share of taxes for the betterment of the country as a whole. And some of that increased revenue would, out of necessity, go to what has become a very fashionable word: "entitlements".
Whether one is an advocate of social programs or not, one must always keep in mind that an indication of a nation's overall strength is not the culmination of it's military might, but the srength and wellness of it's people. All of it's people. And even if taking from those with too much in order to help those with too little is considered socialism or bleeding-heart liberalism by conservatives, it is without a doubt the right thing to do. Just imagine the greatness we could achieve as a nation if helping those in need somehow became trendily patriotic, instead of the conservative's concept of patriotism through sensless and artificially manufactured wars.
ejgw
Welcome!
Welcome To my blog!
I am excited to be able to express my political beliefs in a forum where readers can respond. Please feel free to do so.
First and foremost, I am a patriotic American who agonizes over the present state our country is in. The current political divide is not only disheartening, but it shines a spotlight on the system as a whole, exposing the fact that campaign financing is so out of control that the election process itself unashamedly thumbs it's nose at propriety and decency, and political lobbying has become an art form hubristically flaunted by the American Aristocracy.
And the fact that mainstream news media has been allowed to become nothing more than propoganda machines is downright embarrassing and deplorable, seeing as how the average citizen is lead to believe he is watching legitimate news. Big money at work again.....
The economic downturn we have been experiencing is the wakeup call we have long needed in order to step back and take a look at our overall situation. Continuing on in the same manner as before seems nothing more than an exercise in futility. Unregulated free-market capitalism has created a culture of corruption and is not the answer to making America great again.
I am looking forward to talk about and discuss these and many other issues in the future. Thank you for giving me your valuable time.
I just want to leave you with the core of my belief: "Socialism is not about taking advantage. Socialism is about taking responsibility. Everyone contributes, everyone benefits."
I am excited to be able to express my political beliefs in a forum where readers can respond. Please feel free to do so.
First and foremost, I am a patriotic American who agonizes over the present state our country is in. The current political divide is not only disheartening, but it shines a spotlight on the system as a whole, exposing the fact that campaign financing is so out of control that the election process itself unashamedly thumbs it's nose at propriety and decency, and political lobbying has become an art form hubristically flaunted by the American Aristocracy.
And the fact that mainstream news media has been allowed to become nothing more than propoganda machines is downright embarrassing and deplorable, seeing as how the average citizen is lead to believe he is watching legitimate news. Big money at work again.....
The economic downturn we have been experiencing is the wakeup call we have long needed in order to step back and take a look at our overall situation. Continuing on in the same manner as before seems nothing more than an exercise in futility. Unregulated free-market capitalism has created a culture of corruption and is not the answer to making America great again.
I am looking forward to talk about and discuss these and many other issues in the future. Thank you for giving me your valuable time.
I just want to leave you with the core of my belief: "Socialism is not about taking advantage. Socialism is about taking responsibility. Everyone contributes, everyone benefits."
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