Lately I've been wondering if part of the problem we're having with the spread of socialism in our society is permissiveness. I'm not talking about policies that create and perpetuate various socialist schemes, but attitudes and interactions that make the creation and maintenance of such policies politically viable. I've noticed that bottom-up class warfare is rampant and meekly defended against. The reverse is almost non-existent; why are we not hard on welfare recipients?
I'm not talking about taking away the structures and institutions that make distributions of stolen wealth to the recipients - that will come later. I'm talking about all of us who are paying into these systems. We attack the programs frequently; why are we not also attacking the individuals benefiting from them? When we producers do so, it's in hushed tones, out of earshot of those who receive what is stolen from us. Why are we not in their faces?
I'm not advocating physically attacking them, mind you. I'm talking about socially attacking them. With a sort of hands off, out of sight and out of mind and no questions asked attitude, do we make it too socially comfortable for people to not only get on to welfare, but to develop the attitude that it's their right to take from us?
If we started treating people on government public assistance like second class citizens, would that be enough incentive to get the bulk of them off of it and purge the idea from their minds that it's OK to be in those programs? (I'm making a hard distinction between government assistance and private charity - private charities may do as they wish, and I may avoid giving them my money if I don't like what they do; for this reason private charity is superior.) As an example of what I'm talking about, I don't think they should be allowed to vote. Why should people who are not only not producing, but consuming the fruits of other's labor, be allowed to have a say in the arrangement? What else can they be expected to do but vote themselves an even greater share? Look at this last presidential election we just had - that is exactly what millions of them did! They even admit and are proud of it!
In our day-to-day interactions, would it improve the situation if we, as individuals, constantly subject those we interact with who are on the dole to withering criticism? It should not only be inconvenient to be a participant in these wealth confiscation and redistribution schemes, it should come with a heavy dose of shunning. This would be incomplete if it did not also come with tolerance for uncontrollable misfortune, to an extent (not indefinitely, in other words, and absolutely not for misfortunes brought about by knowable, avoidable missteps and carelessness), and with a ready and willing acknowledgment of the positive steps taken by members of the leech class to redeem themselves. This should be a "carrot and stick" affair, just heavy on the stick in this case. We should not allow these folks to become comfortable.
If our social interactions create a space where some folks get it into their heads that they're right to demand all of this stuff from us, at the point of the Governmugger's gun, what good is it to attack the institutions that facilitate the transfer? Those institutions have the support of their leech class, who, comfortable with what they're doing, will always defend them. But if the socialists in our government try to put on the party, so to speak, and no one shows up because they don't want to wear the scarlet 'W', would it not then be easier to tear it all down?
0 comments:
Post a Comment