Posts Tagged ‘socialism’

The Return of the Wall

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012

Soviet Union Part Deux

After witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall, and indeed, the collapse of the entire border frontier between East and West firsthand near the end of my military service, I thought those days marked the final death-knell of communism around the world.  In more than two decades since those days of hope, as it seemed the globe might begin to abandon the plots and schemes of the central planners, what I witnessed is that rather than take the hard-learned lessons forward with us from then until now, we’ve forgotten them.  Discredited and defeated, communism should have been dead, but it’s not gone away after all.  In the last several years, it has made a resurgence, as the generational memories of the terror it brought upon the globe fade, and younger generations fall prey to the song of the socialist sirens.  With communism and its more socially acceptable forms, “socialism” and “progressivism” making a comeback, it should be a surprise to read that the French Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, announces in spittle-laden bellicosity that the rich fleeing France for Belgium to escape the high taxes should be considered less than patriotic.  Reading the translation of his remarks, one can only wonder how long it will be before France, like the Soviet Union before it, erects walls to prevent its most successful people, or even people seeking simple freedom from leaving.

When one reads of remarks like this, when armed with even a modicum of historical understanding, one must recognize the frightening threat of a return to the darkest days our world has yet known.  How far from Prime Minister Ayrault’s thinking are the gulags and concentration camps?  Certainly, he’s not proposed such a thing…yet.  Still, in the manner of his speaking, one can see the manifestation of the same old demons being raised up, under the same old guise, and with the same ugly motive. Perhaps worst of all, in castigating those wealthy people leaving France, among them notably the famed French actor Gerard Dépardieu, Ayrault’s accusation is that the wealthy who flee are suffering from a lack of generosity.  This is quite obviously a sick attempt at reversing the guilt onto the innocent, but it’s no surprise from a government now headed by President Francois Hollande, who declared infamously that he didn’t “like the rich.”  The reeking pomposity of socialist dictators-in-waiting has never known more hypocrisy.

In our own country, Barack Obama is continuing that same trend, and the long-time leftist slogan “Eat the Rich” seems near to being implemented in full.  At the rate things are progressing toward a complete worker’s paradise here in the United States, it’s only a matter of time before he decides we need a border fence after all, not to keep illegals out, but to make sure that none may leave. As the Europeans continue to build their coming continental concentration camp, from which only the powerful like Hollande and Ayrault will be afforded the chance to flee, Obama is building another right here, and he’s feeding the lap-dog press the same deceptive and hypocritical banter about the rich, as his family enjoys a multi-million dollar holiday in the state of his [alleged] birth. (Like most Marxists, I suspect he was actually hatched.)

How long will it be before we see the return of the barbed wire and fortifications, complete with machine gun nests, not to defend a country, but to keep its enslaved people from leaving?  With the spreading, grotesque mindset of communism once again spreading like black mold on a too-long neglected basement wall, it seems history is poised to once again repeat itself, because while a people may learn a given lesson by living it, they do a poor job of conveying those lessons to their children.  Worse, they pay for their children to be indoctrinated by the very mindset they overcame, and more is the pity and travesty that the education establishment will  have served not as the instrument of our protection, but the weapon by which the communist sappers undermined our cultural and intellectual fortifications.

You might have come to think it is an exaggeration to suggest that those now in power in France could build a wall, but one ought to consider the words of some of their politicians, as quote in the Telegraph:

“Socialist MP Yann Galut called for the actor to be “stripped of his nationality” if he failed to pay his dues in his mother country, saying the law should be changed to enable such a punishment.”

The idea that a politician is seeking to punish people in this way is not a novelty, but it isn’t lost on most conservatives that the underlying meaning is purely tyrannical.  Meanwhile, another government official had this to say:

“Benoît Hamon, the consumption minister, said the move amounted to giving France “the finger” and was “anti-patriotic”.”

Setting aside the fact of this man’s preposterous title, one must wonder at the sheer idiocy of a country that revels in revolution but cannot rise even to defend its own borders.  Being partly of French heritage, I can’t but imagine that my ancestors who came to North America sought the freedoms their countrymen now forsake, and I am mightily grateful that they saw fit to do so, but I am simultaneously disgusted at the fact that so many of their descendants now seem willing to forsake liberty here.  Communism isn’t dead after all, but tempting us to believe it permitted them to make inroads, and I don’t know if they can be stopped.

With darkness and depression enveloping the globe, it is time to remember the wall between East and West, because we may yet see its resurrection on a global scale.  It’s also time to reconsider whether we should have let so much of the wall be destroyed.  Demolishing it meant that the visible scar upon the face of civilization has been removed, and while the wall itself may have gone for a time, the mindset that had built it now thrives around the globe.  If we are to dismantle communism again, it must not be its mere instruments that we remove, but its entire philosophical base. It must be placed and kept on ice like a virus stored as a hedge against the need to redevelop new vaccines in case of a new outbreak.

 

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Posted in Capitalism, Civil Unrest, European Union, Featured, Global Revolution, Leftist Cabal, News, Politics | 15 Comments »

Another Bite at the Apple: The Desperate Need for Welfare Reform

Sunday, December 2nd, 2012

Insensitive?

In the immediate aftermath of the election, I suggested to readers that the key driver in Barack Obama’s re-election was one particular sub-group of the electorate in which Romney got creamed.  I pointed to single mothers as the key group that killed any chance of a Romney victory, and the reason I suggested was simple enough to understand: “Free stuff.”  In short, this particular segment of the populace views big government as a “sugar daddy,” and by extension, it’s chief advocate, Barack Obama was the chief beneficiary of this view.  I had known that the number of programs and benefits available to women who fit that description was quite amazing, but I had no idea the extent to which this is true. The simple truth of the matter is that unless and until conservatives devise a method by which to change this formula, they are going to lose national elections.  The problem they will face in so doing is the screed of the left about a “war on women,” but apart from weak-kneed leadership, afraid of such attacks, if something doesn’t change, the country is already lost.

The following image is a chart put together by James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute, and it demonstrates how a single mother is subsidized by the state, or how Eve, once tempted from her pedestal, became a ward of the state:

The first thing that should strike you is that a single mother of two earning only $29K is subsidized to the extent that she has the same effective lifestyle as a similar woman, unsubsidized, earning $69K, because net, the two have around $57K in income and benefits.  Effectively doubling her meager gross by virtue of the welfare state’s programs, the woman earning $29K is in pretty good shape.  People have lamented to me over the years about people who use foodstamps, but who also load their groceries into awfully nice cars, and the question had been: How can this be? Here’s part of the answer, inasmuch as relieved of the costs of food, medical care, and a tax burden, among other welfare-state benefits, what income is present is freed-up for the purchase of that nicer car.  It’s no wonder she has an iPhone 5, because under this construct, she can afford it, since taxpayers are subsidizing to some degree virtually everything else.

Leftists and those of the moderate middle wonder why we conservatives claim that such programs are a disincentive to work, but the facts make it clear.  What is the point in bettering oneself if it actually can be a detriment to income, as the chart above makes perfectly clear.  At certain thresholds, by earning the next marginal amount, benefits available drop off to the extent that it’s punitive to earn more.  This explains well why in certain lines of work, we have the phenomenon of women roughly matching the description, who quit or get themselves fired once they’ve been there a certain period of time, and it’s because they need to keep earning, but they also need to prevent themselves from crossing these thresholds, or “welfare cliffs.”

The challenge to conservatives is to reverse this without being accused of waging a “war on women.”  The first thing we need to admit is that such a situation is a travesty, both to the women trapped by this process, and to those who are working outside the blanket of this lavish welfare state.  It should never be the case that our people are faced with the choice of placing reason in adversity to morality.  Let me try to explain it this way: If you’re that woman earning $29K, you’d be nuts to earn enough money to push you over the cliff.  It would diminish and damage your lifestyle, and the lives of your children.  At the same time, you would [hopefully] know that to continue to languish on these programs is wrong, but when you look around, you notice everybody around you is doing it, so how wrong can it really be?

This dichotomy is the difficulty we face.  We have provided this system, and it is entirely socialistic.  Viewed from a big-picture perspective, it’s constructed precisely to create a very socialistic outcome: The net wages and benefits are flat from wage or salary levels of $29K to nearly $70K. The woman who earns $29K is the economic equal of the woman who grosses $40K more.  This is an astonishing revelation to many people, who had no idea how thoroughly perverse with socialism this system had really become.  Is there any wonder that welfare-to-work initiatives have failed in recent years, to the largest extent?  Is there any wonder that job training programs seem to have been largely fruitless?

It’s easy enough to identify the problem once you have the facts before you, but then the question becomes: Whatever shall we do about it?  If Congress simply slashes these benefits, they fear they won’t be re-elected, but if they don’t do something soon, they won’t be re-elected anyway because this will have become the daily reality for far too many people to ever reverse it.  The problem is that if we don’t reverse it, it’s going to bankrupt us, and that day is coming all too soon. All of this subsidization is being accomplished with borrowed money, and it simply is not sustainable.  It’s always difficult to convince people that their best long-run interests are better served by giving up a little in the shorter run, and the evidence is quite obvious when one examines how few people ever put money away for retirement or savings in any form. Part of the reason they’re unable is because the money they’re earning today is being taxed to subsidize others, so that the total effect of this problem is much worse and much more widespread than the superficial conclusions one might draw.

We need a real, thorough examination of our welfare state, but under the current administration, we’ll be lucky if we can merely restrict its growth.  This administration knows where its bread is buttered, and it’s not going to yield any ground on this without a brutal fight.  The truth may be that this has already doomed us to a financial and monetary collapse of epic proportions.   When that happens, it won’t matter any longer because this will come to a screeching halt, and both the single mothers in this scenario will pay a terrible price along with every other American.  The left has worked very hard to dissociate any stigma previously attached to such subsidies, so we’re going to need to make more than a financial argument, because this is a problem in largest measure of desperate moral concern.  We need adults in the room, but right now, Congress is acting as the elves in Obama’s portrayal of Santa Claus, and the states have become the sleigh, Rudolph, and his eight four-legged friends. It must stop, but in truth, one way or the other, it will stop.  The question is whether it stops in a sudden crash, or instead because we decide wisely to apply the brakes. The choice is still yours.

For now.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Budget, Conservatism, Economics, Featured, Federal Budget, News, Politics, Welfare State | 11 Comments »

If Obama-care Is Overturned, Then What?

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

What Happens After They Rule...

The  question has been asked here on this site, and on others what will become of the state of health-care if Obama-care falls.  I’ve heard the gnashing of teeth among those who think we need some kind of health-care reform, and while I agree, I doubt most would agree with my own prescription. Cold-hearted.  Selfish.  Greedy.   These are all the terms that would be used by statists to describe my own visions of health-care reform.  Even a few alleged conservatives can’t quite bring themselves to endorse my view because at heart, they’re not free market capitalists.  You shouldn’t be surprised, as there are many self-proclaimed “conservatives” who are really nothing of the sort, and who would just as readily inflict and impose their vision of “fairness” as any left-wing socialist radical.  The difference is that they claim to be motivated by other ideas, or beliefs, but what remains universally true is that to impose them, they too must destroy liberty.  I oppose any such plan, plot, or program, irrespective of the source, and I think it’s time we had this little talk lest there be some confusion: I don’t support government involvement in any aspect of healthcare.  None.

The first thing one must know about the free market is that it is destroyed the moment government becomes involved.  If you want to destroy innovation, efficiency, and industry within any segment of any market, introduce government as a buyer.  This is because government is a terrible consumer because it is not spending its own money, but instead yours.  It’s also because the government has undue leverage in a market where it is not the ultimate consumer.  Of course, there will be those of you who will demand to know the fate of the poor, with the stabbing of a pointed finger against my chest, since the poor, by definition, don’t have a good deal of money with which to purchase health services.  As ever, those who wish to control others rely upon the poor to furnish the excuse for their power.  The question is not “what should we do about the poor,” as Ayn Rand famously observed, but “should we do anything about the poor?” This is where the compassion-fascists show up to berate free-marketeers, claiming that the advocates of this viewpoint are heartless and mean-spirited and greedy.  Balderdash!

In order to have any sort of system in which various “necessities” are provided, it is first necessary to obtain them.  Once government is placed in this role, it is inevitable, and in fact a prerequisite that the government employ cruelty against others, from whom the necessities (or the money to purchase them) will be taken.  Ladies and gentlemen, there is no escape from this, and when I observe statists of either left or right political persuasion making this argument, I remind them first of the inescapable, inexorable moral breech:  Government has only force and on that basis, government becomes a murderous villain in the hands of a statist.  Pay, or die. There are those who enjoy shading the black and white behind a curtain of gray fog, but the simple, undisguised fact is that for any such program to exist, government must become evil.  That’s right, I wrote it: Evil.  I take it as an act of evil whenever one initiates force against another, or threatens force, in order to make material (or other) gain.  If one is an advocate of a government-funded, implemented, or regulated healthcare system by any name, one must admit from the outset that one is in favor of robbery through an agent.

Call it third-party theft.  Call it whatever you will, but when government, on the behalf of some citizens, extorts money from the pockets of other citizens, government  has assumed the role of a mafia protection racket.  One can dress it up in all the Sunday’s finest of “compassion,” or “brother-love,” but what one is doing is to attack one person for his wealth on the basis that it should be provided to others on the basis of their needs.  That’s Marxism, and if one supports this in any measure, he or she is  not a conservative. One can claim it.  One can prefix it with words like “compassionate” all one pleases, but the simple fact is that to threaten one’s fellow man with injury and death; violence and expropriation; robbery and slavery is as abominable and un-Christian as one can be.  There is no mitigation.  There is no excuse.  There will be a long line of those accustomed to robbing their neighbors who will come forth to claim that they possess some right – yes, they’ll actually claim a right – to do through government what they would never consider doing themselves for fear of eating a shotgun:  Robbing their neighbors willy-nilly, and with abandon.

Yes, this is the ugly nature of statism, and it’s why I cannot support any health reform that doesn’t get government out of the health-care business altogether.  It is at this point that some will ask me: “But what of veterans?”  To the degree veterans have been injured in the performance of their duties, just as with any worker injured or maimed on the job, the employer must carry that cost, and since we are the employers of soldiers, yes, it is proper for us to pay for that healthcare necessary to make them well, to rehabilitate them, and to compensate them for permanent loss/injury.  That does not mean we need a vast and inefficient system of providing care to veterans.  While it is true that certain afflictions and injuries are not common in the civilian sector, nevertheless, to the degree we can, we should job this out through private providers.  Speaking as a veteran myself, and having seen what have been deplorable conditions at VA hospitals when I’ve volunteered my time there, I cannot but think that most of the veterans I saw would have been better served in the private sector.

Everybody else?  You’d better figure it out.  One has no entitlement, natural or otherwise, to the contents of his neighbors’ wallets.  Since the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, too many Americans have adopted the notion that it is okay to steal from one’s neighbors, or to steal from one’s grand-children so long as government acts as the agent and instrument of that theft.  To steal remotely, through a third party is no less a theft, but it is at once doubly cowardly.  Imagine walking next door to one’s neighbor, and demanding a meal, or an aspirin, or a dollar, or to move in.  In any civilized society, one making such demands would be laughed at, and if he tried to obtain his demands by force, he would be short-lived indeed.  For many millions of Americans, this has become the all-too-common procedure, except that they have the middle-man of government doing their dirty work, never casting the first thought in the direction of the absolute tyranny they’re inflicting on their neighbors, or dismissively concluding that “everyone does it,” which is not only a falsehood, but also a psychological confession of one’s ill intent.

As Rand explained more eloquently, and succinctly, one can do anything one pleases for the poor, out of one’s own pocket, and out of one’s own sense of charity or compassion, and there is naught but good to be born of that approach, be it food, clothing, healthcare, housing, or education.  What one must not do is force others to do one’s will in terms of charity or compassion, because it becomes neither, it breeds contempt, and it is a grave evil of its own in the first instance, for which there can be no ethical justification, despite endless rationalizations born of statist delusion.

I’ve been asked what we should replace Obama-care with, if it’s overturned.  My answer is simply:  A system in which government has no say, and no money in the distribution or provision of health-care, of any sort, as an entitlement for citizens who have done nothing more than breathed.  It is only because of governmental involvement that such shameless thugs as the current dictator of New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, can claim to be acting in the public interest when he bans soft-drinks larger than 16 ounces, or table salt in restaurants, or any of the myriad other tyrannical dicta he puts forth, all “for your own good.”  That sort of monstrous conduct by a public official is just the beginning, and it’s also why I wait along with millions of other Americans to see whether the United States Supreme Court will do its duty, or whether it will enable the advance of tyranny.

There are those who argue that Obama-care must be replaced by something, and my answer is that it should be: The US Constitution.  There exists no entitlement to the wealth of others, whether that wealth is to be taken in order to finance beans and rice or blood transfusions and open heart surgery.  Some will ask where is my compassion, but I maintain that my compassion is with those whose property and wealth is expropriated in the name of the compassion of others.  Unless and until the United States returns to the rule of Constitutional law, the country will continue inexorably downward.  There is no compromise between good and evil, yet what all of this redistributionism endorses is plainly evil.  None of my readers would walk next door and demand from their neighbors such provisions as they might from time to time need, but too many Americans are all too comfortable sending a government agent in their stead.   That’s not liberty.  That’s not freedom.  That’s not right.

 

 

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Posted in Featured, Healthcare, Law, News, Obamacare, Politics, Supreme Court, Welfare State | 9 Comments »

So You Want to Spread the Wealth?

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

Spreading the Misery Equally

In a recent discussion with an acquaintance, who was interested in my recent article on the nature of the people who are rioting in London, and elsewhere around the world, the question was posed to me: “How can you expect to convince young people who’ve never really had to struggle for anything that they shouldn’t be handed everything for free?”  This question is about the entitlement mentality that now seems to be spreading in pandemic proportion and threatens the foundations of our constitutional, representative republic.  It’s true that it’s a difficult thing to explain to somebody who has convinced themselves that demands, and not hard work, are the road to personal prosperity.  I was considering the problem on my way home when a thought crossed my mind: One of the reasons I fight so hard against socialism is because I’ve already experienced its oppressive boot on my neck.  I know from personal observations how it cripples the ability of individuals to prosper.

The problem with most of the people who demand more and more at the expense of others is that they have no skin in the game.  Since many of these people have never been on the paying end of the socialist monstrosity, I’m inclined to believe they simply don’t understand it, and won’t, until they’re made to pay, somehow.

I hope you’ll forgive me, my patient readers, as I propose something in order to make a point, because I think we can make the notion of having “skin in the game” as literal as any dare suffer to imagine possible.  Consider now, if you will, my own modest proposal for the ultimate entitlement program, designed to fulfill a basic human need, to promote self-esteem, and otherwise “spread the wealth around,” albeit of another kind.  Before I make my proposal, let me start by saying that money, property and wealth are just extensions of one’s person, so that if any of these are up for grabs to the mob in the name of “the public good,” it is truly an assault on the individual.  For this reason, and in order to demonstrate the immorality of socialism, I therefore propose a new entitlement program aimed at giving every person in our society the chance to feel better about themselves.  It’s predicated on the notion of the “public good,” and will doubtless reduce the incidence of violent crimes and relieve the poverty of spirit with which so many now suffer.  I therefore give you: “S-GROPE“:

Sexual Opportunity Resource Equalization Sponsorship Act of 2011 (SORES)

“S-GROPE” is an acronym that stands for “Sexual Gratification and Recreation Of People Everywhere.”  This program will be administered by a new division of the Department of Health and Human Services, to be called “SCROOME.”  (That’s: Sexual Conjugation Resource Office Of Managed Ecstasy”, in case you hadn’t guessed.)

S-GROPE will be enacted to ensure every American equal access to sexual gratification and fulfillment.  We’ve learned through intensive study that this is an important part of human behavior and social development.  Too many people have been forced by the selfishness of others to endure endless long nights alone with no hope of human contact.  In order to ensure fairness, every American will be assigned an S-GROPE account number, and all Americans will be entered into a shared pool.  This will ensure fairness to all, but more importantly, it will be carried out safely within the confines of officially approved SCROOME Centers.

Commencing on the first Monday of the New Year, couples will be selected at random, with notifications sent out to all participants with the name, address, and time of their conjugal visitation.  Upon receipt of said notification, participants shall have not more than five days to schedule and fulfill their obligations under the program. The only exemptions shall be for minors and dependent adults, Congress, and other Federal officers and officials.  This program will be administered in the  most fair and humane manner possible: There will be no discrimination on the basis of age, race, sex, sexual orientation, condition of disability, or other factors.  Pairings will be selected at random, within the 25 mile geographical range of the participant’s home of residence.

When contacted by notification from SCROOME, participants should understand this to be a mandatory activity for the good of society.  Failure to appear, or any attempt to leave the premises after arrival at the officially designated SCROOME Centers will result in strict criminal liability, up to and including not more than 10 years of incarceration at a Federal SCROOME rehabilitation center…

Now, every person who reads my blog knows that this is entirely in jest, and is even now thinking up their own clever acronyms, but I would suggest you ask all those you know who suffer from delusions of redistribution: “If you can demand my wealth, my earnings, and my property at the point of a gun, and threaten me with imprisonment, why not my body too?  Why not yours?  Why should you get a choice about when or if to engage in sex, or with whom?  After all, it can be clearly demonstrated to be in the public interest according to some research clinician’s study.  No?  You don’t want this? What else could be the possible meaning of a federal mandate to purchase health-care insurance?”

“If you don’t want this, then how dare you demand the wallets or bank accounts of others?  If you don’t think this a proper use of Federal power, what makes you think it a proper use of Federal power to force me at gunpoint, under threat of incarceration, to fund the food on your plate or the roof over your head?  Is it because I have a bit more money at the moment than you?  Do you think that justifies it?  Well, the sad fact is that somewhere there is somebody with even less than you, who will eventually look at your wallet as you’ve been looking at mine.”

“If you think the notion is absurd when it is applied as in my offered piece of legislation above, what in the world would make you think it’s any less absurd, in logic or morality, to propose the same notions with respect to my labor?  When you demand my wallet, you’re demanding a share of all the labor that went into filling it with what little it contains.  When you demand that government pay for this or for that, you’re demanding that citizens be strapped to a table in your SCROOME Center for your own pleasure and purpose.”

These are the questions you should ask of anybody who contends they have a right to a full belly at the involuntary expense of others, because that person is morally capable of all of this and more.  You cannot claim the labors of a millionaire or a billionaire, or even a dirt-poor horse farmer without committing the same essential crime:  You’re guilty of demanding that others live for your sake, or else.  You’re demanding they live for your satisfaction, or else.  You’re seizing their work and the means to the attainment of their own dreams and aspirations.

One can pretend this hadn’t been the case, but the truth is much worse than most care to admit: Programs for the redistribution of wealth are merely a form of enslavement, just as the bizarre program I’ve proposed offers the same logic in service to the same preposterous ends.  You cannot claim to want freedom while demanding entitlement to the efforts and wealth of others, just as you cannot claim a right to sexual fulfillment by a spree of government-coerced rapes.  By definition, none of these things can be a right, because they negate the rights of others to their own lives, liberties, and property.  It’s time to stop pretending that socialism isn’t what it so clearly is, and if my vulgar little proposal  assists you to better explain the crass depravity of the entitlement mentality, so much the better, for if the person with whom you’re discussing it refuses to understand, it can be safely said that such a person has abandoned humanity already.

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Posted in Economics, Politics | 3 Comments »

Coming to America?

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

As the World Burns?

Is it possible that the United States is immune to this sort of violence?  As the world economy teeters on the brink of utter collapse, with Europe on the leading edge, its failed welfare states going bankrupt in an effort to put good money after bad, it’s a sobering reminder of what can happen when politicians are allowed to trade their citizens’ wealth for the votes of other citizens exempt from the tax collector’s grasp.  As the welfare state in our own country has begun to grow out of all previous bounds, it’s important to examine our own vulnerabilities to this sort of change.  Our own economy is again on the ropes, largely due to the increasing burden of the welfare state upon the wealth producers in our nation.

This sort of devolution sets up a feedback loop that tends to guarantee a worsening of economic results, which will in its turn undoubtedly spawn more civil and social unrest.  Of course, we’ve been through economic hardships before, notably the Great Depression of the 1930s, but never have we seen a confluence of events combined with the sort of outright radicalism we’re now watching on the streets of London.  In the US, we have had a number of riots, famously in the era of the great struggle for civil rights for African-Americans, but we’ve not seen a potential tinderbox growing like this since the days immediately on either side of our own civil war.  Before we dismiss this threat out of hand, let’s examine what’s driving it, and how it aims to attack our exposed flanks.

One thing that can be said without any controversy is that the riots erupting in Europe have a distinctly socialist, or at least anti-capitalist flavor.  While the anarchists involved seem to hate everything except the hand-outs they receive from government, it is clear that these are ultimately the children of the entrenched and growing welfare state.  It is in such movements that great tragedies have been birthed throughout human history, and they nearly always blossom from the same deadly seed:  These are predominately young people who have been educated by the welfare state to expect to have all their wants and desires met by the welfare state, as though it had been a perpetual parent, and they could remain indefinitely as spoiled children returning endlessly to the nest in which they were raised.

What of our own country?  Are we vulnerable to this same phenomenon here at home?  Ask yourself if we have created a similar welfare state, with a similarly bankrupt public education system in which children are passed through, without much effort, being spoon-fed a steady diet of propaganda based on a  litany of leftist causes that teach the students to expect to be provided their every need or even desire without much effort.  Consider our own welfare system that now provides free food, rent, housing, medical treatment, education, birth control, automobiles, utilities assistance, cable TV, internet, and more recently, cellular phone minutes.  What exactly is it that anybody would go to work to get?  This creates an entitlement mindset that forms into a slavish army of drones who will eventually rise up and destroy the people who so generously subsidized their existence.

You might wonder what would lead people who’ve been handed every material necessity to bite the hand that feeds it, but if you know the intellectually frail sort of mind that willingly subsists in this way, you ought to know that there is no necessary linkage between cause and effect in their thinking or in the formulation of their desires and demands.  As the economy worsens, there will be fewer jobs and therefore fewer opportunities upon which to build a work ethic and a healthy respect for private property or the laws that serve to protect it. What all of this has created is a generation of savages, whose first reflex is to loot, pillage and plunder.  Don’t wonder who has created this growing army of brigands and thugs.  You have.  Your labor and your taxes has been taken to support the birth, growth, and moral depravity of an army that will be turned against you.

Are We Next?

All of this makes clear the endless fallacies of the leftists’ welfare state.  One cannot print prosperity.  One cannot inflate it on the back of the efforts of a few.  One cannot redistribute it, and one cannot nurture into existence those who would create it by teaching the young that they deserve anything they want irrespective of what they have earned.  In the same way that we have collectively indoctrinated our young with a false self-esteem over the last two decades, so too have we indoctrinated them with the notion that they are owed all the prosperity they see in the wealth of others.

We’ve made the dangerous error of neglecting to explain to them that such prosperity is the product of hard work and thorough preparation with a necessarily diligent attitude toward one’s life and prospects.  In short, we have created an army of people who aren’t merely amoral, as some have suggested, but instead thoroughly immoral, who see the world through the cracked and skewed lenses of their own immediate, range-of-the-moment self interests, without respect to their long-term well-being.  “What pleases me right now?”  This is the standard of their moral belief.  They have no reliance on any religion excepting only a belief in the myth of their own entitlement.  If we permit them to go further, we are signing our own death warrants, as there will certainly come the day when they no longer see our value even as those who provide their loot.

In a hopeful moment, the Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter,  admonished particularly the black youth in his own city who have been igniting their own first embers of a similar fire with the new phenomenon of flash-mobs and the mob violence they have been increasingly spawning.  There will be those who view this as no big deal, and a problem without wider implications because we’ve seen riots in our large urban centers before, but any who would dismiss this as more of the same are making a grave error.  This isn’t a problem confined to urban or African-American areas, but instead a strong tide running through the core of most of the country’s young.  This is a widening of the war against capitalism, and these mobs are the first foot-soldiers.  Make no mistake about it: We are facing a global catastrophe unlike any in our history since at least the civil war, and if we don’t stand to oppose it, we’ll become its victims.  Some of you will be crushed to find that the young people you’ve raised, under your own roof, and of your own flesh and blood may be in the process of joining this wave.  These are the opening shots in a war to determine the course of the world’s future, and it’s time for the real adults among us to begin confronting this now, on the front end, before we inherit a true disaster in violence on the back end.

Our time is running short.

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