Socialism

This may get a little disjointed, but my muse is working overtime and I'm trying to get it all down.

Why is that some people don't get it? There was a discussion going on over at a newspaper editorial comment thread concerning socialism. The author was rightfully worried about the definite leftward tilt this country has taken in the last 8 months. Much of the comments agreed with the writer, but there were a few that were just way out of left (pun completely intended) field.

One commenter stated that those other countries hadn't tried it the right way. As if by some quirk of nature, some magical 'thing' hadn't been done just right or else all would have been unicorns and love. Folks, I'm no political scientist, but I have read a bit and I do pay attention to world events. The former Soviet Union failed trying to keep up with the United States (that and executing their best and brightest for stepping out of line). Which shouldn't make any sense if you look at things from the left. They had everything we have here in the US of A in spades. Natural resources, great thinking minds, and labor. Great gobs of all. Yet when you look at the technology the Soviets were able to field, it wasn't anything of their own design. Rather it was either stolen or bought on the open market, and then pirated. Oh, they made some improvements here and there, but by and large theirs was a market based on ideas stolen from the west. Hell, their first heavy bomber was a pirated copy of the Boeing B-29. The engines for the MiG-15 were pirated copies of the same engines that powered of British jet engines. Even the AK-47 and later copies were designed around captured German StG 44s. What it boiled down to was they could outproduce us, because that's all they had was labor. Who needs the most sophisticated fighter or bomber when you can produce an inferior product at a rate that boggles the mind?

Cuba and North Korea are the same way. Their economies are trapped in 1959 and 1945, as that's when they adopted socialism as their ideology.

By moving this country leftward, we are going to wind stifling the minds and labor that can and should be left alone. Someone I know likes to blame CEOs and corporations for the problems we face. His arguments have some merit, but fall short. A lot of the corporations or conglomerates that operate today started out as little bitty organizations. Decisions were made, laws were passed, taxes were raised, or something happened to threaten these businesses and they were threatened with going under. Someone else stepped in with the cash to either bail or buy them out. Now we have an organization that has grown. Repeat the process and they diversify. Look at the oil industry. Back when oil was going for $10/barrel, nobody cared that Standard Oil was going out of business. Or that Mobil Oil was in trouble and was bought out by Exxon, giving us Exxon/Mobil. Repeat for Conoco/Phillips and BP/Amoco.

So now we have these huge corporations and/or conglomerates. They have huge profits from all of the different interests they control. So what happens? Government steps in to take some of those profits. But they can't have the "Exxon/Mobil Profit Grab of 2006" so they craft legislation that targets the market. Increased corporate taxes, increased taxes on profits, increased taxes on shareholders and viola! You just managed to run a whole lot of smaller companies out of business. The larger companies don't sweat the increased taxation because they've got the profit margin to sustain it. But those smaller companies don't, so they either go under or get bought out by the bigger companies. What we get is legislation aimed at curtailing corporate greed, but winds up hitting everything but and actually making the problem worse.

What is being proposed by the current administration is the raping of the American taxpayer. Plain and simple. How else can you describe what is going on? By having one class of citizen blame another for all of their ills, they have effectively declared war on the productive members of society. ABC News reported that professionals are thinking up new and clever ways to avoid the coming tax increase on people who make more than $250k per year by curtailing what is does they do so they come in under that magical $250k figure. As this happens more and more, expect the magical level of "rich" to keep falling lower and lower. Don't make $250k/year? They'll just push the limit down to $175k. Then $125k. And on and on until there's nothing left to tax. At that point, you will end up being a subject of the state. Your labor won't belong to you. Everything you do will be for the state. Our economy will be stuck in whatever year this happens, whether it's 2010 or 2030. That's it. Game over. The dream that was America, that shining example on the hill of freedom, that beacon of light around the world that beckoned the best and brightest to come and pursue life, liberty, and happiness will be extinguished, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people will have perished from the earth.

And we will have allowed it to happen. We were given the gift of liberty by men of great foresight. Liberty that was payed for in blood by men and women who knew what it was this country stood for. Given away for a check from the government and the promise of a high def TV.