Why Socialism Won’t Work

There are a number of reasons that socialism will not work. Here’s an example of one of them:

… Social Security’s trust funds will be exhausted in 2037. Those funds have actually been spent over the years on other government programs. They are now represented by government bonds, or IOUs, that will have to be repaid as Social Security draws down its trust fund.

This is from this article about the strain on Social Security.

A few reasons a completely socialist system won’t be as successful as capitalism:

1. As in the example above; the government won’t be able to keep its hands off the accumulated funds. The money I paid in to Social Security during my working life isn’t all there – it’s been ‘borrowed‘ by the government to another account, and replaced with IOU’s. The government may be able to patch this up, later, if it is supported by the capitalistic system that has brought us this far.

2. Socialistic systems are based on redistribution of wealth. This means that at some point the business owner becomes just another worker, making a wage similar to others working for the business. Would you personally be interested in starting a new business, with the headaches, long hours and risk involved, if all you were going to get for it was a common wage?[1] Consequently, few new businesses would be started, and the number of jobs available would stagnate.

ADDENDUM: Another scenario: Let’s say I’m working 45 hours a week, and drawing a reasonable wage. I have a neighbor who hasn’t done a decent day’s work in ten years, yet he (because of socialism) is doing nearly as well as I am. I would be sorely tempted to put my feet up and let the system take care of me, too. When enough people reach this point, the (socialist) system fails.

3. Going Galt: For the same reason as #2, talented people would have no particular reason to excel. No profit equals no motivation. Innovation and excellence would stagnate. There is no personal motivation to succeed in a socialistic state.

4. By the way, all of the above applies to government health care single payor systems, as well.

I strongly suspect that most of that group of people in the United States that want socialism, or think of themselves as socialists, have never lived in a socialist state.

-Popgun

[1] I work for a successful small-business entrepreneur. I see every day how he works, worries, and struggles to be successful. His success is largely based on his own combination of hard work, knowledge, ability and personality. Why does he do this? So he can provide for himself and his family a good living, a beautiful home, and enough money to enjoy life. I don’t live in nearly as nice a home as he does – but I don’t have a problem with that. He deserves every bit of what he earns. He takes on most of the headaches, and I don’t. His sort of entrepreneurship would not exist in a socialistic state.

The Leveling of America

Obama said to the U.N.:

“No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.”

There you have it. Obama strives for mediocrity among nations. He wants a “world order” in which the U.S. is nothing special. He does not believe that the United States should be the exceptional nation it is – and he is doing everything he can to reduce it to the common denominator. This is why he apologizes to anyone who will listen for our success. This is why he wants to europeanize us.

Anyone who truly strives to equalize everybody will raise up those below the average – and tear down those above the average.

He’s ignoring the fact that our country pulled itself up by its bootstraps, and earned the success it has. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of our labor. Many U.S. citizens have died and struggled to protect us; and our productiveness as a people has given us the economic and military power that make us the dominant world power we are.

But Obama wants to take those fruits and ‘redistribute’ them to the people and to the world. He wants us to become a socialist country. He is adding unsustainable debt at a rate that will destroy the dollar, and soon make us paupers on the home front and the world stage. Paying for ObamaCare and Cap and Trade will be an incredible burden on our people, reducing our purchasing power and thereby our personal freedom.

He wants to reduce or destroy our military advantages – notice the reductions in funding, cancelation of various programs like the F-22 Raptor (putting thousands out of work), and the recent missile defense cancellations. He’s announced that he wants to do away with our nuclear capacity.

Obama is wrecking us financially and militarily.

No wonder so many of our enemies like Obama – he wants the same thing for us that they do.

Finally, out of his own mouth, the truth.

That’s what it looks like from where I sit.

-Popgun

What Is the Real Cost of Health Care?

Here’s an interesting question. What is the true actual cost of complete health care for all the people in the United States, together, annually?

I don’t know how to arrive at a reasonable estimate for that number. But it would be a very useful number to have.

Besides the left-wing aspects of the proposed health care that most of us strongly distrust, the major issue with the current proposals is the cost. Most of us want health care, and what we really want is complete health care, for the rest of our lives, cradle to grave, for as little cost to us as possible. If we had the estimate of the real cost of doing so, we could at least have a better idea of what it will cost us to achieve that universal coverage.

I phrased it that way, because a great many people think Obama is going to give them something for nothing. Maybe he will, but the fact is, the citizens of the United States are going to pay for whatever we get, one way or the other. We need to be figuring this as if it is a line item on our personal budgets. We MUST be able to pay for it as we go. If we knew for certain that it would bankrupt the country, would we still want it?

It may be much more expensive then advertised. It might not. Until we can compare the realistic costs of the new plan against the current costs to us, it is difficult to make a rational decision, at least on the cost issue.

Remove the lawyers, the government, and the insurance companies from the mix – what does it cost?

In a very real sense, we may have to face the fact that we just can’t afford universal health care, without limit, for everybody.

Does anybody out there happen to have some way to compute this cost?

ADDENDUM: The Center Square comments (thanks!) that the number is $2.41 trillion dollars per year, and rising. Wikipedia says there were 138 million taxpayers in the U.S. in 2007. Realizing there is some inaccuracy here, the cost is thus about $17,464 per taxpayer per year (and rising).

Note that these numbers are current. Wow.

-Popgun

A Tale of Incompetent Thieves

You never know what a day will bring.

This morning, when I arrived at work, the company service truck was astride the ditch, about 20 yards away from the driveway.

The first thing that went through my mind was that our service man was having a really bad morning. But it turned out that he had nothing to do with it.

Person or persons unknown had cut the chain on the gate to enter our compound, and stolen the truck. They then attempted to steal our big shop air compressor. One or more of them probably got a good shock in the process, judging by the wire blown in two and the carbon coating the arced surfaces. After that, they abandoned the attempt on the air compressor.

Then, they (or he) attempted to leave in the company truck; they were headed next door (the driveway visible in the picture). Being thieves, they stealthily pulled out of our driveway with the lights off, because, you know, that’s supposed to keep you from being noticed. Apparently blinded by their own stealth, they missed the driveway of the adjoining business, with the result you see. Down here in East Texas the technical term for people with this level of competence is “dumb ass”.

I guess we need to check the local hospitals for somebody with electrical burns and whiplash.

I understand that they did make off with some of our neighbor’s equipment. The only thing of ours they actually got away with was the chain off the gate, but we did recover a nifty set of bolt cutters that they left in trade.

What a bunch of morons.

-Popgun

Note to Bill Cosby…

I saw the other day that Jimmy Carter (the clueless) had chimed in, stating that most of the opposition to Obama is racist. I was wondering why anybody bothers listening to him. He’s wrong, in my opinion, and I said so in an earlier blog entry.

Now I see on TV that Bill Cosby agrees with his statement. Now, I actually respect Bill Cosby, so this surprised me, because the man generally makes sense. (I also really like his humor, but that is beside the point.)

The polls say that the great majority of people do not believe race is an issue in the resistance to Obama. I believe the statistic I saw was something on the order of 80% in the general population.

I suppose somebody could be cooking those numbers, although I doubt it. I do know one thing specifically, though:

One data point for your consideration, Bill Cosby and Jimmy Carter: Me. I personally couldn’t care less what color Obama is. I know this for a fact. In point of fact, I’d have been really happy if Condoleezza Rice had gotten the job instead of Obama. Now there’s a smart lady!

Shucks, I’d have been pretty happy with Colin Powell, too – up until he endorsed Obama. Something he did, I believe, because Obama is black. I’ll admit I could be wrong about that – but that’s what it looked like at the time. Hey, guys – voting FOR somebody because of their skin color is also prejudice – against the other candidate!

So I know for certain; this one data point of ME; race is not a factor here.

Logic dictates that I list the specific reasons I’m against Obama here, but I won’t because the list is far too long. The general statement I can make is that I believe Obama is ideologically opposed to everything the United States I grew up loving stands for.

Now there’s an interesting thought: just imagine a 2012 Republican ticket of Condoleezza Rice and Sarah Palin! I’ll have to think about that, some…

-Popgun

The Next Election

I hope to high heaven that enough voters in the next election have learned this lesson:

Politicians sometimes lie, and they are good at it! And political advertisements are deceptive!

From here on out, it is essential that we all do the research necessary so that we truly know who we are voting for. It’s for darned sure that too many voters did not, in 2008 and earlier.

An election is the public’s chance to vet a job application, and should be treated as such.

Anybody that hires on the basis of personality alone is an idiot.

-Popgun

A Couple of Issues

First issue:

Some school officials are being sued because they prayed in the presence of students in Florida. This is just plain wrong, on many levels. Next thing you know, you’ll get arrested for praying in the waiting room at the airport. What is America coming to when you can’t even pray without worrying about getting sued?

So I’ve got an idea. Those of us who pray, let us do so every chance we get – but do it silently. So we can be praying and those who hate us for doing so won’t know for sure if we are or not. Just a silent prayer every once in a while, with your eyes closed.

That’ll piss them off. They can’t sue you for closing your eyes for a few seconds.

Second issue:

Maxine Waters, Democratic congresswoman (and nut case, IMHO) from California, wants demonstrators and opponents of ObamaCare to be probed for racism. I wonder what happened to freedom of speech? It is not illegal to be racist – it’s just illegal to act on it (as it should be).

I would like to point out something very fundamental at this point.

There is no law in the U.S. that governs how you are allowed to think.

What matters is what you DO. You can go to jail for what you DO. So far, at least, you cannot go to jail for what you THINK. This is a really big deal, and we need to pay close attention to anyone in the government that starts wanting to censor how we think.

The advent of different penalties for ‘hate crimes’ is a step in the direction of mind control. A crime is a crime whether you do it for fun or because you hate someone, and the penalties should not be different. If the standard penalty is not enough to deter criminals from committing a crime, they need to raise the penalty. Why the crime was committed should not be a factor in assessing the penalty.

Hate crime legislation puts a jury in the position of determining what a person was thinking when they committed a crime. This is absurd on the face of it, and certainly will assess unjust penalties.

The mind is the last bastion of freedom. Let’s keep it free.

-Popgun

Obam Lied about Cap and Trade, Too

An article over at Hot Air documents the actual predicted cost of the Cap and Trade Bill to American families to actually be around $1761 per year. This from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. We’ve known it would be bad, and now we’re getting the actual estimates the administration has had all along but kept to themselves.

The Obama administration was bandying around a number of $175 per household per year. Now we know that they knew from the beginning that it would be around ten times that much. A quote from the article:

The Obama administration used arguments that they knew weren’t accurate in order to push this legislation through the House. Obama himself made these arguments, while analysts in the government had already shown them to be false. In other words, Obama lied, and so did his administration and allies in Congress.

I don’t know about you, but $1761 per year would be a serious burden on my family’s budget.

Call your congressmen!

-Popgun

Political Racism

Isn’t it interesting how the ‘race card’ seems to always be played by Democrats?

Just noticing, in today’s news: Jimmy Carter, and Representative Hank Johnson, both making unfounded racial accusations. Obama played the race card in his campaign several times. However, I can’t think of ANY instance of a Republican playing the race card. I’m not saying there’s not one out there, but if so, I don’t know about it.

It seems to me that the last few years, Democrats seem to use race as a political tool; I don’t see the Republicans doing it.

Who’s racist? Those who use it politically, or those who don’t?

When a politician (or anybody) claims another person or group is racist, the next question should be “Where’s your proof?”.

It would benefit those that are truly concerned about racism if the politicians quit talking about it. The political smoke obscures those situations where actual racism may be involved. Racism is a serious evil – where it really exists. And in either direction; these days, there is just as much or more racism by blacks against whites as the converse.

Politicians need to quit blowing that particular whistle unless they have evidence. Otherwise, they are claiming to be able to read minds – something I think is beyond most politicians. It’s McCarthyism, pure and simple – except the target is people being accused of prejudice instead of people being accused of being communists.

-Popgun

Thanks, Fox!

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Fox News, the O’Reilly Factor, Hannity, Beck, Greta and many others on Fox.

Any attempt by one human to communicate to another is by nature biased in some way. Fox makes the attempt to be fair and balanced. It isn’t perfect; but it is by far the best current ongoing attempt to do this.

There have been numerous examples of events recently that we wouldn’t even have heard about if it wasn’t for Fox News.

If you relied on any other network, you would probably not have heard about the Acorn scandals of the last few days.

You probably would not have known what a prejudiced, communist whack job the former ‘Green Jobs’ Czar Van Jones is.

You may not have heard that there was a Tea Party in Washington on 9/12/09, numbering upwards of 100,000 people, protesting health care, the enlargement of the government, cap and trade, etc. You might also have developed certain incorrect ideas about this group, due to the slanderous and misleading comments made by many in the administration, including Obama. If you even heard that part.

Chances are very good that you would have no idea what is actually IN the current versions of the health system overhaul bill, unless you did your own research. It would pass because nobody would have any idea what was in it.

What good are these other networks if they don’t tell you what’s going on? They have universally failed to deliver the news that we need to hear, and therefore have failed in their responsibility to us.

Thank you, Fox, for your ongoing efforts to be, you know, an actual real live news media. This country has a lot of problems, but they would be much worse without the information conduit that you represent for those of us who care.

Respectfully,

-Popgun