Liberalism and Reality

By Douglas V. Gibbs

When you are younger the usual attitude is either you plan to be rich and famous, or you plan to save the world. In some cases, that last one may actually be "rule the world." When we are younger life is static, running without the consequences of the future, and outside reality. All we know is the way it "should" be. Then, as we get older, reality sets in, and things change from "the way it should be," to "the way things have to be."

Hence, the old saying, "When you are young you have a heart, and vote democrat. When you are older you have a brain, and vote republican."

Mentally, some people never get past puberty. We call those people "liberals."

Emotionally, everyone agrees that everyone should have a shot at not living in poverty, and the great thing about this country is that with its free market system, everyone has that opportunity. We all have equality in the fact that the opportunity is available to us. To a liberal's dismay, the difficulty level, or the results for each person, vary. Also, these well intentioned leftists don't take reality into consideration.

In a perfect world everything works according to plan. Unintended consequences, however, dictate otherwise. Human nature, in the liberal grand scheme of things, doesn't respond the way they think it should. Well, perhaps for those expecting to be a part of the liberal ruling elite, it does, but they are a whole step up on the statist totem pole.

The theory, according to the progressive liberal left, is that in a system where there are winners and losers, the achievers become wealthy on the backs of society. Nobody, according to liberals like Elizabeth Warren, reaches success on their own. To these people the achievers don't create wealth, they take it. Wealth is finite in the eyes of the socialist progressive liberal left, and therefore since the rich "took" it with the help of everyone else along the way, they need to give a little back.

If the redistribution of wealth was voluntary, it would be one thing, but the utopian socialist progressive liberal left forces the redistribution of wealth through punitive taxation controlled by the federal government. The wealthy have no choice but to cough up their hard earned money through a Marxist progressive tax rate, luxury taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and millionaire taxes as the democrats are working to propose next. The rich are left with no choice in the matter. . . and isn't liberty supposed to be about choice?

The unintended consequences of the Marxist utopian socialist progressive liberal left goes even deeper than that, having a negative impact on the overall economy. The wealthy tend to be the innovators of society. It is through their risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit that goods are produced and sent to market, and it is through them that jobs are created. The wealthy already pays most of the taxes as it is, so why would government further hinder the ability of the achievers in the country to provide goods and jobs for the middle class the government claims to be trying to save?

Could it be for a reason they aren't telling us?

Liberalism is a failed ideology. All we must do is look to Europe for proof. Entitlements are unsustainable. They may seem fair and equitable to some when they begin, but as Margaret Thatcher so wisely said, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Welfare is not a temporary program. The goal of progressives is to get as many people dependent upon the government as possible, in order to secure their votes for the democrat party. The problem is that with the rapidly increasing number of people seeking government assistance, and the drop in the number of achievers, largely as a result of a direct assault on them by the federal government's tax system and system of heavy regulation, out economy is being damaged in an untold number of ways that may be beyond repair. As is happening in Europe, those taking from the system eventually overtakes those providing, and the point of unsustainability is then reached.

Government, these people are arguing, is necessary to keep individuals and evil corporations, in line.

Under close scrutiny, it is easy to realize that all we are hearing from today's hard left liberals is the exact same rhetoric by the hardliners of the Soviet Union before the USSR collapsed - corporations and capitalism, they claim is bad - and the revolution (they are hoping) has begun with the Occupy Wall Street nuts.

Have you noticed the positive reporting the media is giving those nutty protesters?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary