People are shocked — shocked! — over the revelation that Democrats and liberals do their best to keep from paying taxes.
Come on! Give me a break! How long have we libertarians been pointing out that liberals love being good … as long as it’s with money that has been forcibly taken from others rather than with their own money? Hasn’t the core principle of the welfare state always been the forcible taking of money from some people in order to give it to other people and then proclaiming everyone as saints?
Let’s not forget that conservatives aren’t any different. Their love of the welfare state rivals that of the liberals. Isn’t that what George W. Bush’s plan to impose compassionate conservatism was all about before he embraced his much-vaunted war on terrorism as the centerpiece of his presidency?
Through the skillful use of terror and force, the IRS coerces people into sending their hard-earned money to Washington. Then the money is handed over to Congress, which hands it over to the welfare agencies and departments, whose bureaucrats distribute them to the poor. And then everyone is hailed a saint, a lover of the poor, a compassionate, caring, selfless person. The taxpayer. The voter. The bureaucrats. The congressmen. The president. Everyone is a saint in the welfare state because everyone plays a role in helping the poor.
And who are the poor? Well, good examples of the poor include Lehman Brothers, AIG, and all those banks receiving welfare bailout money. Okay, maybe they were once rich, but that was before they made those bad investment decisions. Now they’re poor. How about those auto companies? Aren’t they poor after having failed to build cars that satisfy consumers?
According to the welfare statists, those welfare bailouts had nothing to do with putting hard-earned taxpayer money into the pockets of big-business cronies who make big campaign contributions. They’re all about just helping the poor.
Have you noticed all the shock and outrage over the big bonuses that the bailed-out firms paid to their employees after receiving their bailout money? The welfare statists are crying, “Shame!”
Shame? Are they kidding? These firms — and their lobbyists — have proven to be extremely successful in playing the welfare-state game. When firms in the free market do well by satisfying consumers, they reward themselves with big bonuses. Why would it surprise anyone that firms who do well by satisfying politicians in the plunderbund system would feel the same way?
After all, don’t people hail congressmen who get their hands on more than their fair share of the loot that they bring back to their congressional district? Don’t editorial boards on practically every mainstream newspaper across the land use this as their primary measure of whether a congressman is effective? Don’t congressmen announce their grants with much fanfare and publicity, especially at election time? When was the last time such welfare largess was considered shameful?
And let’s not forget the religious aspects of the welfare state. Every Sunday Americans go to church, where they hear things like the importance of loving one’s neighbor and helping the poor, which they then pervert into a religious devotion to the welfare state.
God’s method is based on free will — that is, the freedom of people to choose, which encompasses the right of people to say no. That’s not good enough for American Christian welfare statists. According to them, God made a mistake in trusting people with that much freedom. Everyone knows, they tell us, that if the welfare state didn’t force people to help others through such welfare programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, subsidies, bailouts, and public schooling, no one would help others. That’s why people need to be forced to do so, or so they tell us.
And heaven forbid that anyone condemns the welfare state idol. In America, that’s considered heresy. For example, while the welfare state is cracking at the seams with ever-increasing crises after seventy years of existence, we’re all supposed to blame it on the profiteers, the speculators, free enterprise, deregulation, big business, big oil, OPEC, the Muslims, the terrorists, the communists, the illegal aliens, or whomever. Why one liberal is even blaming the economic crises on … get this … libertarianism! Hey, it doesn’t matter who the scapegoat is. All that matters is that the responsibility for the crises never be laid at the feet of the welfare-state idol itself.
As we experience the ever-growing financial and economic crises and witness the hypocrisy and seamy side of the welfare state, it might well be that we are witnessing the death throes of socialism in America. This is not something to lament but rather something to celebrate. It would remind us that God has indeed created a consistent universe, one in which evil and immoral means produce bad results, even when done through the idol of the welfare state.