Conclusion of yesterday’s column.
Even as it stands now, with our government-generated boom-bust cycles every few years (exclusively bust in recent times), most of these working poor still manage to rise over time. Consider that black Americans—a race of people brought to this country forcibly, first as slaves and then irrationally discriminated against for decades—have continued to make their way into the middle class over the last thirty years. Because of government programs? No way. Because of the remnants of capitalism still with us (those remnants now under relentless attack by Obama and others.)
Leftists insist that wages are too low for working people. They’d like to continually raise the minimum wage, which is tantamount to outlawing jobs for the poorest people in the country. Some help! No doubt you have heard this line: ‘America deserves a raise.’ Why don’t we simply raise the minimum wage to $50,000 a year? There’s no reason in principle to avoid this if leftist logic were applied consistently.
But seriously: If wages are ‘too low,’ then (according to the law of supply and demand), it must mean that there are too few jobs for too many workers. When there’s a shortage of jobs relative to the supply of workers, wages fall; when there’s a surplus of jobs and a shortage of workers, wages rise.
If leftists really cared about the ‘working poor,’ they’d demand more capitalism so more jobs can be created. Instead, they act with indifference and defensiveness to the fact that under Obama’s policies, the economy has essentially stopped growing at all.
Anti-immigrant types, of course, respond to this fact by insisting that we should allow fewer immigrants into the country—even if they want to work and take care of themselves. Leftists, on the other side, insist that instead we tax the rich even more and have more government programs for low-income people. In other words, let’s have the government do for the rest of the American economy what Social Security did to retirement pensions (bankrupted them); what Medicare did to health care (bankrupted hospitals and led to socialized medicine for all, i.e. Obamacare); and what The Great Society did for the poor (create a permanent, dependent underclass of poor, mostly black people in inner cities).
Quite an impressive track record, that government!
Yet this is all modern-day leftists (and even some conservatives) have to offer us. It’s no wonder leftists substitute savage and unfounded personal attacks for reason and facts, because there are no reason and facts to uphold socialism.
As more capital is taken away from the private sector, the number of jobs and other wealth/income-creating opportunities for low-wage workers are correspondingly reduced. Why? Because most rich people (contrary to the vicious stereotypes of business-hating leftists) invest their money into the economy, voluntarily and for selfish reasons.
As a result, the economy as a whole benefits: jobs are created, start-up capital exists for more new companies, and so forth. If we take this money away from the richest and the most productive, there will be that much less left to invest. And, let’s face it, politicians don’t know how to invest it. The results of Communism, socialism and even welfare state programs in our own countries (e.g., Social Security and Medicare always going bankrupt) speak for themselves.
If your heart bleeds for the poor, you should immediately rush out and support the capitalists, investors, stock brokers, CEOs and others who make the jobs for these poor people possible.
If these hated capitalists did not exist, then the woman scrubbing the floor would be out in the street—perhaps (if she’s an immigrant) even returned to her awful country of origin.
Who creates jobs after all? Where does wealth come from? Government? Of course not. Government can create largely make-work jobs in government agencies, but only to the extent that there’s a thriving private sector to tax. The weaker the private sector becomes, the less loot the government has to redistribute (and borrowing cannot go on indefinitely.)
Not that the redistribution is morally right in the first place. It isn’t. This was supposed to be a free country, whereby individuals were totally free from government control—beyond the requirement to not rob, steal, kill, rape or cheat.
There never was supposed to be socialism in this country, nor the semi-socialism we see from the partial redistribution of wealth. There’s nothing in the Constitution which obliges American citizens to give up a third or half of their income to people like Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Nancy Pelosi to redistribute as they feel like.
As the bumper sticker says: ‘OK, the joke is over’bring back our Constitution!’ Leftists simply whine that things are not perfect in a free country. They define ‘perfect’ as perfectly equal.
But it’s utterly impossible for all people to be at the same economic level at any one point in time. It never has been this way and it never will be this way. If a society is free, rational, and productive, then everyone who works will, on the whole, be progressing all the time. The rich will be continually getting richer, and the poor will be continually getting richer.
Because of this ongoing prosperity, new people will join the society, at the bottom, but happily so because for them it represents a step up, and because they have every reason to believe that they (or at least their children) can and will significantly advance in such a society.
Guilt-ridden leftists like Obama’s fervent supporters freeze a moment in time, and point to the fact that inequalities exist as proof that the society is a vicious and heartless one. They completely ignore that it’s only a moment in time, and that most of these poor people will go up the economic ladder in their lifetimes—at least 1) if they want to, and 2) if the capitalistic economy remains free (definitely not the case as of 2012).
Leftists completely ignore the fact that these poor would not even be as well off as they are if not for the efforts and risk-taking of capitalists in business and technology—people who flourish only under a system of individual freedom, and without whom there would be no jobs to complain about in the first place!
In a family context, an abuser evades basic facts so as to encourage vulnerable others (generally children) to feel guilty, low, and terrible about themselves. Usually, the motive is to make oneself feel superior. This is what animates many of the leftists who seek to impose ever-more socialism on their victims.
Leftist guilt is toxic and dangerous to a society, just as abusiveness is to a relationship or family. It’s ironic that Obama may be saved in his reelection effort, despite obviously failed policies, by his ‘personal popularity.’ People like him, polls suggest.
If true, leftist guilt has done its job. America has created its own destroyers, and those who ask for it—sadly, not the rest of us—will deserve whatever is coming.
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