Many of the people and politicians that support socialism try to guilt-trip us into supporting that style of government by bringing up stories of people who are down-and-out, trying to make us feel bad, blaming capitalism for their hardships, and telling us that if we really cared about people’s well-being and prosperity, then we would endorse socialism. According to them, supporting socialism proves that we have “compassion.”
The problem, though, is that in a century of experimentation, all that socialism has done, at best, is make people somewhat poorer and less prosperous, lowering the per capita income of that nation, and at worse, left entire nations so destitute and so hungry that they’re eating their own pets. If you truly are a compassionate person who cares about the well-being and prosperity of others in your society, why would you support something that makes people worse-off and less prosperous at best, or completely destitute at worst?
Whoever is trying to get you to support and endorse socialism is appealing to your emotions and sentiments while simultaneously ignoring the facts, getting you to support something that really is the opposite of compassion.
The Opposite of Compassion
Imagine you are hungry, and in your mind, you think, “what could be better than grilled chicken?” You purchase your grilled chicken and find the perfect place to eat your chicken – down by your local creek. So, you are sitting in front of that creek, and you are about to eat some of your delicious grilled chicken you just got. You have four pieces. A young woman comes up to you who looks disheveled, looking like she needs serious help, and says she’s hungry, and asks you if she could have some of your chicken. You feel bad for her, and out of the compassion and kindness that lies in your heart, you give her two pieces, half of your grilled chicken. She proceeds to eat it and greatly appreciates your generosity. You feel good, too, because you know you helped someone in need.
Now let’s change the story a little bit. This time, the woman comes near you, but before any conversation happens between the two of you, former president Barack Obama comes riding up on a beautiful white horse, and as he nears you, points a gun at your head and says, “Give her half your chicken, or else!” You proceed to do so, because you’re afraid of the consequences.
The results of the second story are the same as the first story – that is, the woman got half your chicken, which she ate. But the philosophical conclusions and emotional states are very different. In the second case, you didn’t give your chicken away out of compassion and kindness for the woman, but out of fear of the punishment you would receive if you didn’t give her your chicken. And the woman had no gratitude or appreciation for the chicken you gave her because in this case she felt that she was “entitled” to your chicken. In fact, she had a scowl on her face because she thought that you should have given her all of your chicken.
This second scenario is what socialism, including government-run social welfare programs, represents to us conservatives, including me. It’s using government to force people, against their will, to give some of their income to the government to pay for social welfare programs. Advocates of socialism claim that supporting this way of doing things proves you have compassion. Problem is, though, that in the end, the taxpayers don’t give large portions of their income to the government out of compassion, but out of fear of the consequences they would receive if they didn’t surrender that money. And the recipients of those social welfare programs don’t have gratitude for the benefits they receive from the government with your tax money, instead believing they are “entitled” to those benefits. They scowl, because they think they should have even more benefits given to them by the government.
Philosophically, from the standpoint of compassion, it’s deficient, because there’s nothing in that way of doing things that resembles compassion. Morally, it’s also deficient. It’s our duty as individuals to look after and take care of those in our community that are in need. What happens, though, under socialism, including social welfare programs, is that people shirk their personal moral responsibility to help those in need because they think, “I don’t need to worry about that. The government will take care of that problem for me.”
There’s also the fact that when we personally look after those in need, we can make our money more useful, and be more efficient in how our money gets used to help those in need. Compare that to how the government uses our money – in the most inefficient and ineffective ways possible, and that benefits the least amount of people. So, not only are we shirking our moral responsibility by letting the government do our job, but if we support those government-run programs, we are saying that we want our money to be used in the most inefficient and ineffective ways possible, in ways that help the least amount of people. Where’s the compassion in helping the least amount of people possible, and in the most ineffective ways possible? Wouldn’t you want to maximize how much good comes from your money?
Toxic Emotion
Those that support socialism make the complaint that they don’t like the fact that some people are so much better off than they are. They don’t like that, nor do they think it’s fair. They want the government to come along and create programs that get rid of that disparity by redistributing some of that wealth. Can you guess what emotion represents these feelings and complaints? If you said envy, you would be correct.
Envy is, in my opinion, an emotion that belongs in the “toxic emotion” category right alongside the emotion of hate. Both emotions are toxic, not healthy to an individual or a society. Both emotions are detrimental to your well-being, rather than beneficial to them. Both emotions are bad for you, not good for you. Any set of laws and policies that are based on a toxic emotion can only be destructive to society, not constructive to it.
And what is socialism, including democratic socialism? It is an ideology based on this toxic emotion of envy. When we enact policies or laws based on the ideology of socialism, we’re passing laws based on a toxic emotion, which can’t be good for our society. And people that support this ideology tend to talk down to you as if they hold the moral high ground, all while exploiting a toxic emotion. And they fill their hearts with hate towards those opposed to them, which makes sense given the fact that envy and hate run together.
A War on Poverty?
Not only that, but our social welfare programs that we have in place here in the United States were originally touted as part of a “war on poverty,” denoting that those programs, over time, would reduce, and possibly eliminate poverty in our country. But time has proven just the opposite – they are basically “bait and trap” programs that lure people in and trap them into chronic dependency on the government, where, as long as they are stuck in those programs, don’t go out and do the things they need to do in their lives to become more prosperous, but are instead written off under the “in poverty” category in government statistics manuals. Over time, the percentage of people living in poverty has basically stayed level, and not gone down, because of these programs. They’re not making things better.
These programs don’t do anything to help people get out of poverty and onto the road that leads to prosperity. In fact, in the welfare communities, if you leave the government dole to set out on your own to try to make a better life for yourself, you’re frowned upon as being a “chump.”
And what group of people in our country take more advantage of these “bait and trap” programs, as a percentage of their whole, than any other group in our country? If your answer is the African Americans, then you are correct. They consistently, more than anyone else, take advantage of these programs, and because they do so, stay chronically poor, and in fact are written off in the statistics manuals as being poor. Then the political party that pushes these programs (the Democrats) look at these statistics and use them to claim that there’s still rampant racism in our country, claiming that we still have enormous problems, and that they will look out for the black people – this is despite the fact that it’s this same political party and their programs that are creating this disparity, not racism. They are helping to ensure that large swaths of the black community stay chronically poor. On top of that, these programs have been very successful at decimating the black nuclear family structure so that it is very uncommon in today’s black community. Doesn’t that make these programs anti-black?
Conclusion
So, let me try to summarize what I just said. Supporters of socialism ignore the more than a century of facts that prove that it doesn’t work. They claim that if you have compassion, then you’ll support these government programs, even though there’s nothing really compassionate about using the government to help those in need. Their socialism ideology is based on exploiting an emotion, envy, which is toxic like hate is. And, programs, such as our social welfare programs, don’t actually help the poor achieve prosperity and a better life but keep them chronically poor. And who gets hurt the most by these programs? Black people, meaning support for these programs is inherently anti-black.
There you have it.
