Liberal Questions

This was originally published on the Politically Empowered site in January 2010.  After that, the Politically Empowered migrated to the WordPress site. The earlier posts did not migrate with the site and are no longer available on line. So the earlier posts will be re-posted on this site.

I recently got involved in a conversation on Facebook. Most of my friends are either libertarian or conservative. One person who is of the liberal persuasion took a dissenting view. These questions gave me an insight into the liberal thinking process and hopefully I have been able to jar some of the misconceptions liberals have. Her questions are in black. My answers in blue.

Why are you so threatened? There are many cultures that have relinquished their independence for the security of the state. The nazi and the communist nations are pretty much same ideology and in the twentieth century has killed more than 100,000,000 people; 180,000,000 by governments of all types. Government is not compassion. It is force.

Why can’t you envision balance? Balance means: a counterbalancing weight, force, or influence. With the data given above, the drive to individual responsibility, self-reliance and a fundamental distrust of government is the balance. However, I do not see a need to balance freedom with slavery or the ideology that will lead to slavery such as communism or its clones, progressivism, liberalism, Marxism.

Why the extremes? Can’t you see all the shades of gray in between? Extreme? Wow. I do not see any extreme beliefs or actions here. The basic wish is to return to the Constitution and what the founding fathers envisioned for the country. These are the things that made this country great. We are in greater need of this now than ever before. Sure, there are shades of gray. The path from the light of freedom to darkness of enslavement has many shades of gray, until the path turns subtly from gray to total black.

Why do you so fiercely support an agenda that does not support you? Truthfully, I do not know what this means. Please elaborate.

Why does anything that looks different look like a communist threat? Obama is a Marxist. His mentors and many of his appointees are Marxists. One is an admitted Communist. (He was fired, but not for being an admitted Communist but for being a “Truther”) With a filibuster proof Senate, a majority in the House the first stage of government run health care has almost been reached. Cap and Trade is the next on the agenda. Between these two things, the government will be able to control every aspect of life in the United States. This looks to me a lot like either Communism…or fascism. I do not know what will happen to your Constitutional rights if this happens. And yes it is scaring a lot of people.

Why are your “facts” right & my “facts” wrong? Which facts are you talking about? You have to be clearer…but I will say that contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Why don’t you want to “do good”? This is kind of like asking “Do you still beat your wife?” But I would ask, “good for whom?” One ultimately acts in one’s self interest. I love my family and my country. I will act in my self-interest and do what I can to protect my family and this country from actions that will mean its ultimate demise.

Do you want to “do bad”?   Have I done something that makes you think I want to “do bad”?

Why can’t you make a profit AND take a little care of the less fortunate? Well, certainly I can and have. I took in a homeless couple and let them live in my home for a year, recently. They lived on my charity to the tune of thousands of dollars. They were able to get back on their feet enough to move out. Did you know that the people who identify themselves as conservative give much more of their own money to charities than those that identify themselves as liberal? I would ask you, “Why do you need the guns of the government to take by force money from those who earn it to give to those that haven’t?” There are many people who are not capable and need to be taken care of. This is the province of charity. Charity is more efficient and capable of delivering aide to those that actually need it than the government that will throw away 40 cents on the dollar in the form of fraud, and waste. Charity is certainly more moral and in every other way superior to government run programs. Also, the question points to a mindset that those making a profit do not help the less fortunate; which many (if not most) certainly do. But making a profit is itself a help to the less fortunate. It allows companies to expand and hire more people. An honest business is not taking pieces from some imaginary pie, leaving little to be consumed by the rest of us. These businesses actually create wealth making the pie bigger for everyone.

Are you so incapable of possibly being less fortunate one day? Well, probably not. That does not give me sanction to take the product of others efforts. If I did this personally I would go to jail. When the government does this, it is called entitlement. There is nothing moral about this. It denigrates the giver and the receiver.

How does another’s greed benefit you? Most people start a business or go into a business because they want to create something. Usually a side benefit is money; sometimes a lot of money. Greed is only bad when a person practices some sort of force or fraud to get money or something else of value. Fortunately there is very little force or fraud in the corporate world; much less than in government. They channel that greed into productive efforts that benefit all of us. I would venture to say that much of the fraud perpetrated on the American people comes mainly when government and corporations are in cahoots to get by government guns that which they could not get in an actual free market. This is why government has to be limited and only do those things that protect all of us from force and fraud.

Do you plan to draw social security when you retire? I’ve paid a lot of money into this scheme (by force I might add). I would have gotten a much better return on this money by investing in the stock market, or T-bills even. It will probably be bankrupt by the time I retire.

Are your parents / grandparents on Medicare? Both of my parents are deceased. As far as I know neither were on Medicare.

If your house is on fire, will you call the fire dept.? Why wouldn’t I? This is a proper function of a government, though not the Federal government.

Did you go to college with a grant? No. I paid my way.

Will your children go to college with a grant? No. Your point?

Do you go to the library? On occasion I do. Again, this is a service run by a community government not the Federal government and it is totally proper that they do. You should really read the Constitution. If you did you’d see that the Federal government has enumerated powers. The tenth amendment states: The powers not delegated to the federal government belong to the states or the people.

Isn’t your healthcare NOW in the hands of corporations who make a profit by denial of benefits? Insurance is basically a contract between the insurer and insured. It states what will be covered and what will not be covered. The contract is a protection for both parties. If there are gray areas there will be conflicts. Did you know that Medicare denies more claims on average than the private insurance companies? However, if people could buy health insurance across state lines and without all of the mandates loaded on to policies by the state governments, that competition would soon make insurance companies much more responsive. So, again it is government interference that is causing the problem not providing a solution.

Should the government not stop corporations from hiring children … if it ensures a profit, they should stay out of it, right? This should not be a federal mandate. It can and should be left to the states where per the Constitution this power resides. If enough people believe this important issue needs to be uniformly enforced across the states, then the Constitution has a mechanism to change it by amendment.

Is there really nothing to be learned from other cultures/countries? Certainly. We seem to have learned too well how to grow government to the point of unsustainable proportions. I would ask you: Do you have kids and do you really want to burden them to the point they’ll need to work their lifetime to pay off the debt we are giving them? We really need to learn from the mistakes of these countries and from our own financial folly.

Did you know that “the people” have more power in some countries than we do? Which countries?

Did you know that some people have more freedom than we do? Again, which? At the rate we are losing those freedoms, I don’t doubt it.

Why do you feel the need to gang up on someone who is different? Has someone ganged up on you? Do you feel different? If you are referring to our past conversations, I’ve tried not to gang up on you. I’d rather not attack a person. I will however attack an idea and ideology that will result in the ultimate enslavement of not just our culture but will snuff out the light we hold out to the rest of the world.

Who hurt you? Melody McGuire. First grade.

What are you afraid of? See your first question.

Why do you see evil? One only has to open ones eyes. Any government that wants to take property from those who earned it and give it to those that did not is evil.

Why do you need to be at war? I don’t know of any person that “needs” or wants to be at war. However, once at war it has to be finished. Leaving these tasks undone makes a much more dangerous world. Hundreds of thousands of individuals died when we left Vietnam unfinished after these people trusted us. This betrayal of South East Asia also resulted in millions being slaughtered in Cambodia. Korea 60 years after the cease-fire is one of the most dangerous threats we have. Abandoning Afghanistan after Russia finally left resulted ultimately in 3,000 deaths in 2001 drawing us into a wider war. We must finish what we start and keep our promises once made.

Don’t you have enough? No. Do you? There are things I want to do that I do not have the resources for…creative things (OMG). Does the government determine a magic limit on the resources that can be accumulated? What is your limit, what is enough for you?

What did you do today to make the world a better place?   Hopefully, I have helped to make a liberal think outside a narrow view of those who do not want the government to take over the province of individuals violating the Constitution in the process.

For further questions and answers see More Liberal Questions

See also my piece “Slavery and Socialism Discussed on Facebook”
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