Call it socialism, call it wealth redistribution, call it welfare, call it “we just want to spread it around a little, we think it’s better for everyone that way”, its evil.

Allow me to digress just a bit with several examples and I’ll circle back and show you why I believe it’s not just bad, it’s evil.

Keep this phrase in mind: “Every time someone gets something for nothing, someone else had to get nothing for something.”

Example 1: Taxes

In a graduated income tax system such as ours, the highest earners and producers pay the highest rate, while the lowest earners pay the lowest rate. And the non-producers often pay less than nothing as they actually receive payment from the collected taxes. This is commonly known as welfare, where people do not earn, yet still receive.

In this example, the welfare recipient gets something for nothing, while the top earner (you could even argue the mid-range earner also) pays for them, essentially getting nothing for something.

Who loses?

Hold that thought, let’s continue.

Example 2: Labor Unions

In a typical Labor union the workers of a company have united together to become a single body, the union.And all contracts, payment and otherwise, are negotiated with the entire body, instead of the individual worker. This claims the union, gives the worker greater bargaining power when it comes to negotiating said contracts.

Here’s what else it does: It gives the worker higher wages (and benefits) than they could get on their own and scheduled pay raises not based on merit but on union membership - something for nothing. And the Company itself, by not getting higher producers for the higher wages and compensation, has now gotten nothing for something.

Who loses?

Don’t answer yet, there’s more

Example 3: Children’s “self esteem” classes

Many public, and even private, schools have instituted programs to help the kids build self esteem. They do things like give each kid a prize for “effort” regardless of how qualified the effort actually is. The sports teams give everyone a trophy so the losers don’t get their “self esteem” hurt. They are careful not to reward the high-achieving kids too gratuitously for fear of hurting the other kids “self esteem”. It all makes sense, they don’t want kids who under achieve to feel bad.

Here’s what really happens: the kids who didn’t win, but still got trophies – the kids who crammed a sloppy half-effort entry to the science fair but still got a prize for “effort” – the kids who are told they’re doing a great job as to not hurt their feelings – all they really got was, you guessed it: something for nothing - accolades, prizes, trophy, even grades – all unearned.

Who got nothing for something? The team that won, the kids that achieve and get a silent grade as to not upset the others; all get unrewarded, maybe even unappreciated, effort.

Who loses?

I know I know, hang in there we’re almost done

Example 4: Friendship

This is a real example, from a real person, in a real school.

A girl, 12, we’ll call her Girl A, told Girl B: “I just don’t want to be friends with you, we have nothing in common…etc.” Well Girl B went home, told her parents, who called the school, next day teacher says to Girl A: “you have to be friends with Girl B”.

So hurray right? Girl B is now accepted and has a friend? Wrong.

Something for nothing, a friend she didn’t “earn”

Girl B now gets nothing for her something, she now has to endure hanging out with someone she really doesn’t like. (Although this is likely the most real life-preparing experience she’ll have while in school)

I ask again: Who loses?

Now, finally, let’s summarize.

In example 4, who loses? Girl A, who has to hang out with a girl she doesn’t like? Nope. Sure she has to endure a hardship, but who really loses?

Girl B.

Why? Because Girl B is being told, and shown that she doesn’t need to earn friends, or even make friends, that they’ll be made for her. She gets to live with the realization that because she couldn’t make her own friends, one had to be given to her.

Who loses in example 3? The achieving kids who don’t get the recognition they deserve? No again.

It’s the kids who get the praise and rewards they didn’t deserve that lose. They are being taught that they are worthy and deserving of such rewards without earning them. How prepared for life will they be with that lesson?

How about example 2? Sure the union wages and compensation hurt the company’s bottom line (ahem, GM?) but is that the real loser – nope.

Each union member who is told “you can’t get a raise, or earn this salary on your own, you need us to do it for you” loses big time. Because that’s exactly what they believe, they learn that they can’t earn such a raise themselves, and thus never will.

Finally, in example one, the high producer and wage earner, who is penalized at a greater rate of taxation for his achievement – is he the loser? Not even close. He’s used to overcoming obstacles and facing challenges, he’ll find a way to deal with the taxation.

The welfare recipient however, may never learn how to care for himself. He’s been convinced that, for one reason or another, he can’t. Or that someone else won’t let him.

All of these examples are one form of Socialism, here’s why they are all evil:

- Girl B could have made friends on her own, but she may never know. She expects someone else to do it for her. Her desire to make friends has been taken.

- All those kids who were “taught” self esteem could have earned it themselves, if only given the chance. But by giving it to them, you take their ability to earn it. You’ve literally stolen their entire future potential right out of them.

- Each worker could have actually earned his own pay raise, he could have learned to work harder, maybe even get more education and climb the ladder. But by telling he can’t , or doesn’t need to, you’ve stolen that potential from him.

- By paying someone to not work, you’re stealing their very motive engine. You’re buying their soul one cent at a time, purchasing their life, and enslaving them.

And that, my friends, is why Socialism, in any form, is evil.

Both of these are great ideas and definitely make much more sense than our current system.  [We can argue that later, it's not the point of this short article]

Here’s why it’ll never happen:

Taxes; specifically, the right of congress to levy taxes, or even more specifically the right of congress to change how they levy taxes.

They can control how much you pay in taxes.  And they can adjust that amount (up or down) simply by saying “aye”.

How much power does that give them?

All the power in the world.

It literally gives them puppet strings attached to every single producer in America.  To use a Rand-like metaphor, it’s as if congress has a throttle control attached directly to YOUR motive engine.

In the recent 2008 electin, ALL the candidates included campaign promisses stating what they would do with taxes.  Obama promised to lower them for some, and raise them for others.  McCain promised the exact same thing, only for different groups.

They BOTH were essentially buying votes with the tax rate as currency.

A flat, fair, consumption (whatever you want to call it) tax would take that power away from Congress.  No longer would they hold such influence over American producers.  No longer would the rich fear retribution from them, no longer would the poor expect concessions from them.  The power of Congress would be greatly reduced with such a tax.

Political candidates, of all parties, could no longer use “tax breaks” as a campaign item.  What would they have left to talk about?  Sure would be nice to find out.

How could class warfare exist if we all paid the same % of our earnings?  If we all payed taxes based on what we bought, how then could a poor apartment dweller claim “unfair” against a wealthy multi-house owner?

These are just a few of the results (or as I like to call them: benefits) of a flat or consumption based tax system.  And they are the exact reasons why it will never be passed.

Very few in power are willing to legislate a reduction in that power.

Obama’s Top Five Broken Promises

I can not believe it. Since when is preventing a missile from hitting an American city or a “Friend of America” get offered up in a deal to stop a regime that supports terrorism, denies the holocaust took place, refuses to recognize Israel, and has helped kill American soldiers fighting for freedom in Iraq? The rational is that if we eliminate the threat of Iran building a nuke than there is no need for a missile defense system. HELLLOOOOO?!?!??!?!

This is appalling. Sure we need Russias help and would like nothing more than to develop a strong relationship with Russia but at what expense? I really am in shock over this. We wouldnt need a missile defense system? Russia is still under the control of Vladimir Putin and North Korea still has nukes and Pakistan is 1 violent overthrow of their government to having radical Islamists in complete control of a nuclear arsenal. We dont need a missile defense system? 

I find it really sad that the current leadership of our nation is afraid to call a threat a threat and name names. Ronald Reagan looked Russia right in its eye and called it an Evil Empire. George H.W. Bush looked Saddam in his eye and called him what he was and that was an evil dictator. George W. Bush looked terrorism in the eye and called it was it was - EVIL and he also looked Iraq, Iran and North Korea in the eye and called them the Axis of Evil. This administration led by Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid are scared to even say the words “war on terror.”  They absolutely refuse to say it. They do not understand the threat of terrorism and they will only make the terrorists stronger by giving up things to appease the enemy. Worst of all? They are giving up the security of free people around the world.

Shame on you!

I was watching an interview with Tony Danza on the Mike Huckabee show, (Please note, I am not a big fan of either) and Mike asked Tony about the stimulus bill.  His answer, very similar to answers I get from non-cons (a non-conservative, i.e.: moderate or liberal), was this: “I don’t necessarily think, you know, intellectually, that it’s the best plan, but I really want it to work.  Can’t we all just stop the bickering and get behind it?”

What exactly was he trying to say? That even though it’s the wrong plan that if we all “want” it to work it’ll be ok?

If you hire me to fix your car, and I put peanut butter in the transmission and replace some key engine parts with legos then tell you “well the other mechanics and I really want this plan to work, can’t you just get behind it?”  Is that going to make your car run?

Which brings us to:

Fundamental liberal thought flaw #1: “Wanting something to work, regardless of its actual merits, will somehow make it work” and this subsequent extrapolation: “Questioning the merits of something will likely cause it to fail, while massive public support of something will definitely cause it to succeed”

Also repeated by Mr. Danza, as well as countless media outlets, is how hard it is for a new president in his first 30 days, and how Mr. Obama didn’t ask for this recession, he inherited the greatest challenge of any modern president.

So…we should be forgiving and “cut him some slack” because it’s really, really hard to be president?  Um, no.  When you’re the President; you need to find a way to deal with it.

Again, if I’m fixing your car and I break something instead of fix it and my coworker comes to you and says “look, we just hired him and you know how hard the first month at a new job can be.  And besides, your car problem is a really hard one; he didn’t ask for it, you just showed up and expected it to be fixed.” Are you going to accept that answer?  I doubt it.  So why should we accept that answer about the President?  Unless you ascribe to Fundamental liberal thought flaw #2.

Fundamental liberal thought flaw #2: “The higher the difficulty of something, the more acceptable it is to give an excuse for failure, based on that difficulty”. There are examples of this all though society: “but it’s hard to get a better job”, “but it’s hard to pay my bills”, “but its hard to pay a full price mortgage”, “but it’s hard to start a business”, “but it’s hard to stay married” and more, which leads to this summarization: “If something is hard, that alone is reason enough for failing or not even trying”

We could go on and name many more, and we will, later.

Say Group A works hard and has created $1 trillion in wealth out of nothing. Group B smokes crack and watches Oprah, and doesn’t create any wealth at all. It receives food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, et cetera, ad nauseam, but say Group B has no more wealth than it creates. If Chairman Zero wants to spread the wealth around so that both groups have the same amount, he doesn’t have to take half a $trillion from Group A. All he needs to do is give Group B $1 trillion dollars that doesn’t exist in the form of mortgage bailouts and stimulus packages.

Since the money doesn’t exist, the government will have to print it. Instead of $1 trillion dollars, there is now $2 trillion that represents $1 trillion of actual wealth. By making money worth half as much, Obama has effectively seized half of what Group A worked to create.

Bill Gates earns, approximately, $2 billion annually. Let’s say we jack up his tax rate by an extra 10%. A $200M tax increase on Bill Gates means an extra $0.61 to each American, ASSUMING zero administrative cost of redistributing the wealth. With and extra 61 cents, most people will super-size a happy meal or buy a lottery ticket, or do something frivolous. With that extra $200M, Bill Gates could start a new hospital, employing 1,000 people, and adding billions of dollars to the economy in the form of created wealth - wealth from which he, too, could profit, if he runs his investment well.

Instead of working to increase the taxes on the rich, if we’re so concerned that they’re not paying their shares, why not mandate that they invest that money in startup firms that create jobs and help the community. (Like hospitals, private schools, and so forth.) The competition from all these forced-investment properties will drive the prices of the services that they offer down, which will be good for consumers. They’ll create new jobs. The money won’t disappear into some government tar pit. And they might even end up turning a profit for the erstwhile taxpayer - something his taxes would never have done. We mandate that they invest, say, 5% of their net income each year to funding startups, and we’ll start to see an explosion of wealth and new business like we’ve never seen. Observing Europe, we can see that increased government intervention leads to economic stagnation and double-digit unemployment. Let’s see what happens when we empower millions of Americans to start their own businesses each year.

If the people trying to take the money from the rich were really, honestly, trying to do something abuot poverty and equality, this is what they’d be proposing. However, it’s all about stealing from the productive to increase the size and bloat of the government.

[editor's note:  Thanks Mike.  We love hearing from you and thank you for you contributions and support]

About Vegas Mike:  Mike is a fantastic American with a great love of liberty and freedom.  While we often cringe at his radical ideas for proposed implementation, we completely agree with his ideals of limited government, personal liberty, and free trade.

Stupid.

There, I said it.  I tell my 4 year old not to use that word, and I seldom say it out loud, but there’s just no other word that fits this situation.

Everyone including President Obama, the major media outlets, my coworkers and most of congress are talking about the tragedy of the recent home foreclosures.  Not just that, they’re (even some GOP senators) talking about how something “must be done” to help keep people in their homes.

We can all agree how sad it is to lose your home; I personally came very close in 2001 after the dotcombomb but that’s a different story.

Here’s the problem with nearly every one of the sob stories that get paraded in front of us non-stop by our loving 24-hour news cycle:  They nearly all have variable rate loans.

Yup, maybe one out of 20 stories is about someone who lost a job or something, but nearly every one of them is about someone with a variable interest rate mortgage that has now adjusted up out of reach of their income, and the home has dropped in value so they cannot refinance to a lower payment. 

Here’s the problem with that:  If you needed the low variable rate to afford the home – you couldn’t actually afford that home.

I’ll repeat that in case you didn’t hear me:  If you can’t afford the fixed rate loan, you can’t afford the house.  Period.

So what do we call someone who can’t afford the real payment, but takes the low introductory payment with no idea what they’ll do when it matures? 

Irresponsible? Short-sighted? Long-term planning ability disabled? Unable to read or find a source of information or even ask someone older who owns a home so we’ll listen to the shady realtor trying to make some quick money syndrome?

Don’t let my kid hear, I think “stupid” will do just fine.

UPDATE:  Heres a great article by Michelle Malkin detailing some specifics of recent sob story mortgage “victims”

Now comes Barack Obama. Straight from the heavens above! He promises to end corruption. He promises to be bi-partisan. He promises that no lobbyists will be in his cabinet. So what happens? He appoints lobbyists, he has members of his team resigning in disgrace because they are tax cheats, they put out this stimulus bill that will not stimulate ANYTHING and refuse to take in Republican ideas on it. They won so too bad for the Repubilcans! Way to be bi-partisan.

Does anyone care that the White House has taken the Census away from the Commerce Dept and moved it to the White House? Anyone even understand why they would do this? They are trying to change the electoral map! This is an outrage! Senator Gregg is going to be confirmed to be Sec. of Commerce and he’s a Republican so the White House takes away one of his most important jobs. This is a disgrace.

Is anyone aware of the wasteful spending in this new stimulus bill that is supposed create jobs and save the economy. They talk about creating these jobs in construction to fix bridges, roads and other infrastructure…wonderful. Those jobs wont last. When the job is done, you are laid off. Those are not permanant jobs. One of the items in the bill is an 88 million dollar plan to construct new schools in Milwaukee when there are 15 vacant schools already!!! WTF?!?

$150 million dollars to livestock insurance to cover honeybees and fresh fish??? Thats stimulus? That creates jobs for the middle class and lower class? This will help the economy? The worst thing is that Obama is walking around LYING to everyone and saying there is no pork and earmarks in this bill when there IS. How dare these people lie to us. They are stealing our money and telling us one thing while doing another. And the people walk around like zombies saying “OOOO Baaaaaa Maaaaa, OOOOO Baaaaaa MAAAAAA” WAKE UP ZOMBIES! They say this is an emergency and if we dont take action now then we will be up shits creek! Well than why are they loading up all this pork into the bill? Its like Al Gore saying the planet is dying and then adds to its death while asking the rest of us to stop. WTF is going on here???

$350 + million for education on sexually transmitted diseases. Great idea…how does that create jobs? How does this help the economy?

$650 million for coupons to help people switch to digital tv?!??!?! WTF?

$150 million for renovations to the Smithsonian. WTF!?!?!?

$70 million to help people to stop smoking. Great intentions but how does this help the economy?

Thats just a few of the items in the bill! This bill is almost $900 BILLION DOLLARS of guess who’s money? OURS! Not the Governments. Obama’s admin already has proven they dont pay taxes.

They say they are going to give tax cuts to everyone. Well what about the people who do not pay taxes? They will get a check in the mail for absolutely nothing. What is that? Sounds like WELFARE to me.

They cry about the deficit we are in but they want to spend their way out of it. How is that possible? The government needs to STOP SPENDING.

Oh and to top it all off, the Obama admin is going to cut Defense Spending by at least 10% and as much as 25%. We are in the middle of a war against terror. China and Russia are developing their weapons. Obama is taking apart ours. He is AGAINST the missile defense system that would prevent a missile from hitting a city in our nation. WTF?!?!!

To top it off they rushed this bill through and did not give anyone a chance to read it first! Its high time that the people of this nation know what is going into these bills before they are signed into law. It is unacceptable that these elected officials can insert nonsense into a bill without anyone knowing what was done.

Ok…let me stop….enough is enough. You get the point…or do you? I know a few of you do. But most of you dont. Obama lied. People were duped. I thought it would have taken a few years to expose this radical group of individuals who are taking over this country but as Charles Krauthamer said it only took a couple of weeks.

Obama has failed us already.