by Jack Lee
Social security was a watershed moment in our history and we’ve been gravitating towards socialism ever since. It could be argued that socialism began here in 1917 when events in Russia began to influence events in America. But, what can’t be argued is that each new social program we’ve invented since then has created more dependency on big government. It’s also placed a growing burden on the most wealthy and most productive people in our society and these impositions have now filtered down to the middle class so everyone that pays taxes, now pay a little more.
In blunt terms, the Democratic Party has exploited the division between the rich and the poor in order to garner votes and advance their left leaning agendas and the results have been both crippling and controlling. They’ve also exploited racial divisions too, but let’s stay on the economic war for now, because that one has been waged so effectively. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not letting the GOP off the hook. They have plenty of blame to shoulder, but for now I need to stay focused on the key players for socialism.
By the late 1960’s Democrats had figured out the absolute best way to win elections and gain power on many levels of American society was through a populist appeal (subtle social programs coupled to more wealth shifting via taxation). By the 1980’s their agenda had become outright vote buying and there was now a constant rising tide of socialist programs we call safety nets. To resist this movement, the Republicans could only appeal to a citizens common sense and a plea to stay the course and keep the principles that founded this nation. Of course growing government slightly slower than the democrats was not what the people were looking for either. And as history has shown us, when the republican party failed to deliver on their promises to reform, all that was left was the other side offering to do things for citizens by way of bribing them with their own tax money and they did deliver on this.
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville
It’s not been a very smooth transition from a republic to a socialist country and I could cite dozens of examples where we’ve had upheavals, but let me summarize it like this: In the 1950’s it was popular for liberals and leftists to jump on the communist bandwagon and the USSR was only to happy to help them. Of course we denied this for a time, but history proves it really was true and we were under attack from subversive elements. The predictable rightwing reaction came from forces like Joe McCarthy, Hoover’s FBI and even the infamous John Bircher Society. That rightwing reactionary force was far more visible than the undercurrent of communism and socialism. Thanks to the cold war propaganda, and left leanng elements in higher education, a majority of our citizens were made to fear and loath McCarthy and his ilk, but they also feared zealotry on any side, and the communists/socialists were only too eager to exploit that fear. The socialist movement now moderated itself to fit in and it also gravitated to play the role of victim. Socialism was touted as the underdog, a struggling defender of the downtrodden and they had nothing but good intentions.
Jumping ahead 50 plus years to today we’ve seen a huge change in our nation’s demographics thanks mostly to unchecked illegal immigration and birth rates among the poor. Simultaneously, and not so coincidentally, we’ve seen an expansion of government, more wealth shifting and a plethora of safety nets won by a single political force….populism, socialism best friend.
The Republic we had from decades back no longer exists today; instead it’s something less free, more expensive and less productive and it will likely continue down the path.
Looking back at what happened it’s only too obvious. The more burdens that were placed on the wealthy the less productive we seem to be, the wealth shifting accompanied many new laws, rules and regulations that impacted everyone. The poor were only slightly elevated, but more importantly they were more confined to staying poor, they were becoming content to live on “free” basics as kept people.
What we see happening today was predicted centuries ago and we’ve seen examples throughout history what happens when populism gains absolute control and the end is always catastrophic.
The baby boomer generation may be the last point of friction in this transition phase. It’s no wonder the Tea Party people are mostly over 50. So it’s just a matter of time now, a decade or two and this “friction” will die out and the citizens who have acclimated to socialism will be far more accepting of it. At that point the transition will be complete and this Republic will be pronounced brain dead.