New Road Sign

If the country continues too far down the path of socialism, this is what we may see:

Michigan, Meet Socialism

Admittedly, we in Michigan have gotten far too accustomed to seeing inept, corrupt, and foolish leadership in places like Lansing and Detroit. But among the descriptors I would use for this same leadership, I would not have looked for this one: Socialist.

The president today, for all practical purposes, saw to it that the leader of what used to be one of the proudest and most successful American companies was, in a word, fired. Dismissed. This man, to my knowledge, broke no laws and made a good-faith effort to lead General Motors in the right direction.

Please understand this: In Washington D.C., a decision was made to remove the leader of a Michigan-based company—not a governmental entity, mind you, but a publicly traded company—because that company was not "successful" financially. Before long, we should not be surprised if the government owns much of that company, and tries to run it, in a manner similar to its ownership stake in several of our larger financial institutions.

Regardless of what the president says.

Some observations:

Socialism will not come to America in a single fell swoop. Our Congressmen know better than to try that. It will come to America incrementally, a little here and a little there, until we are absorbed into it. Obfuscation and thousand-page pieces of legislation will hide some of it from us until it is already done.

Michigan, with the worst economy of any state, may become a socialism testing ground of sorts. Beware of any governmental intrusions—federal or state—into the workings of private businesses.

Power corrupts. Our government, with its current leadership, is assuming far more power than our Constitution grants it. It is time to be vigilant and to pressure our representatives to do what is Constitutional, and to vote against any legislation which tends toward socialism.

A Great Article About Socialism

Walter Williams wrote the piece below, which I found here, on the evils of socialism. Socialism is indeed an evil, and I think he does a great job of simply explaining this fact.

No one should be forced to help their fellow man

Evil acts can be given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution or caring for the less fortunate. Let's think about socialism.

Imagine there's an elderly widow down the street from you. She has neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to do it. Here's my question to you that I'm almost afraid for the answer: Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors to mow the lady's lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house arrest and fines to imprisonment?

I'm hoping that the average American would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow’s lawn, the government forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I’d say that there is little difference between the mandates.

Putting the money into a government pot makes palatable acts that would otherwise be deemed morally offensive.

This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one’s fellow man. Helping one's fellow man in need, by reaching into one’s own pockets, is a laudable and praiseworthy goal.

Doing the same through coercion and reaching into another's pockets has no redeeming features and is worthy of condemnation.

I don’t believe any moral case can be made for the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.

But that conclusion is not nearly as important as the fact so many of my fellow Americans give wide support to using people.

I would like to think it is because they haven’t considered that more than $2 trillion of the over $3 trillion federal budget represents Americans using one another.

Of course, they might consider it compensatory justice. For example, one American might think, “Farmers get Congress to use me to serve the needs of some farmers. I’m going to get Congress to use someone else to serve my needs by subsidizing my child's college education.”

The bottom line is that we’ve become a nation of thieves, a value rejected by our founders. James Madison, the father of our Constitution, was horrified when Congress appropriated $15,000 to help French refugees.

He said, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

Tragically, today’s Americans would run Madison out of town on a rail.

Quote of the Day

This nugget comes from The Fox Forum and was authored by Greg Gutfeld. The entire article was good, but this piece near the end deals nicely with the "redistribution" issue:

I mean, wasn’t the credit mess nothing more than an act of wealth redistribution? Banks were encouraged to give loans to high-risk folks to buy homes they couldn’t afford. It’s a free lunch that, in the end, we’re all now paying for.

And this is what happens when you decide to rearrange a pie instead of growing it. What you get is sticky fingers, instead of a full stomach.