SOCIAL Security.....Health Care

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-2008
SOCIAL Security.....Health Care
22
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:05pm

Consider the crown jewel of the socialistic welfare state - Social Security.


Here's a government program that is the absolute embodiment of the socialist dictum "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." By now, everyone should know that there is no Social Security fund and that there never has been one. Social Security is a straight transfer program. The Internal Revenue Service taxes the young and productive, and the Social Security Administration administers the welfare to the elderly. The system is based on taking what belongs to one person and giving it to someone to whom it does not belong.


Let's not forget the roots of Social Security. It did not originate with Madison, Washington, or Jefferson. In fact, our American ancestors would have nothing to do with such a program. That's why Americans lived without Social Security from 1787 to 1935. Social Security originated with German socialists during the regime of Otto von Bismarck, the "iron chancellor" of German during the late 19th century. That's where President Roosevelt got the idea.


When Roosevelt proposed Social Security as part of his New Deal for America, conservatives ardently opposed the program. They emphasized that it was morally wrong for a person to take what didn't belong to him, even when it was being accomplished through the collective action of the state; that Social Security would constitute an assault on family values; and that government had no business taking care of people.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:18pm

How do you feel about what the author was talking about regarding conservatives having abandoned their own principles?


 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:29pm

I agree with him in part.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:36pm

I don't have a problem with social security.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:46pm
No one is suggesting that we "socialize medicine." Had you not noticed that? Or are you very well aware of it, but merely choose to use that line anyway, because it's a great scare line?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:47pm

I don't think that ALL conservatives have lost conservative principles....perhaps it depends how far right they are?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:52pm

Really?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:54pm

I would bet that the reason you haven't heard much about reforming social security this election is because the last time that was tried was during George W. Bush's great push to privatize it.....which went over like a lead balloon. Conservatives have been trying to either strangle or privatize social security for literally decades - almost since its inception. The problem is, for whatever flaws it may have, once people got to see that it DID work to some degree, and often was the only thing keeping older people from poverty, it became literally the best-loved social program in history. Privatizing it, after that realization, became a much, MUCH harder - I would go so far as to say impossible - sell.

And I suspect that both candidates were aware even before the current awful financial meltdown that the economy was in pretty shaky shape....enough so that the notion of telling voters that they ought to consider putting all or some of their social security into the stock market in some form. And I'm betting that millions of seniors and even people who just are old enough to be looking down the road toward retirement someday, are mighty glad they rebuffed those efforts at privatization recently...and didn't have to listen to yet ANOTHER pitch this fall as to why privatization would be the greatest thing since sliced Lincoln Savings & Loan.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-08-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 6:58pm

The government promised to take care of us in retirement....millions of people counted on it too.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 7:00pm

My point is thought that while we need to do something about Health Care.....we need to be careful that we do not create another program like Social Security that gets abused by our government.....that they use

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-2008
Tue, 10-14-2008 - 7:02pm
I must go for the evening....I will read and write more tomorrow.

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