Via email from Blackwing1:
This probably first appeared on October 13th, 1965. But this mindset in U.S. politicians goes back to at least FDR. And internationally it goes much further. It is not quite so blatantly as Linus’s delivery here, but there is a probably at least a fragment of this mindset in nearly everyone. I strongly suspect the foundation of it had survival benefits from the time our ancestors first started roaming the savanna in tribes. Hence it is probably hardwired into our brains.
Just like believing the world is flat and the center of the universe, it takes a special type of brain to push aside the hardwiring and see reality. I really, really need to make that blog post about how to determine truth from falsity.
Funny timing. Just got this meme in my feed today:
“The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other peoples money.” “Babe, we are $38 trillion in debt under *capitalism*.”
Please look at the portion of the federal budget allocated to socialistic programs. That can not be blamed on capitalism.
What’s your definition of “socialistic programs?” Is social security socialist? I mean, we pay into it and in theory it’s just an investment program, but it’s got social right there in the name, so I assume all the good capitalists won’t be drawing “social” security when they retire.
Medicare? That’s probably socialist.
Is the military socialist? Because that’s where the debt is growing fastest thanks to the Orange Shitgibbon bombing random people for no good reason. (Have we invaded Cuba yet? I hear that’s next. Or are we just planning on blockading it, removing the blockade, then blockading the blockade?) It’s on track to jump two spots past interest on the debt and non-military discretionary spending into third place, right after social security and medicare.
https://economicsinsider.com/us-federal-budget-2025/
Have you considered moving to North Korea? I’m sure they’d let you, if only for the propaganda value.
Have you considered making an argument? Or are you just here to post snarky replies?
Oh, look at this. “Orange shitgibbon” guy doesn’t want you to post snark. Must sound better in North Korean.
“Is social security socialist?”
It is a Ponzi scheme, fully and completely… which matches what happens in socialism pretty well in terms of actual outcome.
“I assume all the good capitalists won’t be drawing “social” security when they retire.”
Why wouldn’t I? I disagree with the federal government spending money on it (for multiple reasons), but until they stop wasting money on it, I might as well get my share to try to make up for the taxes I paid into it (but don’t worry, the odds that there’s any left for me to collect by then are actually very, very, VERY small).
“Medicare? That’s probably socialist.”
Yep. Fairly directly. And the outcome of it is bad enough to match, generally speaking, along with it having horrible warping effects on medical care (and how we pay for it) in general. In fact, that’s been one of the primary causes for the giant mess that was medical insurance (before Obamacare made it so much worse).
“Is the military socialist? Because that’s where the debt is growing fastest”
Congratulations on being financially and economically illiterate to match your civic illiteracy. The military is one of the very few things the government is actually SUPPOSED to do.
Iran has been at war with us for 47 years. It has been the primary funder of international terrorism for nearly all of that time, as well. Nice of some President to finally notice and do something about it.
If you’re worried about the cost (and 95+% of the people acting worried about the cost are not remotely worried about any other cost from the Federal Government, EVER, to the point that they get mad at people for pointing out fraud, so it’s clearly in bad faith), then I will just point out that’s what happens when you don’t pay for something for 47 years – you end up paying lots and lots of interest on it.
Are we now to endure an argument that the Roads and Highways, Telephone System, Electricity Grid, and Natural Gas Systems are Socialist programs because anyone who wishes to can buy whatever automobile or bus ticket, telephone account or other utility account to avail themselves of the benefits of these things?
That has been my experience in the past whenever someone asks what in particular is a ” “Socialist program”.
Way back when, the founding Fathers saw that separating the defense out among only the states that felt the harm and threat directly did not ensure the common defense, which is why the Legislature was given the power to among other functions, “provide for the Common Defense”.
Post roads (along with the Post Office) are actually an enumerated power. You can probably reason your way into support of railroads, highways and airlines since this was newer technology replacing post roads and were actually used to carry the mail. Depending to the geographic scale, utilities may be coverable under the commerce clause. Conservatives like to complain (rightly) about the abuse of this but general welfare has been a far larger problem. Every cohort born after 1938 will put more into Social Security than they get out of it so it is essentially self-funded. Blame Congress for Ponziing up the finances. FDR wanted something like individual accounts with the government holding and investing the money until retirement. Democrats worried about taking that money out of the economy and Republicans worried about the government using the investment funds to coerce corporations. Together they overrode his veto of the Ponzi scheme.
(replying to Windy’s comment) Well, yes, in a sense. Outside of the ideological definition, there’s the more basic reality than any transfer of resources from individuals to society at large is “socialist.” If you want an individualist system, that’s anarchy (in the political sense, not the “everything’s chaotic” sense).
We live in societies. I don’t know how you’re not “socialist” lower case s in that scenario short of having a true anarchist political order. The question to me isn’t, “are you socialist,” it’s “how do social demands balance with individual freedom.” Seems to me that was the point the founders were trying to work on.
Snarky retard. When you forcibly extract money from me to pay for programs I do not support there is no hypocrisy in taking some of my money back via the program. If you spent less time huffing your own farts and more time reading about logic and reasoning … you’d still be a fart huffing retard.
Please back off on the insults. The rest of your comment is quite good.
Actually I prefer to see the insults. It makes it more obvious who’s interested in dialogue and who’s just a keyboard warrior.
Social Security is not a savings plan. The money isn’t invested. It is closer to a Ponzi scheme. All the food and housing subsidies count just as the medical subsidies.
Just because someone accepts the money does not mean they cannot be opposed to the money being originally taken from them.
If I am opposed to the money being taken by Big Government to the extent that I cannot do for myself due to the money being taken for others in taxes, then I should spurn what little money I can get back through the program? It’s hard to calculate what the program costs the taxpayer, because there is time consumed by keeping the records so the taxpayer can survive an IRS Audit (or does that not count?). Then there is the money actually paid for the program, which may or may not be considered as a tax. Then there is the non-trivial amount consumed in administrative costs AND the costs of auditing the recipients to reduce the loss to fraud as recent audits in California and Washington and Minnesota show (or does that somehow also not count?).
Whatever is left from those costs can be then distributed to the worthy program recipients.
If we are to be taxed for this program, against our philosophies and against the idea that we can do better over 40 years than a Ponzi scheme can, are we to be reduced to beggars on the street rather than recoup whatever percentage is returned through the magnanimity of the government?
I am a die-hard capitalist, and I am taking my SocSec payments. Does this make me a hypocrite?
No. That money was stolen from me, at the point of a government gun (try NOT paying it on your income and see what happens to you). I had exactly zero choice in the matter, it having been foisted upon us by the Democrat/Socialist/Communist FDR. Had I been allowed to keep my own hard-earned money (starting back in 1974) I could have invested it and purchased a lifetime/successor annuity worth more than double what I get from SocSec.
I used the SocSec data on the “withholding” they did on my income…heck, I didn’t even include the doubling of it that my employers had to put in, just what was stolen from me directly. Using average interest rates for each decade and compounding it yearly, I added it up for each year. The total was much more than double the amount put in if you simply add it up (time-cost of money). As a middle-income earner I was the targeted sucker for this world’s-largest Ponzi scheme. I’ll never get back even half of what I put in.
That makes me as much a hypocrite as would accepting back my wallet with only 1/3rd of the money that was in it from the pickpocket that stole it.
P.S.: Mr. Huffman, I’m tickled that you posted that cartoon, and I’m sad I didn’t get a better scan of it when I copied it out of an old Peanuts collection. Linus’s final statement is such a nice, concise summary of left-wing policy.
You are correct. There are certain demographics that are not forced to pay into SS and Medicare. They are the Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites. They don’t pay in and they don’t collect benefits. They’re fine. The rest of us have no choice, but we should. If somebody wants SS and Medicare, sign up for it, let government dock your pay accordingly, and get your benefits down the road. Let everyone else make their own arrangements. Definition of a liberal: Someone who confiscates the earnings of a productive individual, skims off a hefty administrative fee for himself, gives what’s left to an unproductive individual, damages both parties in the exchange, and then pats himself on the back for being such wonderfully caring person.
You should include the employer “contribution” to your SS in calculating how much you would have if it were all invested. Those contributions are not a gift. They’re required by law. They, like all the other items on your pay statement, are all compensation for your work. You earned those contributions. If you were an independent contractor, and had received the same total compensation for work done, then you would be required to send 12.4 % to SS. The distinction is artificial. Either way, it’s pay for work done, which is then confiscated.
Correct. A business determines how much they’re willing to pay for a worker based on what income they think they’ll get from that worker. So, a company determines that hiring another widget maker will earn them $50,000 in gross income. They decide that it isn’t worth hiring another person unless the company can earn at least $5,000 in profit per year from that gross income. That leaves $45,000 to pay for the widget maker. From that has to come salary, FICA match, unemployment insurance, health insurance, pension/401K match, etc. So all those items could have been paid to the widget maker. The company demonstrably is willing to pay that much as a maximum to hire the widget maker, but the law requires that some of that money has to be paid to someone other than the widget maker. So the maximum salary is the $45,000 minus all those other items. Let’s say that maximum salary is $35,000 after all those other items are handled. Then, the market steps in to adjust salary. If making widgets is so simple that anyone can do it after 10 minutes of training, salary will likely be lower than that. The more difficult it is to produce widgets, the closer to the max of $35K will be offered. But all the payments made “on behalf of” the widget maker, like FICA, Medicare/Medicaid, unemployment insurance, etc. are dollars that the company could have, and would have, paid to the widget maker if the law didn’t interfere.
See my other comment about the fiscal nature of SS and the history of how it got Ponzied.
I’m reminded of an old joke (you can find it all over, but this particular rendition is from this Reddit post):
I recently asked my friend’s little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do?’
She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’
Her parents beamed with pride.
‘Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her. ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house.’
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘ Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?’
I said, ‘Welcome to the Republican Party.’
Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.
Being “philanthropic” is easy when you have other people’s money to give away. It’s a lot harder and less fun when you have to work for it directly.
Whenever somebody gets “something for nothing,” someone else gets nothing for something.
Blackwing’s Wife has asked me to point out that calling Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme” is an insult to all Ponzi con-game operators everywhere.
You have to have some level of initiative, no matter how misguided, to be a successful con man. Running a Ponzi scheme requires a high level of effort to consistently be able to win someone’s confidence (the original “con”) and get them to voluntarily give away their money. Heck, getting away with it requires some pretty good effort, too.
With Social Security the government essentially just sticks a gun in your face as says, “Join the victim end of the con-game or we’ll imprison or kill you.” That doesn’t take any initiative at all except the willingness to initiate the use of force and fraud.
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Everything the Left says is a Lie.
Everything the Left does is a Fraud.
SPLC is just the latest example.