On Socialism

I really intended to write a post about this before now, but better late than never, I suppose. In the late stages of the McCain-Palin campaign, they have started flinging around the word "socialism" and "socialist" along with the phrase "redistribution of wealth" with regards to Obama-Biden. From the American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, the definition of Socialism is as follows:

1. An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity. There are many varieties of socialism. Some socialists tolerate capitalism, as long as the government maintains the dominant influence over the economy; others insist on an abolition of private enterprise. All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.

I realize that the connotations of the word are negative because of those governments who have abused their socialist policies, but because these governments abused their power, I don't think they meet the true definition of socialism. So, what I want to know, given the above definition, is why is it so horrible to call Obama a socialist? Even if it were, true, which it's not, the clear motive behind socialism is not control, but concern for the common good of man. Why is it so horrible for us to care about one another? In America, selfishness has become the number one virtue. As I see it, that's the main appeal of being a Republican for those who claim that they are Republicans because of their economic policies as opposed to the social policies. The Republicans' appeal to the selfishness of the public is their only last stronghold. And it has worked at least somewhat. It has worked for many of those who are rich because they are too greedy to give any of their money to the government for the greater good. They think, "I made this money, I want to keep it all". Unfortunately, this appeal works for the working and middle classes as well because of the American Dream. All of us are going to get rich someday and when we do, we want to keep all of our money, too. Screw all of those people who are struggling to make their own American Dream. Granted, I understand that our welfare system has been vastly abused. I've seen it in action working as a Pharmacy Technician in college. I've seen people come through the drive through pharmacy window (which, by the way, was installed for those people who may have trouble walking, not those that are just too lazy to get out of the car and walk inside) in their Cadillac Escalades and Lincoln Navigators and hand me a Medicaid card and not have to pay a damn thing for their prescriptions, or if they were on more than 3 medicines, they had to pay $3 per prescription. I've seen it. It annoys me, too. But that doesn't mean that there aren't people who are in real need of help. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't try our hardest to reform our education system to try to give everyone an equal opportunity to succeed. If all those Republicans could just stop being selfish for a moment and think about what we could all do for one another if we work hard at reforming the government and our education systems, I think the world would be a better place.

And now that I've graduated college and work for the government, I've gotten a new perspective on the selfishness. So many people dislike government employees and complain about high taxes and the money that is used to pay these employees. This is especially common in the Republican party. Yet when something goes wrong, they complain that the government agencies didn't do enough in response or just that they aren't doing a good enough job in general. But what they fail to realize is that the government employees are paid much much less than their privatized counterparts and therefore the government can't compete for the best and brightest employees. Employee retention is worse and half the time, the agencies are understaffed and overworked. But no, we can't pay higher taxes and give the agencies that we depend on on a daily basis any more money because we're selfish and we made that money and we want to keep it all. By the way, government employees pay all the same taxes as everyone else.

As for the phrase "redistribution of wealth", do McCain and Palin really not see that wealth has been being redistributed upward for quite some time now? The oil industry has been making record profits for several years now. Increasing their profits from year to year several hundred percent. This is just one example. But I'm sure that they see it because both of their backgrounds mean that they are benefactors of it. So what they really mean is, "Obama could redistribute the wealth back downward, and we just don't want that, and neither do you" using that same appeal to selfishness, the new American virtue. When are they going to realize that the selfishness is what got us into this financial mess in the first place?

So in conclusion, I'm a "bleeding heart liberal" and I care about other people, even the ones who have abused the system because without everyone working together and without a positive outlook and attitude, we'll never get anywhere. It's time to make caring a virtue instead of selfishness.