CONSERVATIVES STEAL FROM COMMON WEALTH

The debate was published on +DISQUS as posted on +Personal Liberty; it was revealing. Of course, as a liberal, my objective in reading what +Personal Liberty Media group publishes is, in a sense, my attempt to know the enemy; they publish radical right wing material. One of the more radical contributors, who identified himself as +TheOriginalDavidH, was attacking my stance on a “woman’s right to choose”, which of course, deals with the abortion question. I had egged him on by challenging his lack of sensitivity to “quality of life” issues. His response was even more asinine then most, not only of his comments but of the others (there were 117 in all), but it was also most revealing:

“And neither you nor anybody else has the right to decide "quality of life" for anybody other than yourself. If you really believed the claptrap which you speak, then you wouldn't even dream of Forcing your way on other people or Stealing their money using Government as your Proxy Thieves.”

A person who had just claimed abortion is murder and that “the Government” should prohibit all abortions wrote this. I was scratching my head over his switch from a social issue to an economic issue when it dawned on me that the most radical and insulting misstatement was, “. . . using Government as your Proxy Thieves.” Clearly, he was talking about me as a liberal; thus, talking about all liberals “stealing” conservatives’ money. Crude as it is, this is an obvious reference to welfare spending.

We as +liberals have been looking at welfare spending all wrong. The United States was founded on the principle of the common good or the “common wealth”. We all decide, by using one-man one-vote, what we want, not a king or a religious leader deciding, not a dictator, or a company executive making the decisions, but “we the people”. We built state and federal highways; we built great damns and established electric grids and water systems; we established interstate commerce, armies, police, and efficient 911 systems. We built office government buildings and other necessary buildings including the Capital and the White House. We have established parks and recreational areas. This is a lot of expensive land as well as material, steel, concrete, and mortar, but it is more much more than that and is all bought and paid for by our taxes and hard work over 250 more than years; this is our  “wealth” held in common. It is ours; it belongs to the people.

We, as an altruistic population, have decided to spend some of our common wealth on the poor. Conservatives are saying no; it is not yours, it is belongs to a few religious leaders, generals, or company executives. Conservatives seem to have convinced the American people workers don’t count; it is the executives who do the work. Nothing is more telling then what #TheOriginalDavidH made so clear; to the conservative mind, we liberals are stealing “their money” and giving it to the lazy, the guy who can work but doesn’t but set on their porch and live on government handouts. This is the Welfare Queen lie advanced by #Ronald Reagan. Of course there are a rare case of a person who can work but doesn’t. There are people on welfare who take drugs but time after time huge numbers of welfare recipient have been tested and the percentage who do is very, very small. I have news for them; welfare comes out of our common wealth; it is ours to spend, as we feel appropriate. I am here to tell you that it is not the poor and welfare recipient who is spending millions on drugs; it is the guy with the six figure salary in the board room, who is supporting #drug cartels. It is not the guy, who wear the blue collar works and showers at the end of day hard eight hours a day who it the lazy; it is the guy in the white shirt in the air conditioned office looking out the window who is lazy. The coal minor with black lung or the factory worker injured wild working, or the soldier defending our country is not the problem, the venture capitalist who steals the common wealth of a factory worker is the problem. The fast food restaurant chain owner, who will pay only $7.50 an hours and not allow a forty-hour workweek so the workers cannot collect benefits and then blame the workers for being poor, is the problem.

I “we the people” want to spend some of our common wealth to make health care affordable to the hamburger flippers that is our business, not the owners’ business. We are not “stealing” the conservatives’ money to do this.

For a classic example, look at #Clevin Bundy, the rancher who was grazing his cattle on government land; that was our land; that land is part of our common wealth. He was stealing from us. Did you see the conservative amass “in force” in support of his right to do what he was doing; +Fox News, +Glenn Beck and +Rush Limbaugh, +Personal Liberty Digest, and on and on.

It is time for liberals to rethink the conservative mind set. Greedy venture capitalist, banker, mortgage broker, and Wall Street traders among others are stealing and not the welfare recipient. They are using “our” government to steal from “our” common wealth. They are the dirty thieves. We should realize it is the old #Karl Rove political trick; accuse the other person of doing exactly what you are doing.   

URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated