Topic: The Shape of Things to Come Pt. 6: The Power Of Weakness

[Pandora]

... there's a second reason that causes just as much consternation and perhaps more: the sense that these redistributions are "rights." They're technically called entitlements, which is merely a multisyllabic synonym for "rights." The justification, when one is offered, normally runs along these lines: "I've paid into this system for my whole adult life, and I'm entitled to the benefits I've paid for."

If we were speaking of a life insurance payout to the beneficiary of a man who maintained his premium payments faithfully up to the day he died, there could be no quarrel with the assertion that that beneficiary is entitled to the payout. Indeed, that would constitute an enforceable right under American contract law. But government redistribution schemes aren't contracts of any sort; they're extortions from private citizens, part of the proceeds from which go to special interest beneficiaries. Still, the assertion that I-paid-in-now-I-want-what's-mine needs to be carefully countered.

The key recognition here is that the "insurance" canard under which Social Security, Medicare, et alii were sold to the public was, is, and will forever remain a massive con job. These programs are Ponzi schemes. Pyramid swindles. The payments of current payees don't fund his future benefits; they immediately go out as current benefits to current beneficiaries, and always have. If a modern day Charles Ponzi were to attempt something of this sort, he'd be clapped behind bars for life. Our problem thus reduces to persuading the public of the futility of seeking restitution from a con artist.

You cannot get restitution from a con artist; all you can do is punish him. When the con artist is the government, the very idea of restitution is contradictory, for governments have never, ever given refunds. And if we insist on waiting for a refund before we put an end to the government's cons, they'll go on forever.

If the United States is to survive as a constitutional republic with a strong economy and a sound fiscal system, the abolition of Social Security, Medicare, and any and every other government transfer program must occur immediately, this instant, without compensation to anyone no matter how loudly he screams about having "paid into it for decades" and therefore having a "right" to it. (You only have those rights you can defend, and you certainly can't defend a "right" to a payment from a government, particularly a bankrupt government, whose Congress can "adjust" your "benefits" up or down my majority vote.)

Therefore, to those who maintain that they have a "right" to these government transfer payments, we must learn to say: Accept that you've been conned. Unlearn your redistributionist fantasies. Accept that you'll have to support yourself for as long as you live, rather than demanding things to which you've never had an enforceable right. Then put on your big-boy pants and learn to meet your responsibilities to yourself, your children, and your elderly parents out of your own pocket. That would make Americans what they once were: men of independent mind and stature, totally intolerant of interference into their proper affairs.

But it won't be easy. That notion of I-paid-in-now-I-want-what's-mine is widespread and deeply driven. I could name a dozen people offhand, all of them strong conservatives in every other respect, who would insist with their dying breath that Social Security's "obligations" must be met somehow. Among liberals, even to suggest otherwise is a provocation nigh unto blows.

To refute and dismiss the pernicious "entitlement" argument will evoke anger and resentment. We who insist that the government's multifarious pyramid swindles cannot and must not continue will be called, in the words of a good friend, "everything but white." And so our discourse will spiral upward in contentiousness and bitterness.

Porretto

[IronDioPriest]

None but a slim majority will ever willingly accept such an austere message, regardless of how necessary it is, or how steeped in harsh reality. Any immediate elimination of unconstitutional entitlements will have to be forced by circumstances out of anyone's control as the system disintegrates, and a societal breakdown will ensue as a result.

The only hope of turning the tide without complete breakdown is, in my opinion, a politically palatable, nuanced, way to wean people from the tit, and ease us off dependency on these programs. Something like Ryan's "roadmap", all its flaws notwithstanding, may be our last political hope - and even that will cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth. And I give his message a very slim chance of ever being enacted. Too many heads are in the sand.

So I think it's far more likely that my first paragraph is our future. But I won't stop hoping for a peaceful political solution.

[Pandora]

None but a slim majority will ever willingly accept such an austere message, regardless of how necessary it is, or how steeped in harsh reality. Any immediate elimination of unconstitutional entitlements will have to be forced by circumstances out of anyone's control as the system disintegrates, and a societal breakdown will ensue as a result.

Which, if you think about it, virtually ensures the vast majority of younger relatives/family will be in no position to rescue and care for the older ones when the "entitlement" merry-go-round stops.

Rather than face and admit the con-job, they're going to insist on getting "theirs" until nobody has nuthin' - until everybody is impoverished.

[Glock32]

Hardly anyone alive today was "conned". Unless you were a voting adult in the 1930s, you got robbed.

[Pandora]

Hardly anyone alive today was "conned". Unless you were a voting adult in the 1930s, you got robbed.

I tend to lean toward the idea that those who believe they are truly entitled to any of this money are willingly being conned by the Ruling Class' continually promising that "Social Security must be strengthened", reading this as "yes, you will get your money", despite the USSC ruling some little while ago that the government has no obligation to pay anyone another SS dime; by the talk of a Social Security Trust Fund, when it's not widely known this is a lie - the Fund is nothing more than Treasury Bonds as a "guarantee" against future taxpayer earning.

[Glock32]

Such people are for sure being willfully ignorant. I have never for a minute believed I will ever see a penny of the SS and Medicare withholdings taken out of my pay ever since my first "real" job when I was 16.

Everyone born after the enactment of SS is just getting straight up robbed. They never had an opportunity to decide if it is something they want to participate in; that was decided for them by a generation who seldom lived beyond 60. Now we have people who live well into their 80s retiring in their early to mid 60s drawing SS for a solid two decades.

I grew up in a family where the older generations virtually worshipped the ground Roosevelt walked on. That trait damn sure ain't genetic.

[Libertas]

Such people are for sure being willfully ignorant. I have never for a minute believed I will ever see a penny of the SS and Medicare withholdings taken out of my pay ever since my first "real" job when I was 16.

Everyone born after the enactment of SS is just getting straight up robbed. They never had an opportunity to decide if it is something they want to participate in; that was decided for them by a generation who seldom lived beyond 60. Now we have people who live well into their 80s retiring in their early to mid 60s drawing SS for a solid two decades.

I grew up in a family where the older generations virtually worshipped the ground Roosevelt walked on. That trait damn sure ain't genetic.

I agree, as does Mr. Jefferson!

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson, Reference: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Ford, ed., vol. 11 (533)

[Glock32]

I agree, as does Mr. Jefferson!

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson, Reference: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Ford, ed., vol. 11 (533)

Mark Steyn made the very interesting point that it is the ultimate form of "taxation without representation". Taxation without representation was a central cassus belli for our Founders, yet here we are saddling Americans yet unborn with enormous tax burdens for "benefits" long since consumed. Not just those unborn, but the children and grandchildren of those yet unborn!

[Libertas]

I agree, as does Mr. Jefferson!

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson, Reference: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Ford, ed., vol. 11 (533)

Mark Steyn made the very interesting point that it is the ultimate form of "taxation without representation". Taxation without representation was a central cassus belli for our Founders, yet here we are saddling Americans yet unborn with enormous tax burdens for "benefits" long since consumed. Not just those unborn, but the children and grandchildren of those yet unborn!

Yup.  And I want to shove peoples faces in it.  No hiding, no escape...they will know what it is and that any conscious choice to continue to allow it is suicidal and homicidal and they will be held ultimately accountable!