Some excellent thought is behind this...

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http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/11/19/evil_concealed
_by_money

Evil Concealed By Money 
by Walter E. Williams 

Evil acts can be given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding 
socialistic expressions such as spreading the wealth, income 
redistribution or caring for the less fortunate. Let's think about 
socialism. 

Imagine there's an elderly widow down the street from you. She has 
neither the strength to mow her lawn nor enough money to hire someone to 
do it. Here's my question to you that I'm almost afraid for the answer: 
Would you support a government mandate that forces one of your neighbors 
to mow the lady's lawn each week? If he failed to follow the government 
orders, would you approve of some kind of punishment ranging from house 
arrest and fines to imprisonment? I'm hoping that the average American 
would condemn such a government mandate because it would be a form of 
slavery, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of 
another. 

Would there be the same condemnation if instead of the government 
forcing your neighbor to physically mow the widow's lawn, the government 
forced him to give the lady $40 of his weekly earnings? That way the 
widow could hire someone to mow her lawn. I'd say that there is little 
difference between the mandates. While the mandate's mechanism differs, 
it is nonetheless the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes 
of another. 

Probably most Americans would have a clearer conscience if all the 
neighbors were forced to put money in a government pot and a government 
agency would send the widow a weekly sum of $40 to hire someone to mow 
her lawn. This mechanism makes the particular victim invisible but it 
still boils down to one person being forcibly used to serve the purposes 
of another. Putting the money into a government pot makes palatable acts 
that would otherwise be deemed morally offensive. 

This is why socialism is evil. It employs evil means, coercion or taking 
the property of one person, to accomplish good ends, helping one's 
fellow man. Helping one's fellow man in need, by reaching into one's own 
pockets, is a laudable and praiseworthy goal. Doing the same through 
coercion and reaching into another's pockets has no redeeming features 
and is worthy of condemnation. 

Some people might contend that we are a democracy where the majority 
agrees to the forcible use of one person for the good of another. But 
does a majority consensus confer morality to an act that would otherwise 
be deemed as immoral? In other words, if a majority of the widow's 
neighbors voted to force one neighbor to mow her law, would that make it 
moral? 

I don't believe any moral case can be made for the forcible use of one 
person to serve the purposes of another. But that conclusion is not 
nearly as important as the fact that so many of my fellow Americans give 
wide support to using people. I would like to think it is because they 
haven't considered that more than $2 trillion of the over $3 trillion 
federal budget represents Americans using one another. Of course, they 
might consider it compensatory justice. For example, one American might 
think, "Farmers get Congress to use me to serve the needs of some 
farmers. I'm going to get Congress to use someone else to serve my needs 
by subsidizing my child's college education." 

The bottom line is that we've become a nation of thieves, a value 
rejected by our founders. James Madison, the father of our Constitution, 
was horrified when Congress appropriated $15,000 to help French 
refugees. He said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article 
of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on 
objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." Tragically, 
today's Americans would run Madison out of town on a rail. 

CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999 
Democrats --  The party of economic obstruction ....


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