The War on Socialism

Does the philosophy of the Left require an implicit acceptance of the notion that government owns its subjects?

That is an honest question.

Atlas Shrugging

When I say “the philosophy of the Left”, I am talking about statism/collectivism; for a deeper explanation of what I mean by that please see an earlier post titled Don’t Allow The Socialists To Define The Terms.  Obviously there are some statists on the Right as well but they are not real conservatives and deserve to be lumped in with the Left when it comes to their view of the appropriate relationship between the State and the Individual.

Can one believe that the government has the power to force you into a public health care system against your will without believing that the government owns you like a feudal lord owned his peasants?

Can one approve of the government taking 7.5% (arguably 15%) of your income throughout your life as part of a forced “retirement plan” (which in reality is a first-class Ponzi scheme), with no connection between what you pay in and what you get out, without accepting that you are effectively a piece of livestock living on a collective?

Can one accept the notion that an appropriate role of government is to transfer property from more successful people to less successful people without acknowledging that the producers are simply cash cows being milked for the “common good”, always defined by statist bureaucrats?  It is one thing to have people pay taxes to fund the common services and infrastructure, but transferring property from one person to another is another thing entirely.

I argue that for one to accept that level of control over people by the government one has to accept that we are not free individuals at all but are instead simply livestock on the government Animal Farm.  I find that notion egregiously offensive, immoral, and anti-American.

More practically, in almost every case it is also unconstitutional.  Not that the statists will ever let that pesky [allegedly “living”] document stand in their way.