*sigh*-cialism

I haven't tossed out the "s word" for a while, but the latest housing aid bill proposed by President Obama strikes me as socialism in its purest, least capitalistic form.
To me, one of the really, really horrible things about socialism is the government-controlled redistribution of wealth from those who earned it to those that "deserve" it. I'm a pretty smart guy, so I grew up thinking that smart people can get ahead. With a great idea and a little hard work, you can become incredibly wealthy. Like the guy that came up with facebook, or the guy who invented the Snuggie.

But the newest (has anyone not lost track yet?) aid proposed by Obama just seems like classic socialism. Here's how it works: if you are paying your mortgage on time, you get nothing. If you live in an apartment, you get nothing. If your mortgage is incredibly hard to pay, and you've sold your SUV and bought a used Civic, you've deferred your student loans, you've had to carry credit card debt, you've cut back on any frugal spending, and still, your mortgage keeps its chokehold on your wallet, you get nothing.
But if you are 3 months behind on your mortgage, you get help.

There are some people in the country who have lost their job, or been forced to cut back hours, and this aid will genuinely help them. But the vast majority of people who are delinquent on their mortgages are people who got into the housing bubble, and stupidly bought a $500,000 house on a $40,000/year salary (and haven't changed their fiscal habits enough to pay their mortgage on time). Those people will get aid, unlike their slightly less stupid brethren who bought a $500,000 home on a $40,000/year salary and have cut back on everything they can so their mortgage payments are on time.

That's the real rub of socialism, though, isn't it? The government comes up with an aid program that benefits a small group of people in need, and the language of the aid program inadvertantly includes a bunch of low-life leeches who really, really just need to take a bath in the foul waters of their own greed and ignorance, and you use that aid program as justification for taking the money from the smart, the wealthy, and the fiscally responsible and you redistribute it to the stupid.

One other note: often, the pro-socialists cry out that "many rich people don't deserve their money, they inherited it. They're just living a rich lifestyle thanks to their parents brains and hard work. What's wrong with taxing them?" Well, for one, someday if I'm wealthy I really don't want to think about the money I leave for my children being taken away from them and given to stupid idiots because a bunch of liberals thought my children shouldn't have fun with some of it. Also, statements like that have the stink of jealousy all over them...and jealousy seems like an awful justification for legislation.


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