Socialism 101 - Redistribution of Wealth - is it fair?

The whole socialistic idea of "fairness" is based on taking from someone who has more, to give to someone who has less. The fact is that risk taking always produces greater returns than non-risk taking. This is largely ignored and/or misunderstood. The risk to produce is devalued by the socialist, and looked upon as greed. However, the facts show another story, they show that risk takers have indeed created many more opportunities for others who joined them in their ventures than not. As the saying goes, the greater the risk, the greater the reward; therefore, risk takers are GOING to be rewarded more if they succeed. Unfortunately, this success is viewed incorrectly as greed, and therefore penalized by higher taxation. It is an immoral act to take away from producers and to give to the non-producers simply because they have more. Forceful redistribution of wealth is an immoral act.

Successful risk taking creates jobs in the private sector. The government can also create jobs but there are some key differences. Government by definition create jobs to govern or regulate. Since the government has no competitors, jobs created by the government leads to bureaucracy and lower production. There are legitimate roles that lead to important jobs in government that are vital to national interest and protection. But when government gets into social programs, it creates a mess. Jobs created in the private sector must compete and therefore it must become competent to survive and thrive. Competency creates value, and it brings the best out of individuals. This leads to greater social stability. This should be the main reason for our government to remain small, and it should not be in the business of bailing out failures by nationalizing these industries. A smaller government should focus on proper regulations that fosters free markets. Free markets creates competition, which increases production that leads to a wealthy nation. The unhindered free market will unapologetically reward the risk takers if they succeed, as it should, and if they fail then free markets teach a valuable lesson called experience. Many business owners have failed many times before they succeed. These are free market lessons. Hindering the free markets with unnecessary socialistic laws in the name of fairness will cause greater harm to all.

Let's analyze one such "fair" policy in which the government enacted that created a bigger problem for the economy. The minimum wage. It is an artificially induced cost for labor, and demands risk takers to guarantee this price whether the market can bear it or not. The minimum wage also created the illegal immigration problem. Mexican nationals wanted to work at any cost, and business owners took the opportunity to increase their profit margins. Because enforcement was weak at best, and at worst non-existent, business owners began to follow the free market "DNA" that governs all commerce. This "DNA" is the unencumbered relationship between supply versus demand controlled by price. The minimum wage created a demand for labor that cost less than the minimum wage itself, and the Mexicans came to meet this demand and the U.S. business community obliged.

It was the attempt of the market to heal itself from the minimum wage virus. However, due to public out cry in recent years, we see some effort to enforce immigration laws for employment, and this correction will cause economic disruption, but is a step in the right direction, if the minimum wage requirement was removed. When the law imposes an artificial price, it upsets the balance between supply and demand, a huge problem is created in the economy. To relief this problem, we must to remove the minimum wage requirement.

Let's take another angle, if we were to follow the socialist thinking of fairness, then everyone should make a decent salary. It is not a bad idea that people should make more. We all work to this end that we should all better our financial status. But should the socialist guarantee this? Let's assume new legislation was enacted that increased the minimum wage. This wage increase is done without considering on how this will affect the Gross Domestic Product (for more information on GDP, check Wikipedia). In other words, the production of a nation must have sufficient time to grow without artificial manipulation for wages to rise.

Let us assume that the new minimum wage was set at $40.00 per hour; what do you think will happen? How many fast food restaurants selling hamburgers will close? How high should the price of their hamburger be in order to recoup the cost, without a decline in sales? Let's do some simple math - if a hamburger was $5.00 today, with the minimum wage set at $7.00 per hour, and if the minimum wage goes to $40.00, it has increased about 6 times. Let's increase the price of the hamburger to 6 times as well, and now the hamburger cost $30.00 to buy. Who is going to buy $30.00 hamburger? Some will, but most won't. Hamburger sales will drop, there will be a greater supply of hamburgers, but unfortunately, because the cost of labor is fixed by law, these fast food businesses will go bust, because they cannot reduce their labor cost by law.

The socialist government will blame the greedy executive management and will try to nationalize the fast food restaurant business. This sounds absurd, but that is what is being done to the auto and financial industries. The focus would be the greedy corporations and the high bonuses that executive pay themselves leaving the little guy to burn on the stake. Wrong again. Yes, greed does exist, but free markets will cure this. Free markets will not tolerate incompetency and will bankrupt failures. It is government socialism and regulations that keeps sick corporation alive. Bankruptcy is the way free markets purge it's cancer.

Back to our $40.00 per hour wage hike, how many "mom and pop" stores will be out of business? The end result would be catastrophic unemployment, because of business failures. Also keep in mind, if the government has no natural competitors, and they nationalized restaurants, so how will they keep the cost down - they can't. That is why most socialist nations are struggling with social ills! The government has imposed unfair controls in the natural desire to produce, to take risk and be rewarded for it.

But socialist thinking says: "Oh we must help the weak and the under privileged", but they don't define who the weak and the under privilege are, also they fail to recognize another important point; when there is an abundance due to lower taxation or fair taxation, then it rises the level of prosperity for all people. The "weak" or the "poor" actually has a chance to become "strong" or "rich"! That is what has happened in America in the past, which has resulted in the largest known middle class in the history of the world, and the most prosperous nation. You are always going to have the rich, the middle class and the poor. The question is how do you enlarge your middle class. How do you get more people to move in an upward direction economically, from poor to middle to rich? Free markets.

If we completely got rid of welfare for the healthy, provide huge incentives for charitable organizations to help the unfortunate, and the unemployed, remove minimum wage, and lower corporate taxes, most people will be employed again very quickly. This curbs crime also. Unfortunately, our middle class in America is disappearing fast due to a systematic injection of socialism. Socialism believes it is compassionate. But the reality is that it is unfair, morally wrong, and actually does more harm to the under privilege.

The goal of socialism is not prosperity for all, but equality for all at any cost even if it means lowering the prosperity of all. The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the lifestyle in Cuba should be convincing enough, but somehow many people wrongfully adopt the view that free markets hurt the economy and wealth redistribution is the only way to curb unemployment, and spur the economy and thus bring fairness. Wrong.

Let's look at an example of a family. Little Johnny has a sister named Sally, and during one Easter celebration, Johnny was able to bag most of the Easter eggs filled with candy. Johnny was motivated so he work faster and harder for his prize. His mother sees that Sally got fewer candy, because she either did not try as hard, or was simply slower than Johnny. Should she tell Johnny to give some of his candy to his sister? Sally is now crying because she missed out, and Johnny does not want to share. Now the mom has to decide what to do. She must come up with an impromptu policy. She could enforce compliance and make Johnny give up some of his candy, or she could encourage him by providing incentives to share (he gets a large bowl of his favorite ice-cream if he shares). What should she do? Do you teach sharing (an act of kindness) by force? Which creates in Johnny the desire to share?

Even God required only 10% (tithe) from everyone alike in the Old Testament. He should know thing or two about fairness. In fact, in the Bible, it says that those who don't produce will loose what little they have, and it will be given to the ones who produce more! It is the complete reverse of socialism.

When the government gives us incentives to give to charities (like they do now), people will give. Successful people for the most part want to give back to help others. They do it through creating new business ventures, or giving directly to charities, or creating charities themselves. Bill Gates is a great example of this, among others. He created opportunities for millions for the risk he and a few others took called Microsoft, and now his non-profit foundation is providing funds to worldwide charities to do good for humanity.

I believe that socialism will gain a foot hold in a nation when blatant disregard for biblical worldview begins. Socialism finds it's power in atheism - there is no God but man. And since man is ultimately in charge of his own morality, then he justifies his actions by believing that a few in power know what is best for the many. This is tyranny. Our constitution reverses this and defines where our freedoms come from. It comes from God. But if freedom comes from God, and we throw God out, we throw our freedoms out as well.

The debate over gun control

The problem and hence the debate of gun control is that people on opposing sides have quite different understanding of the word “Good" versus "Evil”. I am going to refer to the two polarized opposite sides as conservatives and liberals, conservatives as pro-gun advocates versus liberals to be the anti-gun group.

Conservatives believe that “Good people must have guns so that evil is held back”, while liberals think that “people must reject guns, because guns are evil and only evil people want them”. The conservatives hold to the view that “if guns are outlawed, then evil will prevail”; while liberals believe that “if guns are outlawed then we will all be safe, thus good will win”. The former believes that “evil people will continue to use guns illegally despite all efforts to get rid of them”, the latter believes that “removing guns will cause society to become more civil, therefore good”

So there lies the problem, both sides can't agree because they view guns very differently. One side looks at guns as amoral (neither good nor evil), and the other side as evil. There is no common ground from these common words.

My own personal experience lends me to believe this. I am the only gun-loving conservative on my side of the family (my wife's father-in-law loves guns and was a WWII Veteran and an awesome hunter), and on one family gathering, I happened to tell my liberal kin that I owned guns and I enjoyed hunting. The room got very quiet. Then my uncle looked at me and asked "You own a gun?". To which I replied "Yes.. guns, I own several". No one wanted to say anything after that. I only got stares, but not wanting to lose an opportunity for lively debate, I waded into the murky waters of liberal thinking and asked "Did I say something wrong?".

The dorsal fins appeared all around me as they began their decries: "Don't you know guns are bad?", and "I can't believe you hunt", and "why do you need something so dangerous anyway?", and the questions kept coming.

Being a pro gunner, it was not difficult to acknowledge that this was a worthy fight. I began to "fire back" against all their arguments. I asked them "if a mad man were to crash our party, would you like me to have a gun to stop him?" to which the reply came "That is why we have the police.." to which I countered "Which is faster, a bullet dispatched at you from a madman, or the police arriving on time to stop the shot?".. there was silence for a brief moment...but then absurd anti-gun protesting resumed. Clearly logic wasn't winning that day.

But this experience was a valuable one. It left me thinking and asking myself "why do they think this way?". These are my kin and really good people but so am I. However, my gun ownership dropped me a few brownie points in their perception of me. It occurred to me that they believed guns were bad (or evil) and because I owned them, then I must be by definition also evil. But they knew me well enough to know that I wasn't evil, and thus were confused by their own belief system. Wow.

So we need to ask some basic questions:

1. Are guns evil or are they good?
2. Does the availability of guns increase or decrease evil?
3. Is the second amendment obsolete?

Guns are as much evil or good as fire is. Fire in a campfire is good, uncontrolled forest fire is bad. So the application determines the intent and therefore defines the morality (good purposes such as personal protection and the protection of the innocent, or evil purposes such as robbery, murder etc). "Evil" by definition tends to dominate, tries to control, and eventually destroys. It's goal leads to bondage or enslavement, but "Good" by definition promotes unity, self governance, and freedom. If guns were removed, then "Good" has no chance to push back "Evil" and society will loose.

But with the recent news on all the shootings, it is fair to ask why are there more gun related crimes? There is no doubt that guns can facilitate mass killing, therefore it is logical to accept the need for modest and sensible regulations. But what are these sensible regulations?

Accidental discharges are a big concern, and the apathetic approach to guns should be renounced. But then again I ask the question - what are sensible regulations? To answer this question, we must ask another one: guns are neither good nor evil, then what is it?

It is a tool. And sensible regulations should be implemented in the area of required training and education on the correct use of this tool, not in the access of it. I am glad to see good people having firearms, but it angers me greatly when I see careless use of it at the gun range! You can't drink beer while driving, and neither should you while shooting. There are laws against these. But we don't need laws restricting us from the access of guns.

We cannot go back to a "land before time" day where the knowledge of guns and it's technology is absent. This technology is here to stay, so removing it completely is totally impractical and will never work. Therefore guns will always be around. No law can completely remove all of it now. Therefore gun control laws will remove it from the hands of the the law abiding ("Good"), but not from the law breakers ("Evil"). Gun control laws only hurt the law abiding citizens. It removes the tool from the hands of good people. Secondly, a law that removes guns from the law abiding citizens is a law that is has it's roots in a double standard. The military will need guns, otherwise why have the military? Since "We the Government" derives it's power from "We the People", why is it right for them to have guns while the citizenry is denied of it? This is how most countries operate. The citizens are subjects. The greatness about American is the constitution. It gives power to people to ELECT representatives to govern the country.

There are exceptions. Weapons of mass destruction is one such exception. Clearly national security demands us to have weapons to counter foreign threats. We the people have given our government the right to own and use certain technologies (such as long range missiles, tanks, fighter jets etc etc) and it would be silly to suggest that each of us must also have the right to such devices even if some of us private and wealthy citizens could afford them. So reasonable laws are always easy to pass because reasonable people can understand the need for them. It is when oppressiveness replaces reason, the unrest of the citizenry starts.

2. Does the availability of guns increase or decrease evil?
Are guns a catalyst to crimes? or a better question to ask is whether the removal of guns will reduce crime? To some extend, I will say "yes". But the removal of guns should be directed to the criminal elements of society. If you are a convicted felon, you loose your right to a gun. If you are on certain medication, you need to get evaluated and temporarily give up your gun. The problem is with the enforcement of the justice system. But more gun laws restricting the citizenry will not do this. Since it has become impractical to remove all the guns from the hands of the criminals, then the only way to REDUCE gun crimes, is that make it easier for good people to have them. This will act as a deterrent to those who want to perpetrate gun crimes because they know they will be stopped.

Let's take the example of two banks. For our example, we will use two fictitious names, let's call the first bank as the National Bank, and the second bank the American Bank. The policy at the National Bank is that they do not allow any guns into their bank. Their policy requires you to keep your gun in the car when you come in to bank with them. But the policy of the American Bank is exactly opposite; you can't bank at this bank unless you bring your gun with you. The staff at the American bank are also required to carry a firearm on their persons. But the National Bank has forbidden their staff as well from bringing in any guns on it's premises. Now which bank will be more susceptible to a robbery? Or a better question to ask is which bank will the robber be more successful at? Which bank will you be safer at, the National Bank or the American Bank? Remove your bias, and try to answer this question as logically as you can.

Let take another angle. Let's think about why liberals feel nervous about guns. The media has done a masterful job in demonizing guns. They repeatly and consistently say "gunman" or "gunmen" and not "criminal" or "criminals" when gun crimes are reported. The focus and attention is on the gun being the reason the crime was commited and not the wickedness of the human heart. Suppose you find yourself in a room filled with people carrying guns versus in a room that no one has a gun - why would the latter make you feel safe? There are no guns in prison, yet prisoners are able to kill each other inside prison walls - how? Criminals will find a way to inflict harm on themselves or others if given the chance. Gun laws only make the criminal stronger!

3. Is the second amendment obsolete?
If the USA becomes obsolete, then the second amendment is also obsolete, otherwise no.

In conclusion, conservatives believe that guns are a tool that the founding fathers guaranteed each American for pleasure and protection, however; liberals believe that Constitution should be modified to reflect progressive thinking and one progressive thought is that guns are barbaric and inherently evil.

The real problem as to why there is an increase in gun violent crimes is the lack of self-governance. Self-governance derives it's power from morality and morality from God.

To trade is to be human

Most of us live our lives by working hard and honestly to earn what our labor produces. We then save/invest some, and spend the rest exchanging our labor or trading if you will, our labor for other goods and products. This is done to increase the material, social and economic value of our lives. This is a humanistic behavior found in all nations, cultures and among people.

I was watching my dogs interact the other day, and the thought occurred to me, animals do not trade, nor do they have a need to. To trade (the DNA for free markets) are intrinsically human. Animals are self-sufficient, but human beings are not; therefore we need to trade. We trade to increase our chances of survival and power to do more. Our ability to trade increases our production. For example, engineers make tractors that allow farmers to plough and plant grain. The farmer needs the engineer to build more efficient tractors, and the engineer needs the farmer to get his food. This is a natural dependency that is created by the forces of trading. There are rules that apply to the forces of trading. We all know a little physics and we know about the law of gravity. We did not create this law, it was (and depending on your belief system) created by God. What is law of trading? The fundamental law of trading is the "Law of Supply and Demand". Price is control mechanism that strives to bring balance between the two.

Where people exist, trading will exist. From rural communities to complex modern societies, trading lives. If we can accept the fact that humans beings must trade to survive, then what is the role of the government with respect to trading and the marketplace? Should they regulate it? Should they interfere? Should they slow it down? or even stop it? Or should they facilitate it?

The government that encourages this by its policies will create an environment that can create wealth (creation of jobs, productions goes up etc etc). If the government thinks that it can be the police of free trade, it will stifle it and create a depression, but trade will go on, it will survive though badly hurt, because trading and markets are intrinsically human.

So the first law of trading is that "The law of supply and demand will exist where human beings exist, and price is the control mechanism that brings a balance between the two". Stay tuned for more.