Class Warfare

Due to the hotly contested mid-term elections coming up, there has been a great deal of Class Warfare Politics being used. I see it on the news, I hear it on the radio, and I see people reposting the half-truths all over their Facebook and Twitter pages.

As a sort of catharsis, I am going to address some of the issues I have with Class Warfare Politics; not necessarily in an effort to sway or convince anyone (though I would not be opposed to enlightening a few minds) but more because I feel my head is going to explode if I don't.

That, and screaming at my car dashboard only serves to make me look more insane than usual.

Stealing from the rich to give to the poor makes a great Medieval storyline, but makes for bad economic policy.

A few of the problems I have with redistribution are the underlying ideas that 1) the poor have a right to the property of the rich 2) resources are better used when evenly distributed than when left in the hands of the rich 3) the rich lack the moral character to do what is ethical or right for our society.

This first is simply a matter of law. The United States of America was founded with the purpose of protecting personal property. The whole issue leading up to the Revolutionary War had to do with taxation and personal property.

If you read the Constitution, and specifically the Bill of Rights, it becomes quite clear that the main concern of the men who founded this country was to protect the right of men to own property and the ability to produce. They did not want the government to have the ability to take or use private property without the consent of the owner. Even taxes were supposed to be short term and for a very specific purpose. (I will save discussion on continuous income tax for another time.)

But, laws can be changed and our Constitution can be amended to allow for the confiscation of personal property, however we should never forget that protection of property was a major concern of the Founding Fathers. They had seen first hand the problems associated with a government that can legally take personal property. We would do well to trust them on this one.

The next issue is the idea that resources are best utilized when evenly distributed among all people. To illustrate this point I will draw on my country boy, farm town roots.

Those that are wealthy know that money is nothing more than a resource, like a farmer's seed grain. Now what would happen if we applied the same redistributive policies to agriculture that the liberals want to apply to money? After all, why should those evil farmers be allowed to control all that seed?

The result would be a shortage of food and other farm products. Why?

Because most people in this country no longer posses the knowledge to properly cultivate their own food. In addition to this, the efficiency of planting and harvesting large amounts of farm products at once tips the scales even further in favor of keeping the seed with the farmer.

In the same way, many of the people in our country today lack the knowledge needed to properly cultivate their own success. When we take money away from those who understand how to use money to create wealth we hold everyone back. When these "filthy rich" people get to keep their money they use that money to make more money, which means expanding or opening new companies. This in turn means more jobs and greater advancement opportunities for everyone.

Thirdly, people are people. There is no coloration between moral and poor, nor is there one between unethical and rich.

As a prime example, my grandfather had a motto, "It's not a deal unless it is a deal for everyone." He never lied, stole, or cheated to get ahead. During the 1980's many of his fellow farmers were going bankrupt. Unscrupulous people would come along and offer pennies on the dollar for the farms, and these farmers had to take it or loose everything to the bank. However, my grandfather insisted on paying a fair market price for the land he bought.

In the end, my grandfather died leaving my grandmother a comfortable life. I don't know what happened to any of the other guys, but I do that eventually another adage comes to play, "If you live by the sword you die by the sword."

My grandfather was successful simply because he refused to give up his integrity for a few easy bucks, and in the end that will always pay off. And those that make money at the expense of others usually receive exactly what they deserve.

In my opinion, it is not the morals of the rich we should be concerned about. My concern is the morals of those who would say it is okay to forcefully take from those who have produced wealth in order to give to those who have not. This is not a stab at poor people, simply pointing out that stealing is stealing even when it is called "tax."

There is nothing wrong with being wealthy.

Wealthy people get a bad wrap.

Wait. Back up.

Wealthy business people get a bad wrap.

I find it highly ironic that most liberals I know don't bat an eye at the professional athlete, musician, or actor making ridiculous amounts of money; but let a guy in a three piece suit take home a million in one year and they want to tar and feather him.

Professional athletes make big money because they generate big money for the teams they play for. Professional musicians and actors make big money because we are willing to shell out money for movie and concert tickets. Business executives are no different.

And another thing, if being rich is so bad why do so many people want to BE rich?

Just look at Powerball sales to prove that a lot of people think it would be way okay if they were rich. But that seems to be the main sticking point. Which makes me think most of this redistribution is nothing more than sour grapes and covetousness.

If redistribution is so great, why aren't the rich liberal actors, musicians, and politicians (yep, them too) giving away all their money?

Did you know that in 2006 the average net worth of a US Senator was $1.7 million dollars? And on top of that, we were paying them an annual salary of $169,000. AND THEY KEEP VOTING TO RAISE THEIR OWN SALARIES AT TAX PAYER EXPENSE!

In 2007, then Senator Barack Obama had a net worth of $4.7 million dollars.

In 2004, actor Matt Damon earned $26 million just for his role in The Bourne Supremacy.

What I want to know is, if being rich is bad and redistribution of wealth is good, why are there so many super-rich liberals? Is this a "do as I say and not as I do" kind of deal?

What I would really like to see is liberals put their money where their mouth is. I am calling for every liberal who thinks the "rich" (over $250,000 per year) should have to pay their "fair share" should voluntarily donate any superfluous earnings over the $250,000 mark. Not a tax, but a "donation" to be added to the pot. Then, they can take that pot and fund all the bleeding heart programs they want, until the pot runs out.

Rich is not what you think it is, and they already are paying more than their fare share.

In 2003, the average income for the top 20% of US wage earners was $88,867. I would hardly consider this rich, yet they paid nearly 80% of taxes collected by the IRS.

In 2003, the average income for the top 5% of US wage earners was $154,120. Still not what I would consider rich, yet their income put them in a tax bracket that forced them to pay nearly 50% of their earnings to Uncle Sam.

On the other hand, in 2003 the average income for the bottom 50% of wage earners was $43, 318 and they did not pay even 1% of the income tax received by the IRS.

Does that seem fair to you?

By no means would I consider myself to be rich. I can't even say that a goal of my life is to be rich. However, I think that being rich should not be a crime. If you make a ton of money and want to hoard it Uncle Scrooge style and take a daily swim in your gold coins (not advisable, by the way) that should be your right.

I know that this has been a rather long post. If you are still reading, thank you.

I have a dream.

Recently, I have been thinking a great deal about Martin Luther King Jr. and legacy he left behind.

Many things have been said about this man. I have had people tell me that King was really a Communist or that if he were alive today he would be a Democrat despite the fact that on numerous times, in his own words, Rev. King denounced Communism as morally relativistic and incompatible with Christianity and blamed both the Republican and Democratic parties for the lack of progress in the area of social justice.

The point of such claims is clearly an attempt to gain a moral high ground from which to defend an ideology, governmental system, or political group. But I fear that we do a great disservice to the message when we alter the messenger to match our agenda.

I cannot honestly say that I can guess what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be doing if he were alive today. I cannot definitively say what specific causes he would be fighting for or which groups he would be joining or opposing, but I can tell you is in which direction the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. leads me.

Dr. King wrote and spoke often about the need not only for the legal right to equality but also the actual availability of the means to attain equality. In King's own words:

"What will it profit him to be able to send his children to an integrated school if the family income is insufficient to buy them school clothes? What will he gain by being permitted to move into an integrated neighborhood if he cannot afford to do so because he is unemployed or has a low-paying job with no future?

When I read words like those above I am saddened to see how little progress we have made since the time of Dr. King.

I look around the neighborhood in which I live and ask myself, "Is anyone really free?"

We have had the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil Rights Movement, Affirmative Action, and various legislation aimed at ending oppression; yet, I fear that much of what we have done to balance the field has only created a landslide in another direction.

No longer do we have men and women bought and sold, viewed as property, and treated as livestock. No, we are beyond that. We are civilized now, and instead of judging a person on the color of their skin we distill their life down to a number and rank by which to judge them. But we forget what is the true root of slavery.

In my opinion we have traded one slavery for another.

At its origin, slavery was nothing more than an exchange of servitude for debt. The most common form of slavery was an agreement between a debtor that could no longer repay his debt and a creditor who would not or could not forgive the debt. It was an agreement between one man and another for a period of time to repay a debt.

During this time, the debtor would likely move onto the estate of the creditor and would be provided with shelter, clothing, and food. If the term of service was especially long, often the creditor would provide beyond the basic essentials in an attempt to make life more comfortable for the debtor.

Sometimes, at the end of the term of servitude, the debtor would decide that the comfortable life he had come to have as a slave was better than the life he would go back to; and thus would ask to stay on and be joined to the creditor's household.

The problem with slavery was that, as time passed, the practice became institutionalized. And rather than remaining a private agreement between two people, slavery became a method of exchanging the payment of servitude from one person to another. Once this change happened the debtor became a commodity, property to be bought and sold.

Now let me compare that to our present situation.

At the inception of many of our country's social help programs there was a desire to right a wrong, to reconcile a moral obligation. It was good that our country recognized that a moral debt was owed.

It was decided that the answer to repaying this moral debt was to make a financial payment; but money is not appropriate tender for the payment of moral obligation. The only possible outcome was that the moral debt went unpaid while a financial debt was created.

Our nation was like the bleeding heart banker who, in an attempt to right a moral injustice, approves the loaning of money to the injured party. The bank can go bankrupt itself and never repay the moral debt, and only serves to lay the weight of a financial debt to the shoulders already injured by the moral injustice.

We created a system of handouts, a system that encourages the recipients to exert only the minimum amount of effort and activity necessary to survive. There was no vehicle for upward movement built into the system. In an effort to quickly offer a "leg up" there was no thought of making sure there was a saddle waiting at the top; and so many simply fell back into the mud, worse off than before.

I believe strongly in the adage, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." And what I see happening is a lot of fish being handed out instead of fishing poles.

The result is a new method of exchange of servitude for debt. At the beginning, the government provided only for the basic essentials of shelter, clothing, and food. But as the term of service has lengthened, the government saw it fit to provide beyond the basic essentials in order that the debtor could live a comfortable life.

What we have created is whole levels of society so dependent on government provision that they are willing to vote anyone into office that will promise to continue or grow these provisions regardless of the freedom and liberty they must give up in exchange. Upon comparing the life they have come to enjoy at the hands of the government with the one they would have to create with the sweat of their brow they choose to join themselves to Uncle Sam's household rather than fight to create their own house.

What our nation really needs is to wake up to the ineffectiveness of our current course. The cure for our worsening condition is nor more of the same old medicine. We need to reform the way our government provides for those in need of help.

We need to find ways to "teach a man to fish" rather than simply handing out more fish.