09-27-2007
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Owner, Green Bay Packers
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: SW Michigan
Posts: 10,322
Rep Power: 9
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History did not begin with FDR and the New Deal. The "middle class" is a singularly American invention, although the case can be made for it being a product of the English-speaking peoples as a whole. From virtually the founding of the American experiment one of the most notable plants grown has been a "middle class" within a society bound for class eradication. Former peons, serfs, slaves, and drudge laborers with little to recommend them have arrived in America to become "landed". The rich did not need to emigrate, the poor surely did, and became property owners and aspirants to financial success. The promise of such a life is no less true today than it was in 1790, 1936, or 1986. In fact, we seemingly have an entire nation to our south that wishes to emigrate out of the sunbelt. These people may be uneducated but, they're not stupid. You have to look to statist liberals for that quality.
Unions are a middle class invention; they did not produce the middle class. you have to have a job and a little bit of extra money to form and join a union. Poor people cannot afford to strike; they'd starve. As Samuel Gompers said, when queried about what labor wanted, we want "more". "More" implies you've got "some".
The usual pap regarding defense spending versus domestic spending was tried during the Clinton era, otherwise known as the "time-out from history", with the usual results. Military spending was slashed to unconsciably low levels, where it remains, while domestic spending was raised. And, while domestic spending grew exponentially it would be incorrect to assume that it did so in a manner that ensured the solvency and resolution of such issues as social security, medicare, or even education for that matter. "New" spending truly was new, giving little nod to previous obligations. And those previous obligations were the 500 pound gorilla sitting in the corner that should have provoked the thought, "we can't afford that".
Why is social security in particular in trouble? Without sounding overly simplistic I think much can be garnered from the following fact. When social security was implemented in 1936 the average lifespan of the American male worker was 63 years. Social security eligibility began at 63 years of age. The entire plan was based upon a premise that 50% of the population would not live to collect.
Windy's point regarding the stock market are certainly correct and i do appreciate his concern with my being hoisted upon my own petard. While the market is given to flights of fancy, it is probably the best indicator of the overall health of the American economy. It is subject to irrational swings upwards and downwards. And, if it dried up and blew away tomorrow, it would not effect the fact that oranges grow in Florida. (How those oranges get in remote refrigeraters might be another story) The beauty of the market is that it is not subject to polling prejudices or numbers manipulation, and it has the broadest input of the largest number of Americans.
Perhaps the greatest Republican said, "It is morally wrong to do for a man what he can do for himself". What makes me a conservative is that I remember that, even when the Republican party does not. And why I am more likely to vote for a Republican than a Democrat is that, while one party may have forgotten Lincoln's words, the other party never acknowledged their truth.
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“Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.”
Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.
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