An old Ozarker told me how honest his dad was:
One time, when I was a boy, my dad and I were riding in a horse and buggy. We came up to a country store at a place we called Smackout, because when you went in there to buy something, if this fellow didn't have it, he would say, "I'm just smack out of it."
We had shot up all of our shells, and I took some rabbits in and sold them to this fellow. My dad stayed out in the buggy while I went in and bought a quarter's worth of shotgun shells – eight shells.
I came out with the shells in a paper sack and we started on up the road. I was counting these shells in there, and when I got to nine, my dad said, "How many do you have in there?"
I said, "Nine."
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He said, "Well, that fella's made a mistake."
We could have been as far as a quarter of a mile away, and he turned that buggy around and took me back. He was that honest.
That old Ozarker had his son take back one extra shotgun shell that the Smackout store owner didn't even know was missing. To do otherwise would have been stealing.
Socialism is stealing by the government. It takes from one person and gives to another, and the government bureaucrats always take their cut out of the middle. If I go to your house and take your stuff and carry it back to my house, that's called stealing. If the government does the same thing, it's called compassion.
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The cash for clunkers program took money from used-car dealers and gave to new-car dealers. When people were given tax money to buy new cars, they didn't buy used cars. New-car dealers saw their sales soar. Used-car dealers just got sore, because their sales slumped. This program cost taxpayers $3 billion.
The housing tax credit does the same thing. House buyers get tax dollars that come in part from renters who don't buy houses. Money is taken from the renters and given to the buyers. This program cost taxpayers about $15 billion, which is twice what Congress thought it would be. Further, the real estate industry doesn't think it can make it now without that credit, so they want Congress to increase the program to $100 billion. Maybe they will even make it a permanent entitlement.
If the government makes health care socialistic, will that be stealing?
The most costly health-care problems, such as heart problems and diabetes, are also the easiest to prevent. Five percent of the people run up 50 percent of health-care costs. Half the people hardly have any health-care costs. Government socialized medicine will take from those who try to stay healthy and give to those who try to stay sick. The eventual cost of this program is estimated to be $1,042 billion, or a trillion if you want to round off and throw out $42 billion. There is a small possibility that, like the housing credit program, the government's estimate again will be too low.
Right now the government doesn't really have the extra $3 billion to spend on clunkers, or $100 billion on housing credits, or $1 trillion on health-care takeovers. In running up these massive debts, plus the stimulus program, they are stealing the future from Americans today, tomorrow and who knows when.
Socialists have a completely different morality than the old Ozarker. You see, if a socialist had been given an extra shotgun shell by the Smackout store owner, he would not have taken it back. He would have thought the store owner owed it to him.
If socialism is stealing, when does this stealing stop?
The United States actually began with socialism. Both the Massachusetts Bay and Jamestown colonies started with a policy of putting all the food that they grew together and having everyone take what they needed. What happened? There were more takers than growers. Those who grew less stole from those who grew more. That socialism stopped when they saw they were running smack out of food. From then on, everyone ate what he grew, and the food supply increased.
When will America's surge of socialism stop, and when will this morality of stealing end?
It will end when America sees that she has run smack out of money.
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Dan L. White is the author of "The Jubilee Principle: God's Plan for Your Economic Freedom." The book is also available in e-book form.