Social Security is a scam

 Ever heard of a Ponzi-scheme? Charles Ponzi was a man from New England who convinced thousands of locals to invest in a postage stamp pyramid scheme. He took investments and promised huge returns. He made a million dollars in a few hours from initial investors. The idea was that he could pay those returns by using the cash from future investors, whose returns could be paid by yet newer investors. You know..... the good old "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" stuff. Eventually, there are no new investors, and the people at the end of the investment chain get screwed. But who cares, since Ponzi had already made off with all that money. The SEC says it's quite illegal, nowadays. The Social Security system is a giant Pozi scheme. It takes from you now, promising you a big return later. In the meantime, it uses your investment to pay off old return promises that have come due. 

 Today, we can see the coming collapse of Social Security. We can predict the point where new investors will stop coming in, or at least the dues will be far higher than the collections. But who cares if you're FDR? You've already made off with your fame and supposed service to the needy retirees, and screw the people at the end of the chain.

 It's sad to me that people still insist today on pretending Social Security is something other than this. "Reform!! It just needs reform!!" What is needs is for it to be thrown back under the rock that it came from, and it's authors need to be called out for they really are. The same as Ponzi was. A cheat. As long as we pretend we can save the system from the fallout, we doom ourselves to invest in the same false trap of future pay-off. We're still buying stamps -- even though Ponzi has been exposed.

 Oh, and while we're on the topic.... how did the government get authority to do this whole thing again?? I didn't remember an amendment about this....

Free-Market means free individual

 I know a few people who are not "real big proponents" (to say the least) of the free market system. "Capitalism is just an unfair system where the rich exploit the poor" they say. As far as I'm concerned, this is about as true as saying "socialism is just an unfair system where the lazy exploit the hard-working." Both arguments are straw man arguments. Capitalism is not the exploitation of the poor, although that tragically has occurred before. The same is true for socialism. Lazy exploiting the hard-working is a loophole within the system, not the system itself.

 I am a clear proponent of the free-market system. I mean, CLEAR PROPONENT. Against minimum wage. Against anti-trust laws. Against unions. Against OSHA. Against permitting and liscence offices. Like I said, clear proponent.

 I understand the objection, however, that the rich seem to get richer and the poor seem to get poorer. This does seem, at times, to feel like it's the case. It's a myth, however, to say that the socialist system accomplishes national wealth. A look at history will demonstrate that that has never once occurred. Why people believe "the next time will be different" is lost on me, and I fear I will not come to understand it anytime soon. Even local and recent examples can show us this. Many of the poorest states in America are ardently modern liberal/democrat, and yet have remain every bit as poor as when they starting hoping liberalism could change things.

 I must admit that capitalists do not do a very good job at explaining how capitalism is the ladder out of poverty, instead of the pit that keeps them stuck. One of the great things about capitalism is that innovation is always available to you, and your hard work to accomplish it will be rewarded in the capitalist system. Hard work, sacrifice, and innovation pay off in a free market. Not so, in a social welfare system.

 But my commitment to free market is not essentially about reward for hard work. It's about personal liberty. The free market allows you to do things your way. You do not need the government to tell you how a business should be run, nor do you need the government to tell you which business you need to work in. In a free market, an individual has the right to self-govern his work, and he has the right to self-govern his purchases. This, I believe, is most in keeping with our constitution, and most in keeping with the beliefs of our founding fathers.

 And, by the way, when did the people surrender the right to regulate business to the government? I don't remember any amendments that granted those powers to the government..... perhaps they just took them from us without asking.

Faith and Politics

 I'm not really a Rick Warren buff or anything. I didn't read "Purpose-Driven Life" -- can't say that I intend to either. But he did say something in that Presidential interview forum recently that was intelligent. "We believe in the separation of church and state, but not religion and politics." These distinctions are important, and he is quite correct about them. 

 A friend of mine was a political science major when he went through college. He recalled to me a conversation in class after George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, shocking most liberals around the globe. People were talking about how the "religion vote" helped Bush gain his re-election -- some were quite upset by this -- and how foolish they felt people were to vote based upon religion. One man even said that votes based on religion shouldn't count, because of the separation of church and state. And, I suppose, that in this country of free speech, I will support people's right to say and believe things like this, even if the ideas are dumber than the night is dark.

 But Rick Warren was quite right to make a distinction between "church and state" and "religion and politics." There is quite a large difference between the two. "Separation of church and state" refers to a divide between the public law to which people are bound under penalty to follow, and necessarily religious dogma set up by instituted moral authority, or those essentially acting as one. It's a divide that protects people's ability to exercise their own religion in the way that they see fit, within the bounds of not interfering with other people's rights. This does not mean that religious perspective and understanding must be absent from political activity. 

 Webster's Dictionary, under it's second definition of the word "Religion" states : "a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices" Hardly something that can be removed from one's entire approach to politics. Really, if that man in college had been honest with himself, he would have his own religious beliefs to bring to the table with him, even if it consists entirely of a belief that religion is useless (which would be an attitude, belief and practice of a question that is necessarily religious in nature). Religion, in this sense, is nothing more than a part of the understanding that shapes a person's view of what is important, and how he is to interact with the world around him. In this sense, it is impossible to separate one's religion from one's politics as much as it would be impossible to separate one's self-identity, or one's view of good and bad from his politics.

 In fact, saying separation of church and state means separation of religion and politics is quite a large amount of hypocrisy. Religion, in it's broadest sense, is unavoidable. People who claim to be "without religion" are not really without it at all. Everyone believes something about the ideas of God, good and evil, faith, and truth. These questions are unavoidably religious. To say that God exists is not somehow "more religious" than to say that he does not. To say that "good and evil" are relative as opposed to clearly defined objectively does not change the fact that in order to answer the question, one must, by simple nature, involve one's self in a strictly religious belief. Same as the fact that saying two plus two is four is not somehow "more mathematic" than saying two plus two in not five. 

 And so, to say that the church and the state must be separated actually protects one's right to mix religion with politics. To say that religion must be absent from one's political approach is to really say that one must act politically as an atheist -- and atheism is necessarily a religious perspective.