Here is a cute depiction of our government system and the current political tensions. This has been floating around the Internet lately. I don’t know who first wrote it:
“The folks who are getting free stuff, don’t like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.
“And the folks who are getting the free stuff, want even MORE free stuff on top of the free stuff they’re already getting!
“And, the folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop.
“Now … the people who are forcing the people who PAY for the free stuff, have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff, that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff, are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.
“So … the people who are GETTING the free stuff, have been convinced they need to HATE the people who are PAYING for the free stuff by the people who are forcing the people who are PAYING for the free stuff and GIVING them the free stuff in the first place.”
It’s heartening to see that to many people, this class warfare strategy of the statists is becoming more and more clear, so they are not getting away with it as easily as they used to. I hear representatives and senators in Congress identifying instances when class warfare arguments are being used.
The political parties have morphed over the past number of years. Democrats used to be the party of the civil liberties, defending the “little guy.” They have become the party of entitlements and big government. The Republicans used to be the party of the establishment. But they are partly taken over now by Tea Party types who want to make it the party of individual liberty, rational spending policies, and smaller governments.
And this “hate the rich” mentality is interesting, because it draws in even people who are filthy rich. In fact, it is promoted the most effectively by people of privilege. The main driving force in these people seems to be guilt. They feel uncomfortable with their own riches, and, wanting to think of themselves as good people in spite of that, their “righteousness” is expressed by how they vote. This enables them to tell themselves, “Well, I may be filthy rich myself, but I vote to stick it to the bourgeousie, so that makes me a good person.” Their statism then becomes their religion, and they are thus not accountable for rational thinking when it comes to these issues.
