May 8, 2008

Life Without Edges -- The Left's Seductive Promise

By AWR Hawkins

In an election year such as this, the responsible voter must assess the "glorious" ends of the Left's various offers of a life without edges: an existence free of the normal dangers, struggles, and consequences of life.

For example, when the candidates on the Left tout universal healthcare as an end, the voting public should recognize that the means to that end will be higher taxes with less medical choices for all patients, as well lower pay and less treatment options for doctors. It should be evident that universal healthcare will ultimately be disastrous instead of beneficial, crippling instead of healing any current problems in the healthcare industry.  Will the candidates on the Left take time to assess the end in the same way and, considering the train-wreck that universal healthcare has caused in Canada and other countries, abandon their course and opt for sticking with private healthcare as we have today?

If we rely on history as an indication of how politicians on the Left have frequently operated since the mid-1930s, then the answer to this question is "no." In fact, empirical evidence argues that the candidates on the Left already know that universal healthcare is a sham, but that will not stop them because they are not really seeking access to better healthcare for the citizenry, but rather a means to more control and government involvement in the everyday lives of citizens. If history is right, the closer we get to November 2008, the louder the politicians on the Left will proclaim their efforts "for the public good." They will promise us a life without edges in so many words, yet deliver a life without liberty.


The Left's offer of a life without edges began when Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed Social Security as a kind of investment without risk in 1935. Through payroll deductions, which are simply taxes by another name, Social Security was created with the understanding that the working class would have guaranteed retirement savings. Today, we know that this grand promise of investment without risk has amounted to investment without return. It is impoverishing rather enriching for the hard working people who gain approximately two percent annual interest on their retirement savings in Social Security, while private savings accounts pay eight percent or more annually.

And where is the Left on this issue when a Republican Senator or Congressman calls for privatization of Social Security? They are aligned with Hillary's and Obama's position of refusing to look at the facts when people point out the bankruptcy of leftist contrivances like universal healthcare.

In 1947 the Left discovered the Separation of Church and State in the Constitution. This eventually led the benevolent Left to protect us from too much exposure to religion by prohibiting prayer in public schools. Ironically, this new separation from religion "for our own good" has resulted not simply in schools without prayer, but education without morality. But of course, the problem is that the Left is still teaching a morality; it is simply not a Christian one.

And where is the Left when parents, who are desperate to shield their children from humanist indoctrination, plead for school vouchers so they can use their own tax money to send their children to a private school? The Left will never support a voucher plan because they cannot afford to allow the children of the less afluent, "dependent" classes to attend schools that would actually teach them how to invest, rise above poverty, and live life apart from the government dole.

After the 1950s, the Left began a rapid fire implementation of even more aspects of life without edges. From 1964-68, President Lyndon B. Johnson brought America a war without sacrifice by downplaying the level to which we would have to commit to the Vietnam War in order to win it. In 1973, through Roe vs. Wade, the Leftists in the Supreme Court brought us women without unwanted pregnancies. President Jimmy Carter attempted to make us safe by creating a military without bombers when he canceled the B-1 bomber along with the missiles already in development.  The result of such innovation was war without victory, children without life, and a military without important weapons. Once again, life without edges proved antithetical to liberty and encumbering to a once awe-inspiring superpower.

The pursuit of life without edges continued unabated during the Clinton years, and also during the first two years of George W. Bush's Presidency through Senator Tom Daschle. When Enron collapsed and investors lost their retirement due to foolishly putting too much money in one stock, Daschle was "Johnny on the Spot" with a plan for the federal government to stick its nose in personal retirement accounts to guarantee us more investments without risk. Fortunately, the public did not want another investment without return and voted Daschle out of office.

During the last decade, the Left has promoted a movement aimed at bringing us bars and restaurants without smoke. As is the norm of the Left, this agenda is sold on the promise that it is "for our own good." However, the Left fails to acknowledge that frequenting a business that permits smoking is a consumer's choice. We can only conclude that the pursuit of bars and restaurants without smoke has resulted in land owners without property rights, as the "tobacco Nazis" are implementing legislation that prohibits property owners from doing what they wish with their own things.

When the Left promises us life without edges, what they really have in mind is life without freedom.

AWR Hawkins is a PhD candidate at Texas Tech University.
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