It's predictable. The seeds of the fall of democracy are contained in the combination of it's nature and human nature. Most people will vote for whatever gives them an advatage, and the government is then responsible for enforcing the outcome -- by force if necessary (en-force, see?)
What this leads to is people voting themselves more and more entitlements. The populace eventualy votes itself into Socialism. You can produce less, but you still do okay because the Government will just redistribute wealth from those who produce more. Your incentive to produce goes down. Your c-h-i-l-d-r-e-n are below the poverty line? Tax those evil capitalists more. We owe it to the c-h-i-l-d-r-e-n . Eventually, though, the tax burden becomes too much and squelches anybody's incentive to produce. Why should I produce? You'll just take most of it away from me and give it to someone else. And if I can't make any money, YOU're required to support me anyway.
Economically, we have Capitalist America and Socialist America. Those are the economic lines between the two Americas.
Capitalist America is what we've had basically up to now. Socialist America has grown since the New Deal to the point where we're getting close to a pivotal point, if we're not there already.
Capitalist America is why the poor and huddled masses came here. Capitalist America is why people come across the Mexcican border, or brave the ocean in tiny boats to get here. Capitalist America is why people deserted Socialist and Communist countries to come here by the millions during the last century.
Capitalism gives the individual the most power over his/her own life. It provides the greatest chance that hard work will pay off and better the hard-worker's lot in life. There's no guarantee. But there is hope.
Socialism is a great idea, but it doesn't work. The reason it doesn't work I pretty much described above -- contrary to Capitalism, it suppresses incentive for production. People want more and more, but nobody does the work to support that. Eventually the whole system crumbles.
There's the rub. Humans are (1) naturally lazy, and (2) naturally greedy [they are (3) naturally compassionate, too -- it sets them apart from other species... but it comes in 3rd]
What Capitalism does is use (2) to overcome (1) . There is, of course, a flaw in that -- in that if (2) is allowed to run unchecked, people get exploited/cheated/abused.
On the other hand, any system is exploitable. Over our Capitalist economic system we put laws and courts to suppress it. It still happens, to be sure.
What Socialism does is try to use (3) to overcome (2) and (1). But (1) & (2) are more basic to survival than (3) -- they are more directly hardwired into us.
Let me go on record in stating that (3) is certainly much more noble than (1) & (2). But (1) & (2) simply cannot be overcome by (3).
In fact, if we allow people to use greediness to overcome laziness, it will put more people in a position to practice compassion through charity.
That is why I favor the continuation of our Capitalistic Democracy, and doing whatever we can from having it completely overrun by the Socialists. For those of you who cry that Capitalism is exploitive and abusive... if you don't think Socialism is abusive, you weren't paying attention last century. And if you think it's less abusive, you're deluding yourself.
That is why I am strongly against the Democratic platform, which is the party of American Socialists -- and I'm not name-calling here, I'm going by definition (Merriam-Webster):
socialism
\So"cial*ism\, n. [Cf. F. socialisme.] A theory or
system of social reform which contemplates a complete reconstruction of society, with a more just and equitable distribution of property and labor.
This is the "One America" John Kerry's party speaks of.
I'm a Libertarian (Jeffersonian, as in Thomas), not a Republican. But John Kerry's America is too close to becoming a reality for me to risk him getting into office.
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