Jacob G. Hornberger |
Conservatives are having fun attacking 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly elected member of Congress from New York. They’re poking fun at her devotion to socialism. But the real joke is on conservatives because their attacks on Ocasio-Cortez only expose the malady with which conservatives have long been afflicted. That malady, of course, is hypocrisy.
At least Ocasio-Cortez is honest about her philosophy and beliefs. She believes in socialism and she makes no bones about being a socialist. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of conservatives. They call themselves “capitalists” or “free enterprisers” but the truth is that they believe in socialism as much as Ocasio-Cortez does.
The program is based on using the force of the government to fleece young people and give the money to seniors. That’s not charity. That’s legalized stealing.
In fact, that’s one of the reasons conservatives (and Republicans) resent us libertarians so much. It’s because we expose their hypocrisy, their life of the lie, their two-faced attacks on socialists like Ocasio-Cortez.
Consider Social Security. It’s not called “Social” Security for nothing. It’s a socialist program, one whose concept originated within socialists in Germany and then was imported into the United States. Social Security is based on the Marxian principle of forcibly taking money from people to whom it rightly belongs (e.g., young people) and give it to people to whom it does not belong (i.e., seniors). It is based on the concept of mandatory “charity,” which, of course, is not charity at all.
Conservatives love Social Security, just as they love Medicare and every other welfare-state program, with the exception of food stamps, which they love to revile. That’s why they always talk in terms of saving and reforming Social Security and Medicare, even as they criticize Ocasio-Cortez for her devotion to socialism.
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Conservatives come up with all sorts of bizarre justifications for their support of socialism. On Social Security, for example, they say, “Jacob, people are just getting their money back that they put in. The government kept their contributions in individually named lock boxes at Fort Knox.”
Needless to say, it’s all just one great big lie and conservatives know it. Since the very beginning, Social Security has been just another welfare program, no different from food stamps. To fund Social Security and all other welfare programs, as well as the government’s warfare programs, the government taxes people. Everyone pays taxes. Taxes are not contributions. They are forced exactions by the government. If you don’t pay your taxes, they will send you to jail.
Once the government collects taxes, that money belongs to the government. The taxpayer loses all ownership interest in the money. The government then spends the money on its welfare-warfare programs.
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Thus, the conservative notion that Social Security is based on “getting your money back” is an out-and-out lie. The program is based on using the force of the government to fleece young people and give the money to seniors. That’s not charity. That’s legalized stealing.
Conservatives need to be reminded that when they point their finger at Ocasio-Cortez for her devotion to socialism, there are three fingers pointing back at them.
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. This article was first published in The Future of Freedom Foundation and is republished here with permission. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Global Village Space’s editorial policy.