Father-Daughter Talk

The following is a humorous little story that I read in a local newsletter,"The Chatterbox". This eloquent little story clearly exposes the folly of liberalism and the hypocrisy of what is being taught to our gullible youth on today's college campuses. I couldn't have put it better myself. This story was well written and made an excellent point.

Father Daughter Talk

A young woman was about to finish her last year of college. Like so many others her age she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for distribution of all wealth. She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Libertarian, which she expressed openly.

One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich & the addition of more government welfare programs. Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor she felt that for years her father had obviously harbored an evil, even selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.

He stopped her and asked her point blank, how she was doing in school. She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she studied all the time, never had time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying. That she was taking a more difficult curriculum.
Her father listened and then asked, "How is your good friend Mary doing?" She replied, "Mary is barely getting by." She continued, "She barely has a 2.0 GPA," adding, "and all she takes are easy classes and she never studies. But Mary is so very popular on campus, college for her is a blast, she goes to all the parties all the time and very often doesn't even show up for classes because she is too hung over."

Her father then asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0." He continued, "That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter visibly shocked by her father's suggestion angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I worked really hard for mine, I did without and Mary has done little or nothing, she played while I worked real hard!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said, "Welcome to the Libertarian Party!"

This story is just another example of how liberals call on the rest of us to follow their ideology. Often, they deem themselves exempt from their own rhetoric, because they consider themselves more compassionate and intelligent. In other words, they know what is best for the rest of us. Individual responsibility based on universal spiritual principles is the basis of conservatism. Equality of outcome is what liberals are always preaching, regardless of individual behavior. They are driven by emotions that make them feel like they are doing good, when in fact, the unintended consequences of their actions, often exacerbate to problems that they are attempting to solve. Examples are:

affirmative action in education and the workforce
Affirmative action, by definition, results in minorities that are less capable, competent and motivated than their peers in universities and the workplace. This may lead to animosity directed toward less qualified minorities from their peers who have sacrificed and struggled to get better grades and hone their skills. They are often left feeling embittered when they are passed up for college admittance and jobs due to affirmative action programs which place less qualified minorities in front of them. This will actually perpetuate the myth that minorities are not as intelligent or capable as their fellow students and co-workers. Minority students and workers who are placed in universities and jobs above their capabilities are more likely to fail. They themselves will be worse off in the long run because they are placed in schools and jobs that they do not have the necessary skills, abilities and motivation to be successful at. Affirmative action sets up the people who it is supposed to help, for failure.

tax the rich and give to the poor
This policy will discourage achievement, productivity and the creation of wealth. By over-taxing wealthy, successful people, they will be less motivated to risk their capitol through business investment. It also contributes to the spiritual degradation of the "poor".

Business investment is what creates jobs for the poor and middle class. If the profits are taxed away from the rich, they simply will not be motivated to invest and create jobs. Also, high taxes leave the rich with less money to spend on luxury items, like furs, yachts, mansions, private planes, etc. Entire industries will lose their customer base. This means that millions of small businesses, contractors and middle-class employees will lose their source of income that is derived from manufacturing and servicing these luxury items.

What liberals fail to see is that poor and middle class people have the ability and opportunity to move up the economic ladder when properly motivated by profits and the chance of becoming rich. By punishing the rich, you are actually reducing the "poor" and middle-class's chances of improving their lot in life and becoming the rich themselves. Most of today's millionaires are self-made men who have worked their way up from poor and middle class backgrounds. The US does not have a class system that is set in stone. People are constantly moving up and out of lower economic situations every day. Man's natural motivation to succeed works best when not deterred by taxes on the rich and government subsidies for the "poor".

Families, Churches, and private charities are best at helping the truly needy. When people give voluntarily, it improves their character as well as efficiently filling a need. It is better to give than receive. This is a universal spiritual principle that applies to voluntarily giving. Having your wealth seized by the government, for what politicians have convinced constituents are altruistic purposes, is of no spiritual benefit to anyone. Also, the government bureaucracies that are charged with helping the poor are inefficient at best and corrupt at worse. Voluntary charity is spiritually uplifting. Forced redistribution of wealth can have a corrupting effect on all who are involved.

When people are over taxed, they feel embittered, used and unmotivated. A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year 2003. The data shows that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top 25 percent paid 83.9 percent. The lower 50 percent of wage earners, paid only 3 percent of federal income taxes.

Politicians often pit one class against another in order to secure political power. They offer programs to "help" the "poor", but the "poor" often feel resentment because government assistance is never enough. Human nature is such, that getting something for nothing, breeds laziness, apathy and resentment. This results in a permanent underclass that remains dependent on inadequate government programs. They remain beholden to the politicians that dole out the freebies. As a result much of this underclass will become unmotivated to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and remain in and endless cycle of poverty. An unmotivated underclass is a drain on our economy as well as spiritually degrading for the poor themselves.

Taxing the rich and subsidising the poor contributes to negative economic growth as well as a vicious cycle leading to spiritual depravity. Although many liberals have noble altruistic motives, the unintended consequences of their "feel good" solutions often exacerbate the problems they are trying to solve.