OPINION:
Our Founding Fathers understood that a constitutional republic could be sustained only by a moral and virtuous people. Limited government works only if there’s a shared moral consensus enabling people to self-govern, thus negating the need for an expansive government with endless programs, many of which exist to mitigate the consequences of bad choices and wrong behaviors.
Unfortunately, in today’s America, the moral consensus is gone. Many Democrats understand morality to be oppressive, and still others think freedom is achieved only in its absence. Meanwhile, the subsidies necessary to palliate the consequences of behaviors once considered immoral and wrong dig ever deeper into our wallets.
If America embraces socialism a second time, it won’t be limited to providing corn for our neighbors. The Pilgrims were the first to experiment with socialism with communal farming, which nearly wiped out the first colony. Since food — whether you worked for it or not — was to be shared and provided by others, why toil under a hot sun only to see the fruit of your labor go to another? Shortages and conflict arose, and the Pilgrims nearly starved after just one perilous year of socialism. Fortunately, they learned quickly and soon saw the error of their ways.
What will socialism 2.0 look like in America if it’s tried again? We will be required to subsidize behaviors that earlier generations stigmatized because they were seen as costly, socially destructive and morally wrong. Americans have little problem providing for the aged and the infirm or helping when a lapse of judgment places someone in a difficult position. But when that lapse of judgment becomes a lifestyle, asking others to subsidize it is neither compassionate nor moral.
When socialism 2.0 inevitably fails, will responsibility be returned to the individual to till their own land? Or will the finger of blame point to the responsible and productive because they are not doing enough to subsidize their neighbor?
THOMAS M. BEATTIE
Mount Vernon, Virginia
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