A friend of mine told an interesting story that perfectly illustrates the socialism that is infecting our society.

This is story is of a 23 year-old girl still living at home with her parents. She had spoken to her parents concerning some of her needs which included the need to purchase new contacts. While considering these needs, her government stimulus check came in the mail, something she was not expecting. The parents announced to their daughter that she could now buy her contacts and presented her with the check. The daughter replied, “But this is my money!” Thinking their daughter had misunderstood, they reiterated, “Yes, this is your money. Now you have money for your needs.” Again the daughter exclaimed, “But this is my money!” Then she continued, “This is my money for me to use just for things I want.”

The parents then realized that their daughter was coming from a completely different mentality. She had adopted the mentality that her basic needs, in this case her contact lens, should be paid for with someone else’s money. “Her” money should be for pleasure. And the irony is that, in this case, the money that she considered “hers” actually came from someone else too!

Yes, this is a true story and most of us would probably wonder how anyone could think this way. But, this same mentality exists on a much larger scale. We have an entire culture in our nation who believes that basic needs such as food, housing, transportation, medical care, etc. should be paid for by someone else. When they run short on money, they don’t take personal responsibility for it, they blame someone. When times are hard, they don’t look for a job, they look for a handout.

How did we get this way? How did we come to this place as a nation, where we seem to be teetering on the brink of becoming a full-blown socialist welfare state? It has happened through an amazing mixture of hypocrisy and double standards. This is clearly illustrated by that form of liberalism, which is just another name for socialism. These liberals promise the sky just to get elected, line their own pockets with cash, and then go about the business of tearing down the very system of freedom that gave them their riches.

Think about it. If you continue to penalize the productive members of society with higher taxes and then give that money to the nonproductive members of the society, what will be the eventual outcome? While corrupt politicians continue to find a way to skim their riches off the tax revenues, the productive members of society grow fewer and fewer and the nonproductive members of society increase in number. Eventually, the productive group will not be able to support the nonproductive group and the society will collapse.

This is what has happened in the recent mortgage crisis. People in places of power convinced people who could not afford a home that, somehow, the culture owed them one. Then they enacted laws to force lenders to make unsound loans. Then they funded groups with taxpayer money who organized on the grass roots level to intimidate lenders and honest politicians to this end. This resulted in an army of welfare slaves who look to their socialist leaders as saviors who give them free handouts.

The CEO’s of the large mortgage and holing companies are not stupid. They realized that this system forced upon them by the socialists in Congress was self-defeating. So what did they do? They skimmed off huge profits for themselves before the impending collapse. Wrong? Yes, absolutely wrong! But after being forced into the situation by leftist self-serving politicians, they were basically just looking out for themselves ... in an extreme fashion!

This should be a serious warning to us that the same thing could happen to our society as a whole and we should throw out every liberal socialist  politician and look for true conservatives to replace them. But instead we hear the liberals blaming the conservatives for the problem! What hypocrisy! Yet, the welfare slaves continues to blindly follow the socialist liberals who promise them more free stuff.

I call them “the welfare slaves” because those who are dependent upon a socialist government are trapped in a perpetual state of bare existence. What else would you call a person who has no hope of self-improvement but has to look to the rich and powerful to provide their most basic needs? I call that person a slave. This is exactly what liberal big-government socialism is producing in our nation, a culture of slaves.

And speaking of slavery, it seems that those who should recognize slavery and hate it in all its forms (African Americans) are buying into this new system of slavery in huge numbers. Why? Because certain people, both black and white, have seen the injustices against African Americans as an opportunity to gain personal power. They continue to emphasize injustice and play upon these misfortunes as a way of developing a following. They perpetuate racism and stir up hatred because racism is the ship that delivers load after load of slaves to their political plantations. However, this new class of slaves in American is not a black white issue. Racism is just one of the recruitment tools. The slaves on these political plantations are of every color!

Emancipation From the New Slavery
Here are just a few things a person must accept before he or she can be set free from this new form of American slavery: 

1) The welfare slave is locked into a minimal existence by a system that, by its very nature, will create the haves and the have nots.

2) The socialistic big-government answers being proposed by the liberals are self-destructive because such government destroys the very source of its funding, the hard-working self-reliant citizen.

3) As a welfare slave you have been conditioned to despise the very thing that can help you rise from poverty and injustice — personal responsibility and free enterprise unencumbered by government control.

4) When government offers to provide for you what you should provide for yourself, you are being asked to give up your freedom.

5) Good government is responsible to protect your freedom; it is not responsible to meet your needs. If you look to your government to meet your needs, you will remain a slave.

Conclusion
It is the biblical concept of self-reliance and personal responsibility found in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “...we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat”, combined with the principles of Christian charity, neighbors helping neighbors, that helped make America a great nation. But don’t confuse this with government redistribution of funds. This is not and never has been God’s plan for free people. Read 1 Samuel 8:1-18 to see what happens when people stop taking personal responsibility and looking to God as their leader, but instead begin to look to government.

Soon we will be electing a new president and many members of congress. I ask you to think long and hard about the issues raised in this article and ask yourself who best represents freedom and personal responsibility. Then vote for that ticket. It may not represent your ideal choice, but God help us if we continue down this road of socialism. Just remember that our founding father’s envisioned a self-governing style of government. A government of the people, for the people, and by the people, not a socialist government that rules over the people.