Why I'm Not A Socialist

While I don't agree with the author's thesis as demonstrated in his title, there are many pearls of wisdom in his article--including this one:

Okay, so maybe there are some exceptions here. Your parents may have made some good decisions for you at some point. However, among your peers and neighbors, no one has a greater interest in you than you. If you aren’t wiling to do something for yourself, it’s tough to argue why others should do it for you.

So much of political activism is saturated with an irrational sense of entitlement, as if citizenship were like sitting in a restaurant waiting to be served. The youngest Occupier at the most recent Caux Round Table debate lamented a system which fails to “empower people.”

This is a notion which defies good sense. What exactly are we expecting to happen here? Does someone from “the system” come around the neighborhood knighting citizens? Who are we looking at to empower us? And why would they do so?

If you want power, you claim it by right and wield it jealously. No one is making the rounds in an effort to dispense it. Furthermore, no one who has taken the time and effort to claim and wield their own power is going to waste theirs delivering yours. Consider Democratic urban wastelands such as Detroit as examples. If anyone in power was actually going to follow up on their rhetoric of empowerment, they would have done it by now.

It has become a counter-intuitive point in our hand-wringing culture, but no one outside your family is likely to lose sleep over your problems. Indeed, it would be creepy if they did. Why then do we have this unfounded expectation that someone is going to come along and grant us wings?

Granting of wings is something God does, not government.