Sunday, July 30, 2006

The Cult of Social Security

Imagine that your son or daughter ran off and joined a wacko religious cult.

The charismatic leader of the cult convinced your kid -- under intense social pressure from other cult members -- to give half of all income earned to the cult, and the cult promised to take care of all your kid's needs when your kid got old.

An independent audit would disclose that none of the money "contributed" by your kid to the cult was actually being saved or invested for your kid's future, but was being spent by the cult on other things.

You want your kid to leave this cult, but the leaders have convinced your kid that it would be "apostasy," and your kid would be "disloyal," "unsubmissive," "rebellious," and a host of other words. You don't want your kid to turn over everything earned to the cult, but the cult says your kind of thinking is "selfish." "You need to trust the lord and think about the needs of others," the cult tells your kid. "We're a community," the cult members chant; "We're a family." "Besides," the cult says, "look at all the older members of our cult that we're taking care of."

Sure enough, the cult has several retirees who haven't died of starvation. But there's no doubt that if those older members of the cult had invested in the stock market or in private annuities rather than the cult's system, they would be enjoying a much higher standard of living than the cult provides.

Surveys of cult members reveal that more than 50% of the cult members are suspicious of the cult leader's claims about financial trustworthiness, but they "contribute" their earnings anyway, in an effort not to appear to "lack faith" in the eyes of others. When asked if they believe that they will be taken care of when they're old, more than 80% said they were "somewhat sure" they would, but that same number indicated that they were "somewhat sure" other members of the cult might be denied benefits due to "budgetary constraints." These cult members believe they should be free to invest their money in higher-paying investments, but that same freedom should not be extended to other cult members, because others cannot be trusted with such freedom.

One of the marks of a "cult" is unquestioning belief in the cult leader or authority system. By this standard, Americans are more than members of a cult; they are zombies. Unthinking, uncritical acceptance of government propaganda has become the American way of life.

The "Social Security" program is an unethical, unChristian pyramid scheme. It is financially bankrupt by all accepted accounting systems. Any corporation that managed its employee pension fund the same way the cult in Washington D.C. manages your Social Security "contributions" would find its CEO in prison. It is a very, very, bad system -- a bad idea immorally managed -- and yet Americans believe what they are told about it: that it is "one of the great moral successes of the 20th century."

It was an immoral system from the beginning.

The cult in Washington D.C. has increased its power and control in ways America's Founding Fathers could never have imagined: every area of life has come under the jurisdiction of this cult.

The Libertarian Party's "Statement of Principles" opens with this bold declaration:

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.
If your kid fell under the domination and control of a fraudulent, misleading, coercive, manipulative, degrading wacko cult, you would not want to agitate for "reform" of the cult. You would want your kid OUT of that cult immediately. If you discovered that a hacker was draining your bank account of a few dollars every day, you would not want him to gradually stop robbing you.

We reached a point decades ago when it came time to free Americans from their zombie-like devotion to the Cult of the Omnipotent State.

http://KevinCraig.US/social_security.htm

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