Real Common Sence

How many of you reading this can shoot hoops like Michael Jordan?  How many of you can sink putts like Tiger Woods?  How many of you can solve relativistic mathematical equations like Albert Einstein?  How many of you can transplant hearts like Doctor DeBakey?  How many of you understand crystallography like the Nobel winner Linus Pauling? How many of you have won a Nobel Prize?  Can you write like J. K. Rowling?  How many of you women photograph as well as Angelina Jolie?  How many of you men come off as macho as the young Harrison Ford or as handsome as Brad Pitt? 

How many of you aren’t reading this article because you can’t read.  How many of you didn’t graduate from high school?  How many of you have never played a sport.  How many of you have never been out of the neighborhood or city in which you live.  How many of you are on drugs?  How many of you have committed a criminal act.  How many of you are murderers? 

Men are not created equal except in the eyes of the law and then, only in countries that recognize the individual’s right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We have equal rights, equal rights to succeed or equal rights to fail or equal rights to achieve whatever level of success in life that we desire and are willing to work for.  We do not have a right to achieve a level of success based on someone else’s efforts. 

How many of you believe that taking money from the Einstein’s, the Jordan’s, the DeBakey’s the Ford’s and the Rowling’s of this world and giving it to the willfully uneducated, the willfully unemployed, the dropouts, from society, criminals, and drug addicts will result in equality?  How many of you believe that cash will stop a drug addiction rather than fueling it?  How many of you believe that cash will forward an education rather than supplying the means to hang out at the mall?  How many of you believe that cash is the answer to the problems of people unwilling to put in the effort to be part of a productive society?  How many of you believe that cash will solve the problems of the professional poor, the voluntary homeless, the drugged out users and the criminal element of society? 

The truth is that Marxism, communism and socialism, all of them fueled by the quixotic concept of “spreading the wealth,” have been tried for centuries around the world and have failed or are failing in every instance.  Their philosophy cannot mandate or create equality no matter how appealing it sounds (and it always sounds better to those who have nothing to share).  Witness the demise of the USSR, Eastern Germany, North Korea, Cuba and the slow but progressive demise of Sweden, France, England, and Holland. Imagine Venezuela in a few years. Even think about our neighbors to the north and where they will be in a decade. 

Now, picture the success of capitalistic South Korea in the sixty years since the Korean War.  Do you own anything that’s LG, Young Chang or Kia?  Picture the success of China that, while claiming a communistic government, has embraced capitalism with fervor reminiscent of the post-WWII United States.  Pick up anything you’ve purchased recently and check where it’s made.  Probably, China. 

Equality cannot be mandated because each person is an individual and different.  People come in all shapes, sizes and colors.  They have different levels of talent, ambition, pragmatism, integrity and so on.  No law can equalize that.  Law can only provide equal rights and equal opportunity.  

After understanding that equality cannot be mandated by any government because people inherently are not equal do you still want a Marxist for your president?  Do you want a man to preside over this country who looks at two centuries of continued failure of a flawed philosophy and yet continues to push that philosophy that ultimately will demoralize and cripple our country?  If you do, you are already below the “equal line” and you’re looking for a handout that will come from the work of people more ambitious and more motivated that you currently are.  

If you’re hand’s out it probably means you voted for our current president because he promised to give you money without work, wealth without effort and dignity without being dignified.  He promised to enrich your lives with the hard work of another person.  In essence, he is enslaving the productive so that you can prosper at their expense.  He, of all people, should know better. 

You will not be made prosperous, respected or whole with money legally stolen from the productive and “spread” among the nonproductive.  Your position in life is not someone else’s doing.  You, and only you, are the master of your future and you and only you can make yourself whole. 

Ultimately, socialism will leave you worse off than you have ever been.

 T. Jeff Uhrsenn