Guest Author - Cynthia Phillips

The definition of socialism is a “political theory advocating state ownership of industry” or “an economic system based on state ownership of capital.” There is talk of nationalizing banks and universal health care. If our money and health care will become the government’s business, then I suppose our way of making a living should be the government’s business as well.

I think of the Stimulus Package that just passed and I wonder what it all entails. Did you know that this legislation was about a thousand pages long? Most of the House and Senate did not have time to read it, let alone the American people. There is only a select few that really know what this “stimulus” entails. I suppose our government see us as children and we wouldn’t understand what the stimulus is anyway. Therefore, let them handle it, we don’t really have a say nowadays.

My husband made an insightful comment saying that they may have been planning this for a long time. I believe that he may be right. It probably would not surprise me if the last administration had some involvement in the stimulus. From my point of view as an Independent, there is really not much difference with the Democrats and Republicans.

After all, George W. Bush was pushing pretty hard for the Bailout to pass last year—-is it any different with Obama? “Meet your new boss same as the old boss,” those lyrics from The Who is in my head. The title of that song is “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” But, it looks like we have been fooled—time and time again.

The only change I see is the wording from bailout to stimulus. It is like in the book 1984 when they mentioned “newspeak” and how words were to be changed to accommodate “Big Brother.” This book should be required reading for anybody that can read. The government probably uses this book as a how-to manual.

Socialism, in my opinion, advocates the dependency on government to take care of us--which is welfare. In comparison with libertarianism, we the people should look to ourselves to determine what is best for our lives and have the freedom to keep the fruits of our labor and save for future generations. But, with the spending that we allow our government to do only hurts us and our next generation with more debt. This year alone, we will be running a deficit of 1.75 trillion dollars! Are we a people that really do not know what is best for our lives? Do we have to look to "Big Brother" to take care of us?