The American Shuffle

For over a year, I have been like most Americans.  I have not had health insurance.  Within that time I went through two fishing seasons, traveled through five countries, alone, where I ate things I couldn’t pronounce, and ran seven marathons.  I didn’t drown, get attacked, attain food poisoning, or have heart failure, hyponatremia, or any injury associated with running long distances.  Lucky me.  Not so lucky for the health insurance companies.  I just have to be careful for a few more days and my health insurance finally kicks in. 

As much as a teacher complains about the incredibly low wages for such a demanding job, at least we have health insurance provided to us.  I still have to pay, but the school covers most of it, essentially meaning it’s paid for by the government.  Lucky me.  Not so lucky for others. 

You see, as terrified as everyone seems to be of socialism, the satanic s-word, we have socialism all over.  Is someone robbing your house?  Call the cops.  Is your house on fire?  Your local fire department will put it out.  Do you want your kids to go to school?  Send them there.  We’ll babysit your kids for you so you can complain about how we do it.  How much will any of this cost you?  Nothing.  It’s free.  Your taxes are distributed to pay for all the salaries making these services possible.  We aren’t a lassiez faire  country.  We have socialism – and it works.  It works too well sometimes, because we have people take advantage of it all the time.  How many families are too poor to buy food and get welfare to take some of the edge off, but can somehow still afford to buy cigarettes and new cars? 

Socialism is broken.  It’s why we have a capitalist system – and capitalism works just fine.  Work, get money for working, and buy things with the money.   You can buy cigarettes and new cars and all kinds of gizmos and shiny objects.  The problem is the more money people get, the less they have to work, because eventually they can buy their way in and out of anything.  They form companies and then they conglomerate to make larger companies and pretty soon they can afford to pay off even the Supreme Court, essentially giving them an immunity to laws (read: Exxon-Mobil).