New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has some advice for millennials: Don’t vote for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson because the Libertarian Party platform calls for the abolition of the federal income tax (and, of course, the IRS too), Social Security and Medicare (and also Medicaid and all other welfare-state programs), public schooling, and environmental regulations.
My reaction: This is awesome. Krugman is advertising what libertarians believe in. Inevitably, there will be a some young people (and older people as well) who read that column and think to themselves, “That sounds like an intriguing and interesting philosophy. I think I’ll check out why so many young people are becoming libertarians.”
Consider the idea of dismantling Social Security. Krugman is clearly shocked — absolutely shocked — that anyone would want to abolish this socialist program. In his mind, Social Security is as American as apple pie, notwithstanding the fact it originated among socialists in Germany in the latter part of the 19th century and was not part of America’s government structure for the first 150 years or so of the nation’s existence.
In fact, let’s point out that Social Security is also found, not surprisingly, in countries like Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, China, and Vietnam, all of which have socialist economic systems.
Krugman obviously thinks that he can pull the old Social Security scare that Democrats love to employ at election time. “Don’t vote for him because he’s going to take away your Social Security!”
But he fails to recognize the obvious: that scare tactic might work on older people, especially the ones who are dependent on the government’s Social Security largess. But why should it work on young people since they are the ones who are bearing the ever-increasing burden of funding this socialist program?
Most young people are having a horribly difficult time starting out in life. Many of them are still living with their parents into the 20s and even their 30s. That’s because they’re finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet, much less save any money.
One of the big shocks that every young person experiences when he enters the workforce is the amount of money that is withheld from his paycheck. The money that is withheld goes to the federal government, which uses it for Social Security, Medicare, subsidies, grants, foreign aid, the drug war, bombing Iraq, bombing Syria, bombing Yemen, bombing Afghanistan, assassinating people, supporting foreign dictatorships, and invading and occupying countries.
Libertarians obviously have a different idea. How about everyone being free to keep his own money and deciding for himself what to do with it? What’s wrong with leaving young people free to help out seniors, including their very own parents, on a voluntary basis?
Why should anyone be forced to care for another person? We don’t force people to go to church. Why do we force them to share their money with others?
Why not stop all the bombing, the invasions, the wars of aggression, the assassinations, the secret surveillance schemes, and the foreign aid to dictatorships and other regimes? Indeed, why not dismantle the entire Cold War apparatus known as the national-security state, which consists of the vast military establishment, the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA?
And while we are at it, how about dismantling public (i.e., government) schools, where children are indoctrinated into believing that the welfare-warfare state way of life constitutes “freedom”?
Krugman and others of his ilk believe that young people need to be forced to care for others. That’s what the IRS is all about. It’s one of the most feared agencies in history. Over time, young people figure out why. If someone fails to deliver the appropriate amount to the feds to fund their coercive, mandatory welfare-warfare programs, the IRS and the Justice Department will come after him with extreme vengeance, seizing assets, garnishing bank accounts, and even sending him to jail.
How is force consistent with genuine charity? It’s not. Charity and force are opposites. It all just to fund an enormous welfare and warfare racket.
After all, keep in mind that the American people lived without income taxation and a welfare-warfare state for more than a century. That way of life bought into existence the most prosperous and charitable society in history
What Krugman won’t openly admit is that progressives don’t trust young people and hey don’t trust freedom. They don’t trust anybody except federal welfare bureaucrats and the people in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.
Let’s not forget the out-of-control spending and debt to fund all this socialist and interventionist junk. The federal government continues to spend far more than it receives in taxes It borrows the difference, which means that the federal government’s debt load rises by the minute.
Who is going to pay back all that debt? It’s young people. They’re the ones whose backs are being broken by ever-mounting federal expenditures and debt.
The libertarian movement is growing by leaps and bounds. Krugman and other devout progressives see the excitement, the understanding, the knowledge, and the insights among young libertarians. They see the dynamism of the libertarian movement. And it is scaring them to death.