Free Stuff - Liberals, Socialism, and Changing Attitudes

If you’ve listened at all to the countless number of Democrats running for President, you know that they are in a huge hurry to see who can offer the most free stuff in exchange for your votes. According the Left and their new (same old) brand of Socialism, everybody has a right to get stuff for free, paid for by the rich people of this country which somehow sooner or later includes the middle class and everyone else who pays taxes as well.

I grew up believing that as an American, I had the basic human right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. You know, those inalienable rights bestowed by our Creator. I can barely keep a straight face when I hear people today including such basic rights as free housing, free cars and phones, free college, free health care, and whatever else they can imagine. Bestowed, of course, by our benevolent Government. Maybe we should be doing a better job of teaching history these days.

Hearing all this nonsense on a daily basis is already causing a change in attitude among many people and not in a good way. Working at a local hotel, I see an almost daily effort by somebody to secure a free room. Any excuse will do. No pool? I shouldn’t have to pay for my room. The TV remote didn’t work, I should get a refund. The (actually FREE) breakfast was cold, or didn’t taste good, or whatever. I should get my room for free. And they are serious!

It’s a scary thing to see your culture fall apart before your very eyes at such an alarming rate. I have two adult children who currently spend a significant amount of money each month repaying student loans. Once upon a time, they, like many others, chose to take on this future debt to pay for college. Stuck in the middle class, too poor to pay outright, too wealthy to qualify for assistance, they had to make do with the merit based scholarships that paid only a fraction of the total, then take out student loans to cover the rest.

If a future Democrat President waves a magic wand and makes college free and makes vanish the loan debts of millions, will they pay back the money my kids and tons of others have paid over the years? Of course not! My kids are grown and already part of the country’s workforce, so they won’t be getting any loan forgiveness or refunds from the government. Instead they will be expected to help pay for all that free stuff that isn’t really free at all, including paying for someone else to go to school or not having to pay back their student loans.

Maybe what we really need to do is be more honest with our language. Instead of free health care, let’s call it what it really is – taxpayer funded health care. Free college? Nope. Taxpayer funded college. And so on. You get the picture.

So let’s be very clear. There is no free lunch! Nothing is free. Somebody is actually paying for all of these “free” benefits. And it’s not the government. The truth is the government has no money of its own. Those wonderful politicians promising all this free stuff aren’t paying for any of this. As a matter of fact, most of them are drawing a salary from the same source – the American taxpayer. Maybe it’s time for the taxpayers to have a little more say about how our money is being spent. Maybe at the ballot box.