Socialism

On a cold Winter’s day, my 61 year old mom and I came to a stop light on a busy street corner, a man wrapped in a thin blanket holding out an empty Folgers can with holey gloves waiting anxiously - his eyes and face daunted by a far from lavished life style reaches out, for all we know - one more time, after a month of begging, to get the very basics; a clean shave, bath and some food – as my mother gladly reaches into her already limited pocket-book, to pull out her last five dollar bill, I question her intent.

My mother doesn’t make a $50,000 dollar a year salary she is considered a low income leveled earner and she works very hard for her money…but when I questioned why she felt she should give him money her "S" answers were short, simple and sweet!

Short

My mother has a warm roof over her head, food in her mouth, health insurance, a family that loves her and a job to go to daily...it was very apparent this man had absolutely nothing! She didn’t know what condition his health or life had been in to get him to this desperately needy point …he could have been ones next door neighbor, someone’s father or son…he could have been God’s son! It wasn’t her job to judge him, or figure out the specifics on what he was going to do with that money, only to love and try to help him!

Simply

Some of us in the US, particularly those that are in the lime light, make billions of dollars sending their money to other countries, giving their donations to big named charities in order to gain more lime light! In essence these individuals are beggars too! Instead of asking for money directly, their asking for it indirectly through marketing….and we contribute and give to them all the time via buying their music, watching their movies etc… It’s called a Head Fake - Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture! Their making more money by giving money and receiving the blown-up publicty that goes along with that! This is exploitation too, just in a different form.

The reason we don’t complain is simply because everyone receives instant gratification by gaining something versus the unilateral gain.

Sweet

I know there is nothing sweet about paying taxes because we feel we're giving our money to the government to do what they feel fit..in some respects this is communistic too. But we are giving it back to the US and this is how we should view it!

So why, when our government talks about raising taxes in order to distribute more money amongst the poor, do we complain? In the grand scheme the increase would only be that last $5.00 bill my mother so sweetly gave to that homeless man. Hypothetically and relatively if everyone had to pay an extra $5.00 dollars more a year on their taxes, this could ultimately create new health care plans for those that may not have one. The long-term gain would be some homeless people or people that are barley making it could get health care and maybe a small percentage of them would be able to flourish gradually and broadly increase the strength of the US preventing the small business owner from closing due to a slowed economy.

I understand the control concern…not knowing what our government is doing with our money but should we be judging or using my mother’s sweet approach and just contributing gratefully?

Lets face it...life isn't free! Nothing is ever free that's worth living or worth fighting for but we continually live it with our innately God given faithfulness, so why not use the same approach with a new system? Our old one isn't working, we are in so much trouble with our economy that we must reinvent! I don't like the fact that the government had to bail-out our banks ...but I really don't like the idea of having to beg for food and shelter on the side of the road. So, we have to be open-minded. Americans are smart and resilient we will be a much stronger country after this learning experience but we have to come up with an amicable solution for everyone and I know that we will prevail but not without sweet change!