By Matthew Wadler:
Being retired military offers me some amazing opportunities. Since I am no longer chained to a desk, I can travel with my wife for her job (what others may call chauffeur service). We happen to be in Chicago today, an amazing city full of culture and history. It reminds me of a great quote by Martin Luther King Jr., “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” When you live in a city of roughly 2.7 million, each person must make that decision every day.
Unfortunately, it is not it’s altruism that Chicago is known for, it is the violence and senseless murders. Of course, this goes completely counter to liberal logic, since Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Proponents of stricter laws assert that the stricter the gun laws, the more criminals would follow them.
In 2016, there were 746 murders in the Windy City, including 57 last January. Granted, there was a decline in January 2017 in the overall murder total– it was only 55. I am not sure if this improvement will be of much consolation to those 55 families who lost loved ones. This number pales when compared to the number of people shot in 2016, which sits at over four thousand. That’s almost twice as high as in 2014. How is it possible that in America, with all of its opportunity, we have such out-of-control violence? I believe that the answer is quite simple – Hope and Change.
As a young Soldier in Somalia, I saw what happens when a society loses its will to succeed. This was reinforced with two more deployments to Afghanistan a decade later. The lack of hope was overwhelming. There is a hardness to those people which is borne from despair. There is no purpose in caring, as there is nothing they have worth defending, including their own lives.
This is why organizations such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Taliban are able to recruit so easily from these regions. Comparatively, they offer quite a bit– a purpose which gives some sort of meaning to their existence, death as an escape from a daily personal hell, and most importantly, the belief in an eternal paradise earned through their sacrifices as purported by the monsters who recruit them.
While there are several differences between what is happening in America versus the Middle East, I still absolutely see a correlation in regards to the lack of optimism in America. I admit that this is a simplistic view; truth be told, nothing in life is ever that simple. Yet it is very clear that we have lost that piece of national confidence that used to shine from the shores of our country as a beacon for the oppressed.
When Obama came into the presidency, he did so riding a wave of optimism built on promises of abundant Hope and Change for all Americans. This message was most resoundingly heard in the lower income areas throughout our country, where the poor had been waiting for someone to come along and raise them up from the dreadful conditions they live in. Yet after adding almost $8 trillion to our national debt, where is the transformation that was supposed to occur? Don’t get me wrong, there is quite a bit of transformation occurring. I just can’t find the positive outcomes that were supposed to ride along with it. We have seemingly lost our ability to see the optimism that once drove this country.
Liberalism, with its promises of handouts and quick-and-easy fixes, has destroyed the will to work and create in our nation. In my opinion, liberalism is nothing more than modern-day slavery: it creates a class of individuals who are entirely dependent upon the government for every facet of their lives. Those who are most dependent upon the governmental handouts are kept in neighborhoods that are falling apart with rampant crime and violence.
I have always looked upon the seemingly counterintuitive truth behind liberalism and conservatism. I even understand why there are those that are so vehemently against the free market and capitalism. After all, capitalism would intuitively appear to be the absolute in evil and malignancy. Look at it through the eyes of a liberal. Unrestrained and without safeguards, capitalism led to sweat shops and horrid working conditions during the industrial revolution. What these individuals fail to recognize, however, is that capitalism is what gives the individual the freedom to chart their own course. It promises unlimited potential for success, however one wishes to define it. This promise is not without its perils, unfortunately.
The freedom of capitalism means that we are free to make mistakes. Individuals must be willing to accept responsibility for their actions and accept the consequences that they bring. Even worse are the cases in which misfortune falls on those that did nothing to bring it about, but instead were the victims of happenstance. Natural disasters, illness, crime, and a plethora of other calamities that are completely outside the control of the individual can strike at a moment’s notice, erasing a lifetime of hard work and intelligent planning.
As an example, we can look at one of the most iconic empires in the modern world. Walt Disney faced failure at every turn during his young adult years. He was fired for lack of imagination when working for a newspaper. Later, he started and closed an animation studio, had one of his original creations reportedly stolen by a rival studio, and had MGM turn away the character of Mickey Mouse. Yet with all of these setbacks, he continued to push forward. In speaking to these failures, Disney once said, “Everyone falls down. Getting up is how you learn to walk.” Through his imagination and persistence Disney created a brand that is recognized throughout the world and brings joy and happiness to hundreds of millions of children.
Implausibly, capitalism would appear to be the most altruistic system in all of humanity. Just for starters, capitalism creates jobs that gives those without the personal means the ability to create a living. Additionally, capitalism creates wealth for others. The greatest example of this is Microsoft Corporation (brainchild of billionaire Bill Gates who also failed more than once before seeing success with his company). According to a June 28, 2010 article in Forbes, over ten thousand individuals became millionaires by investing in the company.
Finally, note the incredible altruism that capitalism brings with it. The wealthy often get smeared in their representation by the media and layman alike. For some reason which I have never understood, the wealthy are routinely depicted as being lucky, or simply living off the sweat and blood of their employees. A look at the facts, however, bears a different narrative.
A CNBC story in 2014 about the ultra-wealthy states that they will donate approximately $25 million dollars, or over 10% of their wealth, during their lifetimes. This only includes monetary donations, however. Creating specific positions within a company to address community needs or donating time and energy bolster the numbers significantly.
While capitalism would, on its surface, appear to create greed and hurt those without power, I believe we have made a fact-based case for how this is not true. The free market inspires greatness and allows dreamers to reach beyond their fantasies into a place where the fanciful merges with the possible to create an amazing product.
Now, let us look at the draw of liberalism. Liberalism is borne from those wishing to help others, yet don’t have the means to do so on their own accord. I have yet to meet a liberal at the local level who does not truly want to do good for others. They are genuinely motivated by a desire to create a better life for those around them. But that is the root of the problem– no one, no matter what their abilities or how seemingly unlimited their resources, can create perpetual happiness for someone else.
Hope cannot be issued out to people like uniforms to Soldiers. Even those uniforms are not simply issued out, they are earned through basic training.
There is a great adage that states, “Give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.” I believe this is accurate, accept that when you give a man a fish, not only do you feed him for a day, but you also take away the need for him to find food for himself. If done enough, you create a condition where he comes to expect and then demand that you continue to feed him. It becomes an entitlement, and this entitlement is then passed on through his offspring. Look at food stamps as a prime example. In 1969, the USDA reports there were just shy of 3 million individuals on food stamps, receiving approximately $2.28 million. As of 2015, that number has grown to 44 million individuals at a cost of $66 billion dollars annually.
Even worse is that when you give someone something, they are not required to have a vested interest in it. People respect that which they work for. One only needs to look at how long wealth lasts for lottery winners, or the horror stories that seem to surround these individuals to see the truth. Money is not what makes people happy. Money is simply a means to purchase material items and services, nothing more. This is not to downplay the desperation the felt by the poor; what I am saying is that money itself is no more than a means to other things, not the holy grail for a successful life.
The same can be said for housing. If this were the case, then Section 8 housing, which has been around since the 1970s, would be the greatest place to live in the country. Subsidized housing allows some individuals to put their time and energy into their own personal growth and abilities…these folks should be the model for which the rest of us aspire to emulate.
The problem is that liberalism sells a dream. It is a dream that, as we in the military say, briefs very well. On paper, liberalism appears to create the perfect solution. Yet where are the results? Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the modern entitlement class with his New Deal in 1933. There are 83 years of solid data on what this waste of taxpayer money has created.
Hope cannot be issued out to people like uniforms to Soldiers. Even those uniforms are not simply issued out, they are earned through basic training. That is why our country has seemingly lost its hope. To many have grown accustomed to having their needs catered to. This desire to help those in need have had the opposite effect. Instead of lifting up families it has crushed their ability to aspire for more. It has taken the drive out of what was once a country of aspiration.
There is hope out there, possibly even change. It will not be easy. It involves taking almost 100 years of entitlements and showing people how they have destroyed what makes our nation truly amazing. It means allowing people to fail and forcing them to take personal responsibility for their decisions. It means that greatness will be exalted and failure shunned. It also means neighbors looking after each other again, not the government. A return to churches, synagogues, and other religious institutions caring for the needy.
Only when we realize that everything the government does comes with a price will we be able to change. I am not speaking of wealth redistribution, which is how these programs operate. Nor am I speaking of how we are stealing from our posterity by putting our nation into a debt so deep that there is seemingly no way out. I am speaking of the fact that with each handout our government gives, it takes a bit of that person’s humanity and Americanism from them. They enslave them into a government system from which there is no reasonable escape.
Matthew Wadler is a Senior OpsLens Contributor and U.S. Army veteran. Matt served in the Army for 20 years as both enlisted and officer before retiring. His service includes time as Military Police, Field Artillery, Adjutant General, and Recruiting. His deployments include Somalia and two tours to Afghanistan. His formal education includes a master’s degree in HR Management. He is a strong supporter of the constitution and advocate for the military and veteran communities. Follow Matthew on Twitter @MatthewWadler.
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