Liberalism: The Unanswered Questions

These are a few questions I've collected over the years to which I have yet to have a concise and rational response. Each question could be expanded into a full article on its own, but I'll keep this as succinct as possible in order to hopefully elicit rational (non-emotional) and concise (not rambling pseudo-science) responses.

Why does the left believe that wealth belongs to all of society (that people don't own their own money) while simultaneously believing that people own their bodies? In other words, why do they generally support social freedom, but don't apply those same principles to our economic freedom?

Consider any given tax proposal or monetary policy from the perspective of the left. Each proposal is based on a single premise: that wealth belongs to society, that such wealth is a collective good to be shared by the same society that allowed people to gain that wealth, and that it is the responsibility of the wealthy to willingly provide their wealth in whatever amount the government demands for the good of society.

Unfortunately, that same argument can be applied to anything of intrinsic value to any given individual: their bodies, their thoughts, their beliefs, their children, their families. Where does this line of thought end? At what point does society no longer have a claim on what you own and what you hold valuable and dear?

I could argue that I have my health thanks to the blessings of society and that I owe it to the greater good to subject myself to whatever strictures imposed on me by that society. But then at that point I no longer possess free will, I no longer have any individual rights, I would no longer have the ability to think for myself, live my life as I choose, or pursue happiness in a manner of my own choosing.

In short, the problem with this belief that wealth belongs to society is two-fold. The first being that it leads to a slippery slope as illustrated above, but also that it reduces the incentive to pursue greater wealth. If my hard work and creativity belongs to the state before I even create anything of value, why should I bother pursuing wealth? For the greater good? What incentive do I have to believe that I will get something of greater, or at minimum, equal value for my efforts?

The left likes to accuse Libertarians and others who support the free market of ignoring human nature, when they are by far more ignorant of the nature of humanity and the need for incentives to create wealth. We humans are not altruistic beings, and a rational person would only have to look at the last 8,000 years of human civilization to realize this fact of nature.

Why does the left simultaneously support the ability for certain favored groups to distance themselves from the greater society while attacking those of European descent from doing the same?

Diversity and multiculturalism are based on the same premise: that society is better served by recognizing our superficial differences and sorting one another into separate boxes and categories. Somehow, liberals believe that we can somehow improve society and move towards a unified future while keeping every sub-population separate from one another and imposing the requirement to focus on those differences on every student in the public school system.

Oddly enough, when White Americans attempt, like the various sub-cultures of America, to unify their communities and restrict membership to only those of the same background, they are attacked by the rest of society. Now, to be clear, I do not support this sort of self-imposed segregation on the part of any group, but it is telling that when other groups practice this type of apartheid, they are celebrated or at least ignored this social transgression, whereas when a White community does the same, they are blasted by the national media.

In short, we cannot achieve national unity by segregating ourselves from one another. Diversity and multiculturalism, now the state dogma of the liberal left and imposed on our children in public school, only seeks to exacerbate this problem, creating future generations that view one another in terms of their superficial differences rather than appreciating and celebrating their commonalities.

Why do liberals believe that people are too ignorant to manage their own lives and yet support allowing a government made of those same ignorant people, whose only difference is that they were either elected, appointed, or hired by those same ignorant people, to manage their lives for them?

I hear constantly from the left that the reason we have Social Security, Medicare, financial regulations, safety regulations, certain tax policies, and all other manner of certification and licensing requirements is due to the fact that people are too ignorant to care for themselves, to look out for their own interests, and to avoid harm. Never mind that by taking away the incentive to care for themselves, you certainly do not promote the idea that people can be self-sufficient.

When the government acts in loco parentis, why should anyone care what happens to them? Of course, the liberals fail to realize that this is precisely the sort of moral hazard that established the need to bail out industries "too big to fail". They also fail to realize (or perhaps this is the goal) that such Nanny-statism is self-perpetuating and leads to a cycle of government dependency that is hard if not impossible to break.

The most ironic thing about this, however, is that the liberals bemoan the intellect and common sense of individuals, yet somehow believe that getting a group of ignorant people together somehow makes them smart enough to dictate how we mere mortals should live our lives.

The issue here is this, let's assume that people are generally too ignorant to manage their lives, let's further assume that a large group of ignorant people are no smarter than the individuals that make up said group. Would it make greater rational sense to allow the individual to make decisions for himself (and suffer the consequences of his poor choices alone) or is it any more rational to allow a group of ignorant people to develop a policy to prevent ignorant people from hurting themselves and placing the cost on society as a whole?

Of course, liberals will say "We can't allow people to fail, that's inhuman and unfair!" Well, why not? Assuming it was their own poor choices and poor planning that led to their failure and that they didn't reach out to all the resources available in our society to avoid their fate, why should we place the burden of their failure of society as a whole?

Additionally, how is this argument that we can't let individuals who make poor choices to fail any different than saying we can't allow businesses who make poor choices to fail? Doesn't a business employ more than individuals? Aren't the social costs of failure higher than a single individual?

Do people that fall on hard luck through no fault of their own deserve some sort of social support? Definitely! When someone is disabled by a drunk driver and can't work for the rest of their life, and the drunk driver's insurance company is unwilling to pay the costs of their driver, there should be help for that victim to make as productive a life as they possibly can.

When all other avenues are exhausted, then people should be able to turn to the government for support... Again, only when all other avenues (family, friends, community, insurance) have been exhausted. Liberals seem more focused on going to the government first for everything, which is morally reprehensible as it places undue burden on the rest of society when and if there are other options available.

In other words, who has the moral responsibility to care for a disabled child? The parents or society as a whole? Like my first question, when we start placing greater responsibility on society rather than on ourselves, we are headed down a slippery slope that leads to decreased individual rights. If all responsibility is socialized, what incentive is there to own up to personal responsibility?

Why do liberals support minimum wage laws, which often disproportionally hurt the already poor, low skilled, minorities, and the young?

For liberals, if a family is faced with the choice of working for $5 an hour, or not having a job at all, liberals would prefer that that family continue to be unemployed. The common argument is that any wage less than minimum wage is exploitation. If that's true, then no wage at all would certainly be far more damaging in comparison.

Businesses, unlike the federal government, do not have an infinite supply of money. The money they do have available to hire is based on the amount of products and services they sell, rather than tax revenue and federal reserve loans in the case of the federal government. If the economy is down, a business sells less goods and services, and thus, may not have enough money available to hire additional employees. This available money for hiring is further squeezed by minimum wage laws, which dictate that an employer must pay at least $X per hour, no matter the job, skills required, or hours needed.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of a business owner for a moment. You run a small graphic T-shirt shop. When the economy was good, you had, say, 30 employees in three locations. When the economy went south, you had to close one location and lay off 10 people. At the same time, the minimum wage increased, so you had to lay off 6 more people keeping your best 14 workers since that's all you could afford to employ. You'd really like to keep all 30 of your workers employed, but after the costs of running the two shops, various taxes, even a pay cut on your own part, you could only afford to keep 14 people.

In walks your neighbor. He just got laid off and needs a job. He never worked in your industry before, but he's worked retail for the last few years so you know he could do the job. Unfortunately, you have to pay him minimum wage, and while you'd really like to help him out, you can't afford to pay him that much. Hopefully the economy picks up so you can hire him, but maybe by then he'll have a new job anyway.

Liberals fail to realize that while minimum wage laws don't impact most of us who already have a job, it certainly impacts those at the very bottom or the currently unemployed. If a business owner has to raise the salary costs for those at the bottom, he or she will have to let some people go if they can't cut costs elsewhere. But they can only cut costs to a certain point until they risk losing money for the business, risking everyone's jobs as a result. This is even worse for the currently unemployed, as they will have the hardest time finding a job with employers keeping a close eye on their bottom lines.

As I said in the question, this policy disproportionally impacts the poor, unemployed, minorities, the young, and low skilled workers. If an employer does have enough extra money to hire additional employees, they are more likely to choose someone with the right sort of experience, so high school kids and recent graduates are likely to have a harder time finding employment. Likewise, minorities, as liberals are often fond of reminding us, continue to face discrimination in employment and don't have the same educational opportunities as non-minorities, ergo, they are at a distinct disadvantage to being hired as they would fall into the low-skilled category.

So again, it's unfortunate that liberals champion a policy that perpetuates the poverty of the most vulnerable among us, unless perhaps that is the goal? There is no moral reason to keep an entire demographic impoverished unless it is to cultivate an aura of dependency and further perpetuate that cycle of poverty. If that is the goal, it is certainly more repugnant than any of the evils (real or imagined) from the conservatives. I certainly hope that is not the goal of such policies, but I wish liberals would explain how such a damaging policy helps to alleviate the poverty of the most vulnerable when it only serves to maintain that poverty in practice.

Why are liberals unwilling to address such questions in a rational and concise manner?

Certainly, I've had responses to these questions. They are usually of the meandering emotionally charged variety. The fallacy of appeal to emotion has no effect on me, and is certainly not a way to win a policy debate. I have laid out my questions and backed up my views with logic and examples. I would like to hear any responses presented in a similar manner.