Unfairness

In a fair world, I would have millions of dollars at my disposal, several awards in the field of excellence, be encrusted with emeralds and rubies with the Hope Diamond in the centre of my forehead and walk around with the staff of Ra. I also wouldn't have to hear about Michelle Obama's classlessness (giving an eighty-three year old woman an IPOD with your husband's speeches is just as inspired as a DVD set they can't play in Great Britain) or her fat butt, and I certainly wouldn't have to hear the popular press fawn and drool over her.

Alas, I have none of these things. It's wishful thinking (though I really hope to have the staff of Ra one day). I do have to hear endless details about the Obamas' vanity and even more so, the president's plans to socialise America.

Dr. Charles Krauthammer has a fascinating bit of insight on Obama's real agenda- turning a huge bastion of capitalism (America) into a socialist state. The president calls it "fairness". However, socialism doesn't have a very good track record.

Socialism, as a political system, requires that the state own the means of production in order to meet the public good. Essentially, one centralised government would control everything from the production of essential items in factories to farms to schools and to health care. This might sound reasonable when one thinks of those left behind in the capitalist system but one has only to look at socialism's great failures to see how it can't work.

The ingenuity and hard work of an individual is rewarded by payment of some kind in the capitalist system. One is rewarded for his merits and allowed to make a living. Under socialism, the government decides how best to use and compensate an individual. For example, a pianist may be lauded for his talents and perhaps hired by an orchestra in an capitalist environment. If a socialist government doesn't need or want a pianist, this individual is rather stuck. He might be put elsewhere (if he is lucky). He is also at the mercy of an all-reaching government as opposed to an employer he might leave if displeased. Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the greatest Russian composers, faced this kind of persecution under Stalin. His talents were governed not by his own desires but by a totalitarian state.

One of Obama's desired areas of "change" is in the area of health care. It is proposed that health care decisions are determined by the government as opposed to a medical staff (like in Canada). A doctor's expertise would be over-ruled by the government which can refuse to pay for treatment. It's one thing not to be able to afford a treatment; it is quite something else to have your own elected bodies refuse it. Let's not forget that once the Soviet Union fell, there was no health care (such as it was) for anyone.

One way to achieve these important socialist milestones would be to raise taxes. America is cash-strapped. The government has already used taxpayers' money to bail out companies and banks (things which should have looked down the barrel of regulations) and now, in order to have things like socialised medicine, it will have to raise taxes. Where will the American government get the money from?

This would be done in the spirit of "fairness". The Soviet Union wasn't fair. Cuba's health care system is godawful, no matter what Michael Moore says. Educational choice in Sweden is monopolised by the government. North Korea is a prime example of misery at its worst.

For a well-off man (like Lenin), Obama hasn't walked a mile in the average American's K-Mart-bought running shoes. His talk of fairness will end up being- as history has shown us- "unfair".