December 4, 2013
Leonard Pitts, Jr.
The Miami Herald

RE: “Mater si, Magistra no” – Some comments on your column today about the unfairness of the market and how a few good men can smooth the edges plus maybe save everybody’s soul.

Mr. Pitts,

“Martin Luther King, for instance, mused that “there
must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe
America must move toward a democratic socialism.”
Today
You

Denying the major premise is the Rhetorictician’s first response.

School is open.

Is the “wealth” that King speaks of hidden away in a jealously guarded lock box?
Do the 1%ers hire poor people to guard it? Will there be a magic moment when a Democratic Socialist, doubtless a man known for his “fairness”, a trait learned while he was a novice at the church of Community Activism, comes to insert his key, a key tinged with compassion, arrives, accompanied by grateful hordes, to do an Act 2 on the parable of the loaves and fishes?

Samuel Gompers, he of the Labor Hall of Fame, would send one word telegrams to any union locals engaged in contract talks. “More” was his only message. He knew if the man who signed the paychecks had “more” his men would get “more”. He knew that there was no evidence of anyone, anytime, anywhere being hired by a man poorer than himself.

I remember my father’s Oldsmobile. He traded it in for a Hudson. My uncle had a DeSoto. I had a Thunderbird with an 8 track stereo. I never had a Betamax. Thank God for Kansas. Without it Russia would have starved. When India stopped exporting surgeons and importing cement plants they began to prosper. Los hermanos Castro have had the same 3 problems for more than 50 years: #1 – Breakfast. #2 – Lunch. #3 – Dinner. There will soon be more Venezuelans in Broward County than in Caracas. Cash for Clunkers. The Blue Eagle. A “fair” wage. A “fair” price. Rainbow stew. Balloon Juice. Oz. Canute. Happy Days Are Here Again. Venezuela: no toilet paper, no electricity. At least you won’t be able to see yourself wiping your ass with your fingers.

Socialism, as Churchill said, is “like a man standing in a bucket trying to pick himself up by the handle”.

I see this morning where the Dear Leader is going to go on a country-wide tour proclaiming that – A – the rich get richer and – B – the poor get poorer. [It would be snide of me to ask where the Summers of Recovery have gone so I won’t]

His solution – Remember his campaign promise to “fundamentally change the country”? – will be some sort of Democratic Socialism. His bum-kissing lackeys in the press – Remember Chris Matthews getting a “tingle” up his leg? Remember David Brooks marveling at how sharp the crease was in candidate Obama’s slacks? Fast and Furious? The IRS and the Tea Party? Benghazi? Obmacare=FUBAR - will sigh tumescently

The tide will come in. The tide will go out. Winter may come early. Spring may be late.
A look at History shows that Socialism, be it Democratic or more typically, decidedly undemocratic, has never worked.

Only a fool or someone drowning in pseudo-intellectual hubris would dare to think otherwise.

Alas, the only way to make Democratic Socialism function – function, not work – think East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down - is through coercion.

Sign up for ObamaCare or the IRS will fine you.
If you don’t pay they will seize your property and
Put you in jail

“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent
hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and
eat out their substance.”

I wrote the top one; Thomas Jefferson wrote the other.

Laws, particularly laws written by men, are genetically incapable of making poor people rich by making rich people poorer. Laws can make rich people poorer but only once unless they, the lawmakers, make brown shirts and hob-nail boots fashionable again. The thugs masquerading as modern American Liberal Democrats – Did I just repeat myself? – will trample each other to take the blood oath to the Dear Leader.

Off with their heads only works once. Ask the family of the Golden Goose.

As a Roman Catholic I certainly regard the Church as my Mother. As a teacher, no. Particularly in matters where the Pope is not speaking ex cathedra

Kevin Smith
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET

PS – I suppose the Devil can quote scripture but what exactly did you mean when you spoke of “the so-called safety net”. You say that we, as “moral people” must “allow no one to fall – particularly if their penury is through no fault of their own”. Does that mean that poor people with self-inflicted wounds leading to penury are to be treated differently? Who decides what size ladle is to be used for the undeserving poor or the deserving poor? You? Me? The Pope? You may want to take a peek at Rerum Novarum?