A Quick but Revealing Dialogue

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“Food for Thought” is an original column appearing every other Tuesday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. He is not a member of any social network, nor does he plan on becoming one. Archived columns can be found here. FFT-only RSS feed available here.

While lawn bowling this afternoon someone mentioned last night’s presidential debate and a few opinions were interchanged, and it was over. However, my bowling opponent, Roy, then told me that “the trouble with this country is that there is not enough socialism.” So I told him that the trouble with this country is that most people would agree with him. He was quiet for a few seconds and then asked me if I own any insurance policies. I answered in the affirmative. His response was, “that makes you a socialist.” I didn’t bother to respond to such an asinine statement since it would be like talking to the wall. However, the following are some of my private thoughts concerning this typical left-wing ideology and in my opinion, all the other left-wing, socialist, progressive ideologies in this country. Although it also applies to the ideology of conservatives it’s easier to identify in the left-wing community because it’s so obvious and ubiquitous.

His remark demonstrates his inability to recognize essentials behind a concept. For him, the fact that I purchase insurance demonstrates that I am willing to voluntarily participate in a “collective” event, in order to keep costs as low as possible, for the purpose of sharing risks. For Roy, the fact that insurance is a collective effort makes me a collectivist (socialist) and a hypocrite, in his eyes.

He fails to distinguish the difference between my voluntary participation in collective risk sharing and the violent coercion of forced participation in the socialist programs, which he favors. The essence of private insurance involves voluntary participation. The essence of socialism is coercion with government gunmen (policemen, FBI agents, federal marshals, law enforcement officers of the justice department etc.) enforcing their programs against all who disobey.

Liberals take it on faith and with great emotion that the programs that they favor are humanitarian efforts to do good, while they fail to recognize that their means are no different than the means used by every dictator, tyrant, monarch, king, and thug in history—Mafia tactics.

This incident is just another demonstration of how every politically oriented “mind” works. For them, words and concepts have no meaning and are just arbitrary constructs designed by their enemies to impart meaning to life, but where according to them, life has no meaning. Nihilism rules.


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