It wasn't my choice... What has that phrase lead us to?

I was reading a new @ura-soul post that was about Compassion, Heart, and Heartlessness and I made a comment more as an addition, caveat to what he posted. I mentioned socialism. I realize that most socialist movements act upon the desire to "help" other people. The problem is they do that by laws, mandates. It is movements that force compliance from everyone to "help" in the way that was dictated by whomever created the law/mandate. This means it takes the opinion of the law maker and it forces its action upon everyone. The intentions were good, but none of us are omniscient super beings that are experts on all nuances. Such things remove choice. I've stated before in my own posts and I posted it in the reply to @ura-soul. Compassion requires choice. If you did something and had no choice to choose to do or not do that thing without legal repercussions then that removes compassion from the situation. True compassion requires that a person could choose to help or not help without legal consequences and they choose to help on their own and HOW they want. That was their choice. That was compassion.

Let me exaggerate the situation as an explanation. If I decide to build a big orphanage to help all the children without homes with exceptional education, and food services is that compassionate? What if I told you that it was built by a chain gang of slaves who are forced to build it or face the whip, or starvation? Would those slaves be building the building because they are compassionate? I say the answer is no. If you are forced, then compassion is removed.

When I use the term socialism. I must define what I mean as there are many different definitions and interpretations. Socialism for me is forced (via law, mandate, etc) redistribution of labor, property, or income in the false guise of compassion and welfare.

Now ultimately I have said all of these things in different ways in other posts before. I did have a moment of different thought on this though.

I believe not only does a preponderance of socialism limit opportunities for true compassion, I think it ultimately makes people less compassionate. It corrupts and rots society. All in the guise of "helping".

The problem is not with trying to help. The problem comes from taking the right to choose away from people.

People will pay into laws, and will pay their taxes. I don't know that I've ever encountered someone that is happy about paying their taxes, and how those taxes are put to use. They simply have no choice.

So along comes the socialist promising free education, free health care, housing assistance, food assistance, etc. When the government doesn't produce anything but laws, waste, debt, and war. They have no product. This means every single FREE thing the government or politician promises you and everyone else are FORCED to pay for in one of two ways. You will pay for it either in the form of increased taxes, or in the form of increased debt. Make no mistake you are responsible for your portion of that debt. So that debt could be viewed as the government being able to get credit cards in your name. There is a catch. You don't get to use that credit card yourself. The government use it in your name. We keep running into situations where the government reaches their debt limit.

We see the propaganda system kick into overdrive putting tons of emphasis on government shutdown. When it happens they make sure to have lots of expensive newly printed signs at all the national parks telling you they are closed due to government shut down. They often have security present to also make certain you can't get on those parks. Several decades ago most of those gates didn't exist. There was not much of a need for security guards. So would it be a bad thing if we went back to that? It seems like we'd save money.

Yet, by blocking national park access and tying it to government shutdown (even though government was not necessary for you to have access to such places only a few decades ago) they make it hurt for the common man. The common man whines and they pass bills to increase the debt ceiling. What this amounts to is authorizing them to take out another credit card in your name. It makes one wonder how many credit cards you are going to allow them to max out before you say "Shut down" and make them feel it. The government is incredibly wasteful and unlike regular people they have no clue how to balance budgets or fix these problems. Why? They don't have to. We keep giving them the right to put each of us further into debt.

That is the price of "free" things. This is one of the reasons unlike most people I was not a Bernie Sanders fan. I actually thought he was an idiot IF he actually thought he was giving people what he was telling them. If his true goal was control and power like most socialist leaders have ended up being after in history then he is brilliant. People love to be promised FREE things. The problem is most people have no clue that the government can't give you anything for FREE. They don't produce anything of value to cover the cost. So "free" is fake. IT is stealing from you and I.

One thing I've noticed is that when people have no choice, they get further and further from self responsibility for the consequences of the action. So while we are responsible for all of these problems because we permit them to continue in our name, most people will say the "It's not my fault". They'll get so far removed from choice that their life becomes less and less about choice. Those cases where they suddenly have a chance to make choice they may be too quick to say "sure just do it!" rather than spending much time thinking about it. They care less about the choice, and more about getting back to their life which was interrupted.

I'd say that compassion is dying on the vine. Right beside it on other withering vines are responsibility, and self-reliance.