Here is one of the best Mark Steyn columns I have ever read.
“America’s Greek Tragedy”
We hard-hearted small-government guys are
often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare.
But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more
selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government:
Once a chap’s enjoying the fruits of government health care,
government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all
the rest, he couldn’t give a hoot about the general societal interest;
he’s got his, and to hell with everyone else. People’s sense of
entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense……
Think of Greece as California: Every year an
irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and
better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class.
And think of Germany as one of the less-profligate,
still-just-about-functioning corners of America such as my own state of
New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn’t pay. You’ll wind up bailing out,
anyway. The problem is there are never enough of “the rich” to fund the
entitlement state, because in the end it disincentivizes everything
from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct,
as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they’ve run out
Greeks, so they’ll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In
Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French
farming because they stick Americans with their defense tab. And, in
America, Obama, Pelosi and Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to
catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?
