The famous early 20th Century American jurist Learned Hand was once quoted as saying:

“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.”

Contemporary America could take a lot from Judge Hand’s nearly 100-year-old quote. We seem, on balance, far too eager to surrender our powers of choice or control in favor of convenience, time, alleged fairness or in order to get someone else to foot the bill.

Indeed, the so-called “progressive” agenda is fraught with just such ideas.

The first and perhaps most troubling symptom of progressivism is the plethora of government programs that are called for. Do Americans really want socialized healthcare? A slim majority of Americans polled seem to believe they do, while in subsequent polls double-digit majorities of Americans have faulted the government’s handling of everything from Social Security to the economy.

It can’t really be both ways. If Social Security, for example, were a business, it would have plummeted into the depths of bankruptcy decades ago. The CIA and NSA can’t get the job done without rewriting or whiting-out the rulebook by which the nation is run. We won’t even mention such impotent creatures as the IRS, Department of Education, or any federal agency with the word “budget” in its name.

In short, if Americans want things to be bungled, mishandled, fumbled, overpriced, and underfunded then their government is just the organization for the job.

It is also quite interesting to hear how the so-called “progressives” intend on paying for all these bloated, moribund, and ineffective services: Taxes.

Oh, sure, they may call them “user fees” or some other fancy name, but a tax by any other name is still a tax. At least in the private sector you get to choose who takes your money.

Yeah, socialized healthcare is supposed to help the poor and impoverished. If Americans cannot afford quality private healthcare under the current system, what’s to say they’ll be able to afford substandard subsidized care? Who really wants to have the government deciding who gets treatment and when? Effectively the government would be made our HMO, and at least the HMO was more efficient.

Physicians polled in Canada, a nation with a long history in socialized healthcare, appear to abhor the institution by a ratio of nearly 4 out of 5.

Then there’s the very verbiage by which ideas like this are known. The fact that the very term “socialized” has worked its way into American political ideas is troubling. After all, the second word in the acronym U.S.S.R. was “Socialist.” Did 53,000 Americans die in Vietnam, a nd did we stand on the brink of civilization-ending conflict so that we here in America could later adopt the very Communist principles that some now espouse?

First it is socialized healthcare, then what? We already lament the wage disparity in this country – is a socialized wage system next?

One of the foundational principles of this nation is the idea that you are what you make of yourself. Work hard, get an education, and practically anything can be yours, provided you go about life in an intelligent manner.

That is, of course, until your government comes along and takes an exorbitant percentage of your hard-won earnings with the aim of supporting others who didn’t bother with your level of education, your level of effort, or your depth of commitment.

Socialization – we might as well call progressive ideas what they really are – will result not only in the degradation of our rights and American ideals, but also eliminates any incentive for improvement. Without competition, there is no improvement. Capitalism is not and never was meant to be fair. Life isn’t fair. Get over it.

Our system rewards hard work and ambition. The only obstacle that may ultimate hold us back is our own government and ourselves. Socialism – the scourge that once built walls across Europe and led to the deaths of many millions across the Soviet Union and China is not dead. Indeed, it appears to live and thrive within our own politics. But Judge Hand was right, we are not socialists – our liberty lies within ourselves. Vote wisely in November.

– Ryan Frederick is a senior in management from Orient.