Sometimes it’s difficult to see through to the reality of a situation when too much smoke or dew clouds your vision. Let’s address a few misconceptions then:
1. Social Security is unlike other insurance because it’s mandatory.
Actually, there are many situations where the state has determined that its best interest is served by making insurance mandatory. Medicare is not Social Security and it is deducted, in most cases, by the same process. When you live in Florida, you’re required to buy flood and wind insurance if the state classifies your neighborhood or the height of your home above sea level in a particular manner. Many states also require that you obtain a minimum level of insurance before you can legally drive your car.
Did Oatney buy title insurance when he recently became a homeowner? He may not have been happy about it - though he would subsequently have become happy about it if the happens-to-everybody-but-me scenario where the title turned out to be bad actually were to occur to him….
2. I’m not yet 30, but I’ve decided to retire at 52 and live to be 79 years old.
This gem (a variation of it, anyway) was posted by Adam in comments to Oatney’s post. Adam didn’t say he’d live to be 79… he said he plans to live "a long time" after he turns 52 and retires.
What the "world-revolves-around-me" conservatives will never understand is that you cannot make policy for the masses on the basis of what each conservative thinks of himself. Every conservative in America is capable of taking care of his own. Every conservative in America will save enough on his own to not need Social Security. Every conservative in America will invest in such a way that he earns the average rate of return…sorry… BETTER than the average rate on his investments.
For every thousand Adams retiring at age 52, a number that can be extremely well predicted based on life expectancy rates will just not live to the age of 55 - regardless of what those individuals have written in their little notebook that say "Rush Limbaugh is my hero!" on the cover.
Does Adam know of an annuity that you can take out without specifying the term? There’s only one… it’s called Social Security.
3. People smoke because the government permits cigarettes to be sold. People fornicate because the government doesn’t crack down on it. People don’t invest their money wisely because they know that Uncle Sam is going to protect them.
This is my favorite conservative drivel. I could save a hundred times what Adam thinks will cover him for "a long time", and if my Multiple Sclerosis one day goes from "hardly there" to "wake somebody up to help you out of bed, big boy"… and the government still doesn’t provide healthcare coverage… my money will run out rather quickly. Well, that’ll just go to show that I planned badly. After all, I would have spent the money I intended to use to go to tractor pulls in my dotage on medicines and doctors.
But people have to take personal responsibility. And if you suffer a condition that depletes your savings… say an accident that leaves you unable to work long before you turn 52…. suck it up, Liberal!
If you’re a conservative and you live long enough…and you have ailments… you become a liberal.
4. Social Security should be optional.
People should have the choice to pay into the Social Security system, or pay the same amount into some sort of annuity, fund, or insurance that can grow in value and deal with their long-term needs. The reason that some people think this can never be allowed is that reasonable and responsible people would choose the second option, and we need the government to take care of us, as opposed to taking care of ourselves.
I’m just never going to understand how somebody can even read that back to himself without just looking up and saying, "this is a really stupid thing to say".
All reasonable and responsible people could choose the second option… and there would still be unreasonable and irresponsible people in America… and there would still be reasonable and responsible people that were overtaken by events beyond their control.
It is these people and not the others that REQUIRE a safety net program like Social Security. It’s unfortunate that the "reasonable and responsible" people in America (i.e,. conservatives ) are so unreasonable and irresponsible as to claim that there are no "unreasonable and responsible"…or "unfortunate in spite of their efforts"… people in America.
Once you accept that there are unreasonable and irresponsible people in America - and that you don’t want them to spend their old age begging for table scraps - you realize that America needs a social security program for them… not for you.
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