Thanks for the responses. The forest is hard to see for the trees, but some of us can look past and see the whole picture (or at least most of it).
For the "optimists" out there, I am thankful for the smidgen of freedoms we have left, but I can't see a half full glass without thinking about how much fuller it COULD be. Just my nature I guess.
For those who want to know why Socialism is a self fulfilling prophecy, just think along the lines of Marx. All struggle is between classes, haves and have nots. Modern Socialism is not quite a perfect match with Marx' beliefs, but that's the premise.
Modern Socialists seek to "right" this situation through govt, which usually means controlling wealth and redistributing it. They believe that they're playing a zero sum game, in other words if they take a million bucks from Bill Gates and give it to the poor, the poor are a million bucks richer and Gates is a million bucks poorer. This is "social justice" for some people.
Problem is that wealth distribution is not a zero sum game. Gates' wealth is determined by the value of his company which is ever increasing, largely dependent on available capital. The poor don't have the knowledge to use the million as capital and so it quickly disappears leaving them dependent on future checks, where as if Gates had held on to that million, he could have used it to expand his business, which would have created increased jobs and prosperity. Even if he just pissed it away by adding an indoor basketball court to his house he would have created wealth and jobs in the private sector but that opportunity no longer exists.
Instead, the poor are appeased momentarily but they (and the burueacracy that administers the confiscated wealth, which itself needs a good size chunk of the booty to survive) need more next month. So a bunch of good hearted but economically ignorant politicians look at Gates, decide he has "too much" and confiscate another million. Of course the bureaucrats whose jobs depend on the gravy train fully support this decision with graphs and charts and studies up the wazoo.
So, the more wealth that is confiscated, the less operating capital there is in the private sector, which hinders the creation of jobs and opportunity, which contributes to there being more poor people, who need more confiscated wealth from the private sector to keep from starving to death, which prompts more agencies to come up with more statistics that indicate the need for more "programs", which influences the good hearted politicians to raise taxes and redistribute the wealth, which gets them the votes from the ever expanding "entitled class" and keeps them in power and so ever increasing amounts of future wealth are assured to be confiscated and on and on in a vicious circle. All the while the numbers of people who have a stake in the process are increasing exponentially.
Entitlements of all kinds are more than "the camel's nose under the tent," its more like planting cockroach eggs in your pantry (sorry, best analogy I could come up with on short notice).
) little ones.