Social Security was a great idea that worked very well for a long time. And it would still be working just fine, except that the politicians decided to rob the till. They promised to pay it all back, but didn't, and when they got away with it the first time, of course robbed it again, and again, and again.
Now they tell us that it's costing us too much money, so they want us to pay more, and pay longer, or stop it all together. But they don't tell us that the reason it's out of money is because they stole it all. And like the morons that most of us are, we believe their lies and excuses. We believe that it's our fault that we can't have a national retirement or public aid system that works for everyone. Just like we believe that we can't have a national health care system that works for everyone. That, too, is a lie.
The bottom line is this: we instituted a national retirement/public aid program because we didn't want to treat each other like some third-world backwater plutocracy that allows their old people and children and the sick to die in the streets and live under bridges. And we knew that this is what would happen if we were not willing to set up some way of making sure everyone got the basic necessities of life.
Many of us can work and save and take care of ourselves. But some of us can't. Misfortune happens. People get old and feeble, they get sick, they go crazy, they suffer setbacks that they can't overcome. So we set up a program that has everyone who is working pay into it, and when they become unable to work, they can then draw money out of it to live on. And because most of us can pay in, and some of us will die before collecting any of that money back, there was enough of a surplus to cover those few who couldn't pay in but still needed help.
It was a great idea, and it worked really well for many years.
But unfortunately, as I said, the politicians decided to steal the money, and like idiots we allowed them to. So now the fund is going broke, and they are lying to us about why. They are telling us that it's because we think we deserve help that we don't deserve. They're telling us that it's because too many of us are getting old and not dying. They're telling us that our neighbors are cheating the system, and stealing from us. But the truth is that they stole the money, themselves. They squandered it and promised to pay it back and they never did.
All we need to do to fix the system is force the government to pay back what they stole, and then keep them from robbing the till again. But of course they squandered the money, so paying the money back means that WE have to replace what they stole. And of course we don't like having to do that. The sad truth is that a lot of us really don't care if our neighbors die in the streets or live under bridges, anymore. We are no longer the kind of people and society that we once were, when we instituted the Social Security program. So there are a lot of us, now, who want to go along with the politician's lies because we don't want to have to pay back all the money they stole, and we think we'll be able to take care of ourselves without it. So screw everyone else. We're an "every man for himself" kind of place, now days.
We once were a great nation, and a great and compassionate people. Now we're just a bunch of losers, liars, thieves, and selfish morons.
It's a very sad story, really.
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