A writer professes in a recent letter (“Voters should resist new slavery,” The Daily Progress, April 14) that President Obama is a socialist and that capitalists make life better for everybody, and he cites the political philosopher John Locke’s ideas about property to argue that government has declared “war” on “us, our children and our grandchildren.” I am absolutely appalled by this lack of knowledge.
First, John Locke had this to say about property:
“Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself. The labor of his body and the work of his hands we may say are properly his.” Thus in Locke’s conception, the first property a person has is himself, and the second is his labor (I wonder what the writer’s views are on labor unions?). Locke also says that laws should be enacted “for no other end ultimately but the good of the people.” So let’s consider that proposition.
The last time that taxes were raised on the richest Americans (Bill Clinton did this in 1993), not a single Republican in Congress voted for the bill, claiming — like the writer — that “jobs are lost” and “tax revenues will fall.” You know: economic disaster. Yet this nation went on the longest sustained period of economic growth in its history, Clinton created budget surpluses and we started paying down the national debt (which had been quadrupled by President Reagan and President Bush I). When President Bush II came into office, he promptly cut taxes, squandered the surplus and plunged the nation into more debt (doubling the national debt).
President Obama has been dealt a very difficult hand: two wars (both badly managed) and an economy on the brink due to poor management and deregulated capitalism. Does the writer really think the finance, banking and credit fiasco has made “life better for everybody”?
In the short term, Obama will have to spend more money to alleviate the crisis, create jobs and restore fiscal stability. In the longer term, we’ll have a stronger economy that works more fairly for all. Indeed, that’s what people voted for in the 2008 election.
That’s not socialism; it’s called democracy.
Mark Crockett
Fluvanna County
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