You've heard it before right? If we keep on "feeding the beast" (as Reagan would put it) and helping poor people, the Government will suddenly transform like a warewolf into a socialist dictatorship.
One problem - this is not how communist dictatorships formed. They were generally fuedal societies that were violently overthrown by a revolution of angry, desperate poor people and their authority was replaced, deliberately, by a one party state.
Ok fine, so there isn't really a historical precident for the welfare warewolf. But surely if the government keeps helping poor people we will eventually turn out to be a monster, won't we? Well I can't answer that question (how do you answer stupid?) but I can talk about how far other countries have gone in helping the poor without (shock horror) awakening the welfare warewolf.
In my home country of Australia, minimum wage is over $15 an hour and in practical terms around $20 an hour. We have universal healthcare, the top marginal tax rate is 45% and the tax free threshold is about $20000 dollars a year. We have a price on carbon, permanent welfare (that only ceases if you stop applying for jobs), unions several times larger (adjusted for population) and more powerful than those in the USA, a 37.5 hour working week with significant bonuses for any overtime or weekends worked and a minimum of 4 weeks holiday a year. I could go on but you get the picture.
Guess what? Australia is one of the most right wing countries in the western world. So chances are, if a welfare warewolf exists, America is no where near waking it up.
more after the jump
As much as I joke about the welfare warewolf myth, there is a serious side to this. The Anti Defamation League (ADL) would never tolerate Nazi references being used to cheepen our debate and most of us have become mature enough to observe "Goodwins' law" - i.e. if you bring up anything about Nazis in a debate that has nothing to do with Hitler or the holocaust you lose that debate.
Well, communism was every bit as horrific as the holocaust. Why is it ok for republicans to cheepen this horrific event in history by bringing it up every time there is a policy dispute? After all, lets face it, when republicans cry "socialism!" they aren't talking about Australia or some of the benign ways the term has been used historically. References to socialism and class warfare are references to the specter of communism.
So I propose a new "Goodwin's law": if you say socialism, marxism, communism, class warfare or anything related during a policy debate which has nothing to do with the violent overthrow of the Bourgeoisie and the establishment of a dictatorship by the proletariat, you have lost that debate.
By the way, this is one of the most effective pieces of republican rhetoric. I know many conservatives that openly say they would love the government to help the poor more but fear it would lead to a dictatorship. Once this myth has been dispensed (and amazingly they are often shocked), the republicans I know become surprisingly more open minded.
I'm left wing and I'm a fundamentalist Christian (a term I wear with pride). My diary discusses culture and politics from a left wing fundamentalist perspective