"But I Paid For It"

All the old paintings on the tomb walls
They do the sand dance don't you know
If they move too quick
They're falling down like a domino
--Bangles

A dilemma facing Tea Party and other small government types concerns entitlement program payouts. Because they have been forced to pay into Social Security, Medicare, during their working lives, many believe it only fair that they should be able to access funds from the system when they retire, reach a certain age, or are in need.

That would be reasonable if a) they had entered into a contract voluntarily, and b) if program administrators had justly managed inflows so that participants could in fact take out what they put in.

Unfortunately, neither is the case. They did not sign a valid contract. Instead, they were shaken down at the point of a gun--forced to surrender production to strong-armed agents. Arguing for an entitlement payout based on past pay-ins is like arguing for a thief to return property stolen in past robberies. The victim may have just claim on those stolen goods but it is not contractual in the classic sense of the word.

Which brings us to the more despicable second point. The thieves who confiscated past entitlement pay-ins have already spent their booty. Entitlement program administrators are running one of the greatest pyramid schemes in history--confiscating resources, consuming them, and then relying on confiscation from future generations to politically satisfy previous victims.

Stated differently, in order for those ripped off in the past to be made whole, then they must be willing to commission the same strong armed agents who stole from them to shake down a new group for some of their production in an ongoing Ponzi of generational theft.