Socialism

Peter Finley Dunne was a Chicago journalist in the early part of the last century. He is often remembered for saying that as a journalist it is his job to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. The dictionary definition of afflict is “to cause pain and suffering or to distress greatly”.

Mr. Dunne was a muckraker, a term coined by Theodore Roosevelt to describe a journalist who went after someone or some thing and tried to destroy it.

To bring down the rich and powerful and to build up the poor and helpless was considered admirable and led to attacks on wealthy people and ultimately to big business and big government. Muckrakers like Upton Sinclair brought safe food to the masses and caused the formation of the USDA.

Many journalism schools pointed with pride to the accomplishments of muckrakers and many journalism students aspired to become muckrakers and this was the beginnings of the liberal view that permeates the schools of journalism and most of the main stream medium today.

It is not a big step to go from afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted to redistribute the wealth (or as Obama says, to spread the wealth around) to the famous words of Karl Marx, from each according to his means, to each according to his needs.

This is the reason that you hear people say that we are on the road to socialism. Socialism is a type of government where the assets of the country are owned by the government not by individuals. In such a government individual rights are replaced by group rights, social justice replaces equal justice and equal results replaces equal opportunity.



Jack/John