Today a large number Americans have a favorable view of socialism and a poor view of our free enterprise system.  A recent survey showed that about 40% of the people have a positive view of the socialist direction many of our democratic politicians are suggesting. This idea goes against America’s basic premise, which is: Governments reason for being is to facilitate individual accomplishments and the pursuit of happiness.

Some of this is caused by the basic instinct that people have for security, many people may think the real reason is the basic instinct is for freedom, but Maslow proved that wrong with his hierarchy of needs. First we need security and many do not feel that they have it so they just want to be taken care of by letting the government provide for them.

Many believe that inequalities of wealth that are produced by individuals do not deserve society’s fruits and benefits from their work. This then increases the pressure to reduce the economic inequality by direct government intervention to remedy the perceived unfairness of the situation.

Elizabeth Warren, a former member of Obama’s administration when campaigning to become a U.S. senator from Massachusetts first said the words that later were repeated by Obama: “Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. . . . If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Thus progressivism like Warren preaches is social engineering by the regulatory state to correct this problem. They believe that by taking away gains by a few and redistributing to the masses we can somehow make things equal. There is something to be said for the point that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we use things done by society to enhance life.  Almost everyone contributed by taxes, which are used to build these enhancements. This has happen because we got wealthy and paid more taxes to build more things like highways, bridges and schools. Today they are saying let’s take more from those earning it and share that with those who are earning little or nothing.

The reason that such a political idea has been able to advance is that Americans who believe in limited government, welfare reform, and states’ rights have not been paying attention and have missed the facts that a dangerous ideology is gaining ground. A socialist crowd that we thought had left behind in the dust of failure is now winning the hearts and minds of our students. They now prefer an America that would look drastically different from what it has been from its founding through the present day.

Little did we know that the fires of socialism were being fueled all across America in our colleges and universities where it is held in high regard. The ideologies of professors and educators have driven the system to show the benefits of socialism and Communism which are taught from the Ivy League to the local community college. A generation has been taught a lie.

Socialism preaches self-assured social engineering by the regulatory state. Capitalism urges government humbleness in the face of society’s great wealth. Government should tread lightly when it endeavors to re-engineer society because  dependency on government for various entitlements has grown, so has the dependency on government-provided opportunities.

Government needs to get back to basics. They have developed their own political class with a tendency to overestimate the importance of public policies they put forth and from which they derive a huge sense of self-importance.