Snowstorm Recovery Reveals Truth About Socialism
There is a silver lining to every snowstorm — getting to know your neighbors both good and bad. With forty inches on my block this week, I’ve learned a lot about my neighbors and, strangely enough, socialism.
My corner of Baltimore seems like a good place to ride out a storm. After all, innumerable cars are plastered with Obama bumper stickers, and windows display signs like “Universal Healthcare Now.” In essence, it’s a very liberal neighborhood in an extremely liberal state. What better neighborhood to be in times of need, right?
The architecture ranges from early 19th to early 20th century row homes, which as a result demands parallel parking. This isn’t a great inconvenience most of the time, but with the snow, it’s an absolute nightmare. First the clouds drop forty inches. Then the city snow plow piles another mountain from the street onto your car.
Successfully liberating the vehicle from its icy prison can take hours. After leaving the spot, anyone can take the laboriously freed space. Restoring regular parking conditions quickly requires everyone chipping in for the common good.
During this street clearing process, my neighbors sorted themselves into four groups:
1.   The Saint (1% of the neighborhood) — Every couple of blocks resides a truly amazing human being living to serve others. He’s shoveling out his neighbors’ cars, dumping bags of rock salt down the whole street, and passing out shovels like he owns a hardware store.
2.   The Good Citizen (15% of the neighborhood) — A caring person doesn’t just shovel enough snow to drive away. He carves out the front and back. After leaving his spot, someone else can parallel park without digging. If everyone did this, normal parking would resume in a day — if not less.
3.   The Self-Interested Person (70% of the neighborhood) — This guy doesn’t really care about helping anyone. He carves just enough in the front to get out. The next person must dig before parking.
4.   The Malicious Creep (14% of the neighborhood) — Instead of shoveling snow to the curb, the creep stacks snow onto his neighbor’s car. This saves the creep approximately fifteen minutes while adding an hour to his neighbor’s work.
While my neighbors love Obama and universal healthcare, they obviously aren’t such good socialists on their own block. This is no surprise; everyone on earth is an armchair Mother Theresa. We all have noble thoughts at the coffee shop or over beers. But when the snow shovel has to come out, so does the truth.
So let’s face it. Universal healthcare supporters are much like the folks on my street. There are a couple of saints, a few good people, and a large chunk who are either self-interested or just plain selfish. Most support it either because they will benefit directly, or they think the tax burden will not be placed on them.
According to a recent Gallup poll only 34 percent believe that healthcare reform will personally increase their costs. Gallup also points out that most don’t think healthcare reform will benefit them personally — hence they are supposedly altruistic. But it’s not altruism when only 34 percent believe that they will do the shoveling.
You don’t think this is true? Just look at the Republican Party’s anti-universal healthcare campaign. The GOP hasn’t appealed to morality or fairness, but instead to selfish elements among universal healthcare supporters. The message is that the plan will cost more for everyone and your healthcare will get worse. So far the campaign has worked.
One can speak sweet nothings while pleasantly sitting around a warm fireplace. But in the end, a snowy day and a shovel will always reveal the selfish nature of a socialist underneath.
Regards,
Vedran Vuk, Casey Research
for Whiskey & Gunpowder
March 2, 2010
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here south of philly, we had three snowstorms dumping 2 feet each
for the first storm, we fairly well matched your numbers…
by the third…there were no socialists left, and no one helped anyone else out
would our desire for universal healthcare break down in a similar way over time?
would those who paid for others healthcare begin to resent it after they saw the personal impact?
i would support universal healthcare..i just dont want OUR government running it
for reasons to numerous to list
The simple truth is there are those who do, those who watch, and those who wonder why they have to do anything at all. Socialism forces those who do, to do without allowing them choice. The enforced compliance for the greater good is counterintuitive motivation for those who already do good. Freedom of choice is what our country was founded on. While the current administration touted “Change”, the reality is “The more things change the more they stay the same.” Taking away our ability to choose “For the greater good” will be the downfall of our great nation.
When there are no consequences for inaction, no action is taken. Sen. Jim Bunning is a great example of taking a stand that is extremely unpopular against those who would continue to erode the motivation of our citizens to be industrious in exchange for the tainted milk at the breast of socialist driven programs.
My neighbor doesnt have a job, so I pay him to mow my yard and shovel my snow. You would think that someone in your neighborhood would realize the cash potential of a snowfall like that and capitalize on it. Didnt any high schoolers offer to shovel snow? Im sure you have some unemployed persons in your location. Of anything, thats what I found most shocking about your article. The fact that there was a money making oportunity with low entry costs and low over head (all you need are a shovel and some sweat equity) and no one took advantage of that speaks volumes.
Indeed the lack of young snow shovelers is very indicative of the trouble this nation faces. I guess I am showing may age, but as a youth I looked forward to snow, so that I could run out and shovel every walkway I could find that had accumulated snow on it. Reliability in this resulted in a group of residents who were depending on my services–services fairly easily provided in the normal snows, but the “big one” would always tax your strength, resolve and ingenuity in getting help with your work. And I guess that is something you always have with you, even though “youth” is decades departed in my case.
But recently, I was still traveling around with my generator, helping neighbors keep their freezers and refrigerators cold during the last hurricane. It just comes naturally, but it is a strange feeling to be so lonely out there doing good for the neighbors.
Vedron,
Enjoyed your article about snowcialism. It make me feel very happy about moving to Oklahoma last year.
If I want the joy of shoveling snow, I actually have to set the alarm so that I will have snow left to shovel.
You see, here we have so many Saints and Good Citizens, that it will be all be shoveled well before noon.
The Self-Interested get educated into helping out, usually by shaming them into it.
We send the Malicious Creeps back to whichever blue state they came from.
Absolutely loving being an Okie!
Dear Vedron:
Moving farther southward…we just had the first snow of the century. Snow falls about every thirty years or more, and I’ve never seen it so heavy. Dang, it must have snowed two inches! I’ve been trying to think of a local equivalent, and the best I can come up with is the reaction to a stray cow on the road. Steal it, drive on by, go up to the house and say, “Ma’am, they’s a good-lookin’ red heifer out on t’ road. Is she your’n?” or to put the cow back into the pasture, ride up to the house, and say, “Ma’am, I found a loose cow, #19, and put her back in your pasture. I knew you’d know which neighbor to call if she isn’t yours.” That one you offer a glass of sweet iced tea and thank prettily. He’ll probably be back some day looking for his coon-hunting dogs, which we’ll have fed.
What a treat, Vedran! Thanks for the deliciously pragmatic compare/contrast piece. As you pointed out, behaviors overlap to give peoples’ true mindsets away in unrelated areas. I am hoping (‘Veddy, Veddy’ much! LOL) that you will share perceptions with us in the future with such man-on-the-street observations. I’d say your assessment of percentages is dead -on – maybe a bit better in truly rural (out on the farm roads) areas where while township grader hits the roadways to plow farmers fire up tractors and “blade” out as best they can to help out, cleaning out driveways of neighbors who don’t have heavy equipment.
Not to break your analogy, but socialism is not defined as “everyone chipping in for the common good”. It’s public ownership of resources and means of production. The closest passing resemblance in your story was the neighbor who handed out all the shovels. In a socialist system, those shovels would be kept in a public shed for everyone to use, whether they set them to work digging themselves out or their neighbors is beside the point.
As for Bruce in his rugged, individualistic red state of Oklahoma, you people have taken in more in federal dollars than you have paid out in taxes for decades. You are living in a parasitic welfare state that has been leeching off the hard work of your hated blue states for years. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Well, here in California – it’s digging out common driveway of mud after a healthy douse of rain.
Those who ‘expect’ it to be done – don’t do it – and are the ones who want something for nothing.
Then there is me and one other guy – who dig out the driveway – after every storm – and understand capitalism.
Nice article Verdan. I think everyone has a similar experiences where there are more takers than givers.
I’m glad to here the neighbors in Philadelphia uilt up trust and helped each other with the snow.
Unfortunately the history communism, where we should all share, turns into a feeding frenzy that destroys trust. The millions of victims from Lenin, Stalin, and Mao are silent testimony to the that.
[...] Snowstorm Recovery Reveals Truth About Socialism [...]
Dear John: You appear to have a very odd idea of what “leeching” is. I did an analysis on whether or not to accept a million dollar grant to a school system and advised against it. That 1M came with 10M in strings the state government had to supply from further taxation. Nobody “wins” when half our income is taken from us, filtered through an inordinately expensive and inefficient bureaucracy, used to buy votes and simply stolen, and an emaciated portion returned to fund projects most of us don’t approve of. Explain to me why any of us should pay for enormous bronze “art” and fountains in front of government (city and state, in particular) buildings. I’m in favor of paying politicians the way Baptists pay their preachers, who can make no more than the median income of their congregations. If I ever think of a government program I really approve of I’ll write an article on it. I can’t even count our armed forces because of the silly, useless, wasteful tasks they are given. If you think others are benefiting excessively, why don’t you go work for lower taxes?
Your missing the point about the so called Health care reform.
If we could affordably provide free health care for everyone in the US most folks would be in favor EXCEPT if that care came with strings which is the case with anything the Feds touch. Then even totally free care is not worth it. To give up so much of our freedom for something we could afford easily if we were not taxed into extinction. No on all counts. The core issue boils down not to cost but to the open door it creates into the most intimate parts of our lives. Even who we date will eventually become a health care cost issue as relatinships gone bad or the lack of a relationship contribute to more deaths each year than smoking, obesity, drinking and drugs combined.
Nothing in our lives will be sacred. The Feds could produce a survey that says those who practice religion Y live longer and cost taxpayers less and guess what. People not of religion Y get taxed for not being religion Y. How is taxing somebody over what religion they do or don’t practice any different than taxing drinkers, smokers and the proposed taxes on sodas?
Obviously we cannot afford socialized medicine and the Obamacare approach would cause %1000 increase in health care in the first 5 years it was instituted. This assumes everybody goes along with it which is not a good assumption. Millions of us will resist tooth and nail and openly be in non-compliance with the law. Insurance IS the problem not the solution. There are many ills plagueing health care today but insurance is the biggest of them. Mandatory insurance is like shooting a drowning man with a fire hose. Tort reform is a distant second needed reform. Nothing in the Obamacare bill will improve costs of the healthcare of Americans one bit and most of it will have strong detrimental effects. People are not opposed just because they personally will see a loss in quality and higher health care costs. They are opposed because their siblings, their parents, their children, their friiends and co-workers will also suffer.
To use your analogy of the snow, Obama care is like trucking snow in with dump trucks and covering entire blocks with fresh snow as well as stealing the tires from every car on the block and then sending you the bill for the work. Republican health care reform ideas are to salt the local airport runways and tell everybody they are free to fly to Florida where there’s no snow. The people however are not just concerned with the snow on THIER car, they care about the snow on the cars of everybody they care about. So while they might not shovel YOUR car, they might go over and shovel the snow from their elderly parent’s car. They’ll shovel their kid’s car and maybe their siblings.