My veterinary clinic is on Laurel’s Main Street, so traveling it several times per day allows me to observe the bustling downtown district. At first I was surprised to see twenty-something young men skateboarding on the sidewalks at two o’clock in the afternoon. “Why aren’t these able bodied folks at work,” I thought to myself. To give them the benefit of the doubt I figured they must work the nightshift, so this mid-afternoon roll around town was the equivalent of my daily pre-dawn run. Bully for them. I began to question my rationalization noticing these same boarders at all hours of the evening. The night I spotted a frumpily dressed youngster, talking on a cellphone while sipping on a $4 latte I realized this group was part of the American population who have dropped out of the workforce; a progressive casualty of hope and change. Do you remember the spin Obamacare was relieving Americans of job-lock; folks employed only to maintain their health insurance? I am speculating this latte-lad was not suffering from job-lock.

Back at my office, the plot thickened while I was treating Cache, a dog with painfully plugged anal sacs. I was visiting with Kathy, Cache’s owner, while I squeezed his anal sac secretion onto my sleeve; being a veterinarian is not as glamourous as it appears on television. Kathy mentioned her part-time job with Yellowstone County’s newest, major retailer. Part-time may be a bit of a misnomer, as most of her shifts are nine, solid hours and her employer is frantically, but unsuccessfully looking for more good help; a problem becoming commonplace throughout Montana. This fact begs the question, why doesn’t the jobless skate boarder get on the payroll with Kathy? Likely, he does not want a job; an answer so foreign to my way of thinking I cannot begin to follow his logic.

President Obama recently boasted how the nation’s unemployment rate had dropped to 5.9 percent; a fictitious number fabricated by only listing people actively looking for work. The $4 latte-lad never gets counted. Dependency has squelched the desire of the downtrodden to improve their lot in life, so a record number of Americans survive only by subsidy. No nation in history has ever become rich by taking money from one group and giving it to another under the guise of compassion. However, one thing is certain, nations pursuing wealth redistribution have created a tyrannical ruling class with which to control the unwashed. For proof how dependency can enslave a population, look at Montana’s seven Indian tribes. In less than a century, self-sufficient Indian nations have become hopelessly trapped in government programs. It is not racism causing the less-than-stellar societal conditions on our reservations, it is socialism. Before the latte-lad even realizes it, he too will be completely dependent on handouts with his only option at climbing the ladder is to be a more effective beggar than his neighbor. To think otherwise is racism.

Because I do not wish to see America follow our Indian friends into despair, let me offer a little advice to my boarder friend. He may never read this, but some young man or woman in the hinterlands may learn enough to break free of the ruling class indoctrination. You have been misled. Those who say you get less because some evil corporation has cheated you out of something which is rightfully yours are manipulating you. Their solution is always the same; elect progressives promising to punish corporations and the wealthy so as to give you free stuff. When you fall for it, you are imprisoned in dependency like the American Indian, the producers are enslaved by taxes and regulation with the ruling class enshrining themselves in absolute power.

Here is the truth. America is not evil, she is great, with her strength not coming from diversity or equality, but from freedom. The only function of government is to secure the rights endowed by your Creator. The idea of the ruling class dividing everything so we each have the same stuff is a principle of Marxism, not liberty. Free market capitalism creates economic growth which in turn provides economic liberty. If $20, $30, or $40 per hour jobs are abundant, government programs quickly become a nuisance rather than a necessity which explains why collectivists fiercely oppose capitalism. If you buy the lie, you soon will have no choice but to kneel and lick the hand that feeds you.