How do libertarians answer when people say “socialist welfare states like Denmark work”?
Beyond the question of “works for whom?” – dictatorships “work” for dictators, kingdoms “work” for kings, empires “work” for emperors, etc. – you could try a metaphor like this:
“It’s easier for a kid to party party party and still graduate from college when he’s living on Daddy’s tuition money than it is for a kid who has to work two jobs to pay her own way.”
But you might get a response like, “Huh?”
So follow up with “Same for all those European democratic socialist republics you’re always jonesing for.”
They’re all heavily subsidized by the tax money that the United States forcibly extracts from YOU and ships overseas to THEM.
The Cato Institute made the reality of this clear to you three years ago. All you had to do was read “U.S. Defense Spending Subsidizes European Free-Riding Welfare States.”
While “the U.S. spends nearly as much on the military as the rest of the world combined,” roughly five percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2010, the Brits spent 2.6 percent, .the French 2.1, Germany 1.15, Italy 0.91, Spain 0.69.
Denmark spent 1.4% of its GDP (2009) on defense so it’s easy to give Danish citizens massive social welfare handouts while they enjoy 33-hour-work-weeks with five-week-vacations plus two years of unemployment benefits since their rich Uncle Sam pays for the bulk of their military defense.
This explains how so many nations in Europe and around the world can build their lavish “successful” social freeloading societies.
If the US stops subsidizing foreign countries those countries will go broke or will have to ditch their state socialism in order to pay for their own defense.
If the US doesn’t stop subsidizing foreign countries while continuing to become the Democratic Socialist Republic of America the US itself will go bankrupt and all those “successful” socialist European countries will domino down with us.
So now that you know that countries based on state socialism exist and thrive around the world “work” only when an outside sugar daddy is paying the bills who will subsidize the US when it’s our turn to be subsidized?
Will Russia be our new friends and subsidize Americans’ socialist wet dreams? How about China? Or maybe the emerging Islamic Caliphate?
There’s no USA-2 to subsidize us. When we go down all of Western culture goes down with us.
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Austerity Kills Dignity, Europeans whine, but sucking the US subsidy teat doesn’t seem to ruffle their self-respect one bit.
