Sweet and Elderly ... Socialists!

T’other day I had the pleasure of meeting a married couple, probably in their mid 70’s, at my favorite local coffee shop. The older gentleman first introduced himself to me and we hit it off right away. He turned out to be an absolutely charming fellow who struck me as one who enjoys a good conversation. And so we conversed.

Our topics for discussion flowed naturally from their world travels, life experiences, until the inevitable was bound to come up in a conversation like this one: the current recession. It only took one, maybe two sentences out of each of our mouths to realize where the other was coming from. Both the older gentleman and his lovely wife were amazed that someone as young as I am was not more liberal than they were.

I took the opportunity to politely mention that I believe that “in many cases less government involvement, specifically aimed at Social welfare, can accomplish more of the same things that everybody wants.”

Sweet Old Man: “You know … in Germany they have a safety net for people to fall back on, and they absolutely love it.”

Casey: “I understand where you’re coming from, and the European perspective on things, but while Socialism sounds wonderful it just doesn’t compare with Capitalistic free-market societies.”

Sweet Old Lady: “You sound like a Republican.” [Said to be a bit insulting, but was not crossing any lines =)]

Casey: “Actually, I am a registered Republican, but I am far more conservative than the Republican Party, especially when it comes to moral and fiscal concerns.”

Sweet Old Man: “Well, it appears we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Casey: “That’s the remarkable thing about democratic forms of government: the option to have disagreement with the government. Would you agree the same cannot be descriptive of purely Socialistic societies?”

Sweet Old Man: [With a twinkle in his eye and a brilliant smile] “You’re a clever one.”

From there we moved on to discuss other things, but I was astounded that such sweet people who enjoy luxuries like world travel would endorse Socialism. I’m finding more and more folks are open to Socialism … even Marxism! It seems to me that people are fearful of openly affirming Capitalism and free-market economies. Whenever I mention the subject of an increase in taxes people’s heads seem to turn the other way, as though they would rather not think about it.

Conversations like this one cause me to be thankful and to count my blessings, because we do live in the greatest nation in the world with more freedoms than any other people group.

Rustoleum