Socialist

“My Dad is not a Socialist!” my daughter, nine-year-old Patch, has been proclaiming to anybody and everybody lately. “He doesn’t like to talk to people!”

Well … yes and no. Yes, I am not a Socialist, in the sense that I do not advocate extreme confiscation of the individual’s income to create larger and larger government programs to “take care” of other individuals. While I do agree to the value of a (means-tested) safety net, the major drawback I see is the inherent decline of quality under such a system. Lack of free-market competition, to my sense, leads to monopolies that generally could not care less about your satisfaction. I mean, would you rather go to the DMV or have the option of going to one of several independent private entities that provide registration and renewal services for your car and driver’s license? Also, I do enjoy Thatcher’s spot-on quip that, “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

And, no, I do not not like to talk to people. As an introvert, I am very particular about who I open up to and what I speak about. I am definitely not comfortable in large groups of people. I don’t do chit-chat. When I go out for walks in the morning, I do it for the physical exercise and to get my head on straight, not to exchange greetings and salutations and blather about the weather to complete strangers I pass. Extroverts have no comprehension of this, and since we live in a world that won’t shut up, we introverts suffer for it. But I do enjoy talking to people. Certain people, certain topics, in certain situations.

So, yeah, Patch, your dad is not a Socialist.