“Fairness” and “class equality” have become the new buzz words of an Administration that believes that everyone should be meted out equal portions of provision, regardless of station or status. The Utopia of economic justice that lays ahead for all of us is long overdue. Why should some people make more money than others? Why should there be wealthy people at all? It’s just not “fair” and finally we have a President that promises hope and change, which will ultimately serve to even out the inequities that have plagued us as a malevolent, merciless nation for so long.

Bailing out troubled banks and then capping their pay serves them right for being selfish, greedy, upper class blue bloods that care only about their own bottom line. They’ve been voracious in their appetite for more-and-more, higher-and-higher salaries and that avarice has put them in a position of bankrupting themselves. It serves them right! In comes the Dudley Do-Right of economic salvation the United States Government, at the expense of the taxpayer, with a bail out that “saves” these irresponsible organizations and the fat-cats that run them from going under. What could be better then a government that saves the drowning banking system from disaster and, in turn, salvages the common citizen from catastrophic calamity?

There is a catch to all of this that the cheering proletariat’s seem to over look following on the heels of the bailout, which is the swift implementation of government regulation. When banks decided to take the bailout, they opened the door of control and Uncle Sam speedily placed his over sized spat over the door jamb, and once in, is preventing it from being closed. Desperate executives went to the government with hat- in-hand and the benevolent bestowal of bailout money filled their pots to the point that now they have no covering to protect themselves from the brow beating they are about to receive from the same assistance givers. That brow beating is about to come in the form of “…compensation reform as part of a package of stricter regulations on the financial industry… restrictions are a first step toward a larger effort to overhaul pay practices” (Earle, NY Post, 2-4-09).

No one would argue that the governments guiding principle is anything other than appropriate.  You take the money you are now compelled to follow a whole new set of rules. You join the club of government dependency and you have to follow their strategy and are then restricted by their margins. Think of it this way, the government has now become the new CEO of the companies it rescued and they get their bonuses from us, the American tax payer…fair enough!

It should be seriously well thought-out by us common folk that if government intervenes in our personal life, would they become the new nanny and we be converted into a dependent, submissive child? No climbing on the monkey bars– you might fall, no eating sweets before dinner, don’t run too fast, limited TV, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, a daily multivitamin and the proper type of friends. Would every decision we made for ourselves as an individual be relegated to the government for final say? For example, in the area of proposed universal health care, these same bureaucrats who have come down with the edict that bank CEO’s salaries are to be capped based on the government’s contribution of revenue to save their sorry asses, would they be deciding for us restrictions on our yearly health care allotment? If so, this is where “free” loses its meaning and personal costs skyrocket in the form of lives and well being.

If anyone believes that government funded health care would provide an unlimited amount of treatment, visits, drugs or procedures, if that nightmare scenario came to pass and it became a reality, these same people are in for a terrifying wake up call. The class warfare cheerleaders that are championing the capping of salaries on bad, bad bank CEO’s will be the first ones to be bewildered and flummoxed as to why their life-saving open heart surgery would not be covered and that Lipitor would be a more cost effective alternative to the price of a by-pass, which would add years to their lives.

The identical way that taking funds from government for bailouts, accepting the government’s benevolence in the area of health care assistance would carry with it the threat of restrictions, limitations and ceilings, only in this case lives are in jeopardy instead of an inflated yearly bonus package. What the boisterous crowd of proletariat, giving the thumbs down to the CEO’s, aren’t thinking through is that as elderly people themselves, they might one day be in the same arena as those CEO’s getting the thumbs down from a younger more thunderous crowd. It would make sense for the youth to feel that with limited money available for health care they would be more entitled to the funding, based on their ability to contribute to the “common good” or the perceived privilege to be granted more years based on their age. This is where Big Brother, being the Caesar, decides to rule for or against the aged crowd of “useless eaters”.

So as the gathering throng of unruly people encourages the stoning of the bank executives and welcome the government control that they believe is justified and long overdue, it would be wise to contemplate the future choices we make concerning how much power we want to relinquish to the federal government in our own lives. As we stamp our feet yelling, “Stone them, stone them” remember that sitting on the side line lies the potential for our own demise being spelled out in the sand by a system that says, “If you take from me I own and control you.” It would be prudent to consider that our loss of self-governance, in return for the perception of receiving something for nothing, may be the ruin we are encouraging for others brought headlong upon ourselves.