I don't get it

I don't get socialists. I don't get how they don't see certain things the way I see them. You don't like chocolate? Fine. Raw meat is gross to your touch? Whatever. But so much of socialism is so pretentious and bothers me.

Let's get something in the clear right now: I firmly believe every human being with means has a responsibility to help others in need. Period. Full Stop.

HOWEVER, what is need? What is help? There are some things that are nearly universal in general, but the specifics are all relative. If a family down the road lost income due to some reason - unforeseen or not - and they are having a hard time buying food, should I help? I think so. Should I go to jail if I don't? Should I have someone come and forcibly take some elsewhere-agreed-upon amount of money from me to buy them a dinner a week? This is where I start wondering.

My problem with socialism is this: they want to pay for the "good things" of their reckoning with my money. Without my say so. Yeah - they say I can vote, and I certainly can. But if they get their way, they will make my money go places I might prefer it not go. I'm looking at you, federal government.

Here is where I am different. If I have my way, I will put my money where I want it. I will let others put theirs where they want - and I might even try to facilitate that. Trying to explain that to a socialist is like trying to explain gravity to a 1 year-old. They look at me befuddled, and they tell me I am selfish or unrealistic. They say the only way we can get money from the masses to the "needy" (many are needy, some are stuck that way in a broken system) is to force people's hand. It's only taxes - how wrong could that be? How egregious a deed could be perpetrated by the powers that be in DC?

Well, I say it stinks! I can't not pay my taxes. Yeah - I have freedom. But I don't have the freedom to choose whatever consequence I want independent of the action. I don't want to pay for bureaucrats planning how much about sex they want to teach my kids. I don't want to pay farming corporations to not grow food while people are starving all over the world. I don't want to buy a drug dealer's lunch while he's slangin' on the side. I don't want to pay for that asinine middle management dodging accountability while preventing action in all the bureaucracies my money pays for.

I don't want to pay for global warming mitigation research. I don't want to subsidize ethanol or toxic battery vehicles or wind power. I don't want to pay for bureaucracy! It is a giant waste! Look at the spending in any department in the federal government, and look how much is the infinite layers of middle-managers that don't actually do much or aren't needed. I don't want people trying to spend my money on that.

Socialists need to get real jobs. By the way, have you noticed how few rich people that run a company are socialists? The people creating and maintaining jobs don't tend to be socialists. It is either jealous poor people, self-deprecating bourgeois, or rich athletes/entertainers. None of these people are wealthy in the old-fashioned way: actual work.