Wealth And Poverty In America

     The more I read about the past history of this great country, the more I realize we are currently living through one of its least impressive periods. It should be a lesson to future civilizations, as the rise and fall of ancient republics were to our Founders, that the simple lesson of more government means less advancement is a truism that can not be repudiated or denied. The United States of America has advanced the human condition more than any other nation in world history, but that advancement has come as a result of free markets and commerce, not by the crushing edicts of government.
     As centralized government becomes more entrenched and more powerful in the United States, its primary duty of national defense is left more and more wanting. And even the subterfuge of "social" programs and improvement only improves the status and wealth of government. The proceeding assertion is easily proven by the government's own data. According to census data from the last half century, the poverty rate has actually ticked up. And that after the largest transfer of wealth in human history. The ten trillion plus dollars that has been confiscated from producers and given to none producers has only resulted in enriching government and impoverishing the nation as a whole.
     I know what some will say, "The United States is the wealthiest country on earth, and can afford to help the less fortunate." This is the opiate of compassion that Leftist politicians on both sides of the aisle have used to sell the transfer of wealth. Lack of money does not, in and of itself, cause poverty, it is simply a corollary to it. Just as an abundance of money does not cause wealth but is a result of  behavior and choices of the wealthy.
     Put another way, college education does not cause intelligence, but is simply a corollary of the human trait of intelligence that is inherent in human beings. In the same way money, or lack of it, has no role in the causation of wealth or poverty, but is simply a road sign on the highway of both. Wealth and poverty are deeper issues than the ephemeral nature of money, they are rooted in human traits, or lack there of, which leads one to the former or the latter. And no amount of confiscation and redistribution by government can mitigate poverty or create wealth.
     It is said that if the riches of the wealthy were taken away and given to the poor, in a relatively short period of time the previously wealthy would be so again and those that were poor would resume their former life of poverty. So the result of wealth, i.e. money, will never eliminate poverty, it only can enrich those who play middle man between commerce and individuals. The last 50 years since President Johnson's War On Poverty began has not helped its intended beneficiaries, but has succeeded at impoverishing the nation's morals and values while simultaneously making wealthy a political class which simply lives off the sweat from other men's brows.