Why Bush shouldn't be blamed for the economic situation.

This is an elaboration to a comment I made on a post by namastelaoshi 

Before starting, I'll state that I am not a Bush supporter, I am neither Republican or Democrat, and I am not encouraging you to go bludgeon businessmen with their own briefcases(though that would be nice on youtube).

Blaming Bush for the economic crisis, I think, is similar to blaming a fireman for a mugging. In free-market capitalism, it isn't the president's job to regulate the economy. According to the constitution, he is Chief Diplomat, Commander in Chief, Chief Administrator, Chief Legislator, Head of Government, and Chief of State. He can help the economy, but it isn't what he was supposed to be elected to do.

The problem, as I see it, is that socialism has been incorporated into a liberal democracy. I have nothing against social democracies, mind you, they can work quite well for small nations. In the US, though, I very often see people living off of welfare, and then bitch about such and such candidate implementing socialism.

I think what I'm trying to say is this: Liberal democracies(nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative) do not protect you from the downsides of life, they only give you the liberty to go for the upsides, and if you get sick, lose your job, etc... and theres nothing to help you, tough shit. Social democracies give you freedoms to do whatever you'd like as in a liberal democracy, but also give you protection from the major pitfalls in life(healthcare, unemployment, etc...). Those are the ones that intervene in the economy.

The U.S. is a Liberal Democracy. Because of this, it has the lowest tax rates of any developed western nation. It is not the government's job to protect the economy, or to bail it out when it fucks up. Free trade will (supposedly)fix itself in time. Honestly, I don't think you can place blame on Bush or any of the government for the crisis, though it IS their informal duty to manage such a crisis after the fact. Blame him if you want for the deficit(I do), but unless you convince America its socialist, you can only blame the actors in the American economy for the crisis.

I do find it kind of funny, though, that so many people think the US isn't at least partly socialist at this point. A number of people I spoke to before the elections stated that they wouldn't vote for Obama for the sole reason that he is a socialist. They were always surprised when I told them the idea of the state funded college they were attending, retirement checks, medicade, welfare, food stamps, etc... were wholly socialist.

The things that get me the most are the people like my uncle, though. He recieves a disability check monthly. His "wife" does also, as well as a compensation for her ex-husband who was a soldier KIA in 2002 I think. The three children she has each recieve a compensation, as well as my uncle's one child, a child-support regiment, and I think, a large helping of food stamps. All-in-all, it totals several thousand monthly, which, in my opinion, is a whole lot of money for doing a whole lot of nothing. They are in no way, shape, or form, good parents or productive members of society; neither parent works, two of the three young ones are barely literate, and all of them except my cousin(the oldest) are bordering on neglect.

Before I rant on further, though, all of this is to make a point. Their entire livelyhood is based on the fact that they can mooch off of a socialist system(s) in a modified liberal democracy. I don't set policy, so that isn't my problem. What bothers me about it is that they supposedly deplore socialism, they swear up and down that socialism and communism are identical, and they rant and rave against any politicial figure that supports it.

To cap off all of this, if you want this changed, if you want the government to actually be responsible for the economy rather than just throw money into the hole, start a referendum, and actually do something. All it takes is one little constitutional amendment.

In any case, if you've gotten this far, I'm up for spirited debate if you disagree with me.