As I was passing along the Count Us In! Campaign link to my friends, I included people that I know from across the political spectrum.  I mean, on face value, personal accounts don't necessarily fall under one party over another.  Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was for personal accounts before he was against them.

Yet, without honestly evaluating the petition, two of my more liberal friends immediately shot me back a series of arguments against Social Security reform.  While their arguments were underdeveloped, poorly researched, and easy to answer, I was actually frustrated with one argument in particular: People are too dumb to handle their own money.

I used to hate this quote: "Give a man a fish, you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime;" but I think it really rings true in this situation.  For all of those 16-year-olds flipping burgers or even the non-political, non-economics major college students and grads, shouldn't we as a country strive to raise their financial awareness, educate them on decisions that will seriously affect their retirement, and help improve their quality of life?  Rather than empower people, my friends would rather have the government make all of the decisions without offering up even a second option.

One of my friends argued that educating people under a personal account system would be "costly," "be making decisions for people" and be equivalent to "government paternalism."  I would expect better logic from a National Merit Scholar, but nevertheless, I think he is flat out wrong.  While it could be costly in the short-term, the long-term benefits of awareness and education to a society are priceless.  I also don't think anything could be more paternalistic than entire country blindly paying money into a entity that doles out a monthly allowance during retirement.

I certainly hope for the sake of my generation this view is few and far between.