President Obama’s proposal for universal pre-school education appeared to have consensus support at the State of the Union Address. After all, one of the most conservative states, Oklahoma, boasted the most comprehensive pre-school education program. And no research on educational programs has shown more promise for success at school than pre-school education.

So I was shocked to learn in Gail Collins’ column this morning that this same proposal had been defeated by Presidential veto in 1971 and then persistently opposed by Congress in the 1970’s.  Apparently this proposal threatened the integrity of the family and, worse yet, foreshadowed a socialist society. Such rumors seldom lose their  force in households and the halls of government, once they are in circulation.

Bur “socialism” is a code word for sharing with others the benefits we already enjoy.  The subtext for “socialism” is that, once we’ve got ours, we won’t pay for yours. This was the message that undermined the Affordable Health Care Act. Except for a pang of conscience from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, that act would already be nullified.

When Congressional representatives declare that we can’t afford universal health care, what are they saying? We won’t pay for universal health care. We won’t pay for what “me and mine” already have, because that would mean paying for someone else– socialism!

The same argument is likely to emerge with pre-school education, because most comfortable families already provide pre-school education for their children from 2 to 4.  It will be no surprise when these children soar past their peers in grade school and get into the best colleges, because they have a”head start.”

But will we pay for other children to have the same head start?  Not if the relentless drumbeat of “socialism” begins to sound. The comfortable citizens will protest the empowerment of the vulnerable citizens, because they will be given what we had to earn.  We “earned” ours, now you can do the same.

I won’t even go into how arrogant this sounds. I’ll just invoke the Declaration of Independence, which Abraham Lincoln quoted when he composed the Emancipation Proclamation, and which just celebrated its 150th anniversary.

[T]hey are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Lincoln avowed that the black slaves had these same rights, despite their status and value as property 150 years ago.  The economic consequences of freeing human beings once regarded as property were prodigious. It would cost the comfortable households, both in the South and the North, their most valuable assets for the sake of “the pursuit of happiness” of people not commonly regarded as human. According to Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Proclamation stirred discontent across the Union and nearly caused mutiny in the Union army (Team of Rivals).

History ultimately vindicated Lincoln, and the comfortable class yielded its property for the sake of human rights. De facto slavery is no longer acceptable in this country, but inequality is.

If the drumbeat of “socialism” stirs over the proposal of universal pre-school education, let’s call it what it is. It is not a wasteful federal program and something we can’t afford. It is extending opportunities to children who will then compete with our children in school and in life.  It is granting other families what we already enjoy for our own.  It is paying for “the pursuit of happiness,” when we are already pursuing it very well, thank you.

If this is socialism, then democracy belongs only to “me and mine.” You and yours can get your own.