“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace….We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” ― Samuel Adams
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
While I was on Twitter, a few years ago, I would jump in on threads where socialism and capitalism were discussed (Better, the terms were tossed about.). The anti-capitalists would denounce capitalism as “unfair” and the rich as “greedy” while insinuating “equality” and “fairness” occurred naturally within the materialist realm of socialism. As an example, they pointed to Scandinavian countries (where, amazingly, none of them had the gumption to take up residence. That would take initiative and responsibility and money on their part.)
The anti-capitalists, assuming a superior moral position, never talked in-depth about the mechanics of socialism other than it being a redistribution of wealth from “rich” to “poor” via confiscatory taxation. And, whether they were oblivious to or welcoming of the growing soft despotism in America that gives people the illusion that they are in control, I could not determine.
On Twitter there were also those who proclaimed Jesus to be a “Progressive”. They offered a litany of “Progressive” attributes assigned to Jesus, among them “anti-rich”, their presumed antithesis to “Blessed are the poor” [“…in spirit”]. There were those, too, who said that the early church was an example of socialism because the early Christian shared everything in common. Apparently, these folks had never read that Jesus warned about the dangers of the love of riches and not that someone who was rich shouldn’t be. Did these folks also not comprehend that the early church did what they did out of love and not out of coercion?
In the current hopped-up milieu of socialism as social justice*, what is the mystique and lure of socialism, central planning, and top-down government when …
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing.
For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances – what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself.
Long before social media came around fostering populist socialism, I inured myself against the idea of a free lunch. In the 80s I watched Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free to Choose Series on TV. The following video is part of that series.
Plain-spoken Milton Friedman, economist of the Chicago School of Economics, addresses the issue of social responsibility that seems to be the motivation behind a rejection of capitalism and the attraction of socialism. He also presents the fundamental difference between capitalism and socialism: capitalism – an economic market operating under the incentive of profit; socialism – the government market under the incentive of power. Included are his thoughts on collectivism, social justice, moral values, individual responsibility, the doctrine of social responsibility, and philanthropy.
For the many of you around the world who live in disparate circumstances and who read my blog, I pray that you will benefit greatly from this video.
A final word from our sponsors ….
It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the ‘right’ to education, the ‘right’ to health care, the ‘right’ to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle. ― Alexis de Tocqueville
What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish? ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. ― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men. ― Samuel Adams
Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote…that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. ― Samuel Adams
The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional. ― Samuel Adams
As one can surmise, Francis welcomes the populism of socialism and “for the good of all” envisages a communist version of Catholicism. For example, if you are a Catholic in China, (or the world for that matter) in his vision you’ll be provided land, housing and work provided that you are the Chinese Communist Party’s version of a “good citizen”.
The above helps explain why Pope Francis deplores the populism that elected Trump. A movement of “free people” is hostile to coercive top down rule and to non-democratic central planning and to the liberty-annihilating communism the Pope dreams of and so desires so as to reshape the world into his Let Us Dream image. The Pope/CCP desires the Ring of Power to conform all men to its will.
The Trump movement seeks to take back life, liberty, and country –identity – from the Ruling Class Obama-Clinton-Biden-Cuomo types who talk down to Americans, considering them “bitter clingers” and “deplorables” and rubes. The Trump movement detests the privileged elites (including Francis), and the unelected bureaucrats, and, essentially, those who are “more equal than others” and deign to tell them who they are and what they are to think and what they are to do. The Trump movement fights to keep America from becoming a third world country, as Democrat mayors prove it is possible with their “Open World” policies.
The Trump movement deplores the overreach and suffocating control of globalism. The movement seeks to remove the tentacles of the “Open World” beast that wants to devour the U.S. – our individual rights, our liberty, our Constitution and our identity – to feed its One World Fratelli tuttichimera. “We the people” reject the Great Reset.
The One World forces and the purple and scarlet dressed Whore of Babylon are gathering to fight against the Lord, as foretold.
“The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last… The great battle of our time.”
Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
May 1 – the Day of Solidarity of workers around the world
The Left’s dalliance with Socialism, redolent with wooing – “Money is in the wrong hands”, “You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker”, “Workers of the world unite! A future to believe in!” – is not a relationship with socialism’s destructive life-wrecking persona as history accords. Rather, the Left speaks in highly charged (and romanticized) words of a life-saving relationship with socialism using the likes of the moral sounding “From each according to his ability; To each according to his needs”. The match-makers of the Left hype the ‘good-side’ of socialism to their ‘clients’ as one of REVOLUTION! CHANGE! EQUALITY! These beguiling words and many more are enticements for a marriage to politicized envy. They are words of an appeal to dance with the devil (and his details). Millennials who court socialism don’t realize the monster they are dating.
The reality: “From each to the State. Your needs are subject to the State.” Democratic socialism: Pull a lever and vote for socialism; Pull the lever and vote your will; Pull the lever and your needs and your will are submitted to the State.
Personal histories, as in the podcast below, expose “for the people” ideologies and economic systems. As you will learn, socialism dehumanizes the people… “for the people”. Here’s the intro to the podcast from the post She Survived China’s Forced Labor Camp. Now She’s Urging Americans to Reject Socialism.
Jennifer Zeng grew up admiring the Communist Party of China and adhering to its stringent rules. But her life changed forever when she embraced religion and was swept up in a government crackdown on Falun Gong. Arrested four times as a young adult and held in as a prisoner in a labor camp, she quickly woke up to the horrors of living in a socialist state. After being subject to brutal torture, Zeng managed to escape China and now tells about the evils of socialism and communism.
At a time when more Americans are embracing Karl Marx’s teachings, Chris Wright has helped Zeng share her story as part of a network called the Anticommunism Action Team. They recently spoke to The Daily Signal along with Darian Diachok, who escaped from Soviet-era Ukraine as an infant and has helped former Soviet satellite states democratize and overcome their failed communist systems.
The goal of socialism is communism. Vladimir Lenin
The legacy of socialism is one of devastation “for the people”. Beside the accounts in the podcast, personal stories via literature recount the actual eye-witness history. They have the greatest impact on the reader and certainly over myriads of facts. (I will write about the Left’s selective memory in a future post The Mau-Mauing of History.)
The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.
-Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Required reading w/quotes. These are first-hand personal accounts of life under the heavy fist of socialism:
“Apart from the massacres, deaths and famines for which communism was responsible, the worst thing about the system was the official lying: that is to say the lying in which everyone was forced to take part, by repetition, assent or failure to contradict. I came to the conclusion that the purpose of propaganda in communist countries was not to persuade, much less to inform, but to humiliate and emasculate.”
Three books by Alexzander Solzhenitsyn reveal the grizzly details of Life under Communism via his experience. (I read the complete volumes of Gulag and the The Life… in the 80’s. I just finished reading the stories of Apricot Jam:
“My life is over, a little early to be sure; but there’s nothing to be done about it. I shall never return to freedom. I am condemned to die – now or a little later. But later on, in truth, it will be even harder, an so the sooner the better. I no longer have any property whatsoever. For me those I love have died, and for them I have died. From today on, my body is useless and alien to me. Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious and important to me.”
~~~~~
“The separation of church and state was so construed by the [Soviet] state that the churches themselves and everything that hung in them, was installed in them and painted in them, belonged to the state, and the only church remaining was that which … lay within the heart.”
“A tub was brought in to melt snow for mortar. They heard somebody saying it was twelve o’clock already. “It’s sure to be twelve,” Shukhov announced. “The sun’s over the top already.” “If it is,” the captain retorted, “it’s one o’clock, not twelve.” “How do you make that out?” Shukhov asked in surprise. “The old folk say the sun is highest at dinnertime.” “Maybe it was in their day!” the captain snapped back. “Since then it’s been decreed that the sun is highest at one o’clock.” “Who decreed that?” “The Soviet government.” The captain took off with the handbarrow, but Shukhov wasn’t going to argue anyway. As if the sun would obey their decrees!”
~~~~~
“He ate his supper without bread. A double helping and bread–that was going too far. The bread would do for tomorrow. The belly is a demon. It doesn’t remember how well you treated it yesterday; it’ll cry out for more tomorrow.”
“Trying to tackle Venezuela’s severe food shortages by forcing people to work the fields is like trying to fix a broken leg with a band aid,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, in a statement.
“The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty. The communist nations were a classic example, but by no means the only example.”
– Thomas Sowell, economist
~~~
On the heels of a previous post, Resident Evil: Redistribution, I now dispatch a warning about recent alien attacks on human flourishing. And in this brief post, I will also present you with some initial understanding of wealth disparity so that you will be able to withstand the alien invasion.
First, the humanity invading spores of socialism:
Run for your lives! Wealth snatchers are coming!
The socialist spores, planted next to you while you sleep in the twilight of Progressive thoughts, will make you into “pod people.”
Marxism, the origin of leftist thought, and its Progressive offshoot Democratic Socialism will require the means ultimately to abolish the individual and their private property along with the elimination of truth and religion. This will be done to accomplish the ends of redistribution of wealth and the creation of proletarian banality.
In its negation of the individual to further collective materialism, Marxism must necessarily denigrate humanity down to the lowest common statistic. Marxism does so through exacting means: you are forced to live within the lie once you allow the lie to overtake you. It is your vote to elect a Democratic Socialist that makes you complicit with the lie. In so doing it would appear that…
Pods hatching
“Each person somehow succumbs to a profane trivialization of his or her inherent humanity…In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.” –Vaclav Havel
The tearing down of your sacred humanity begins after socialism spores have attached themselves to you:
“When the [revolutionary] political state…comes violently into being…[it] can and must proceed to the abolition of religion, to the destruction of religion.” -Karl Marx
Because…
“…”to abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness; the demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs that needs illusions.” –Karl Marx
What is the “illusion” of religion being replaced with in Marx’s scheme and in neo-Marxist Bernie Sander’s scheme? The “un-masking” of collectivized materialism. Nothing more, nothing less.
Oh, and this, too…
“The historian of ideas Leszek Kołakowski said that Marxism (the philosophy) and Karl Marx (the man) had become fetishized and rendered into commodities; that such a form of intellectual reductionism could be construed as a secular, materialist faith that substituted for supernatural religion.” (emphasis mine)
Self enserfment: your vote for and your surrender to Democratic Socialism will, as history has shown, evolve into acquiescence to totalitarian rule. Then you will live hand to mouth:
“Totalitarian regimes created a debilitating psychology of complicity. Because they owned and controlled everything, and recognized no limits to their own power, every mouthful of food, every moment of rest, every item of consumption, was enjoyed solely by their grace and favor, which could be withdrawn at a whim.” -Theodrore Dalrymple, The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World.
Enter the neo-apparatchik: the contemporary followers of Marxism, the beguiling ideological sycophants called Democratic Socialists, will destroy the growth of wealth and prevent human flourishing for the sake of centralization and the commodification of one’s life. Under them, truth becomes what is commanded to be believed by State – unsalable things becoming salable.
The Democratic Socialism political ads are enticing commercials promoting a prescription of socialism spores. They are, of course, presented without contraindications.
Uncle Sanders wants…your wealth!
~~~
Sadly, as I quoted in my previous post (linked above) regarding the Me Generation…
“What do students value, and are those values any different from those of previous generations? … [studies of] students…reveal further characteristics that distinguish Generation Me from prior cohorts. A consistent trend in these data is the decline in interest in abstract and intellectual concerns and the increase in practical and materialistic ones.” –Jean M. Twenge, The Rise of Self and the Decline of Intellectual and Civic Interest, The State of the American Mind by Mark Bauerlein and Adam Belllow, copyright 2015 Templeton press (emphasis mine)
Do this in order to find out what the socialist world becomes via a personal eyewitness account provided by Theodore Dalrymple.
If you can care about your sacred humanity over and above collectivized material concerns then maybe there is hope for you and this generation.
You’re Dead Meat Under Democratic Socialism!
Most important, if you carry an attitude of thanksgiving with you wherever you go and use it in every situation, then envy won’t fester into “income inequality” obsession. Thanksgiving EveryDay is the best immunization against envy and materialism and the pursuit of other’s money.
If you can keep from taking in the poisonous alien banter about “income inequality” then you will be better able to flourish in a healthy and natural way, as opposed to allowing another life form to take over your pocket-book and leaving you dependent and devoid of humanity.
The videos below provide some intellectually organic safeguards against socialism’s spores. To further inoculate yourself you will need to read the accessible Basic Economicsand Wealth, Poverty and Politics. Both books are by economist Thomas Sowell. In doing so you will gain a basic understanding of economics, an understanding that is currently deficit in the general public’s intellect. You will also then be able to comprehend the dire warnings I have presented here and will be able to guard yourself against the soul-encroaching socialist spores and The Invasion of the Wealth Snatchers.
Ahhh…
~~~
Before I turn you over to the videos I must not leave this out: The earmark of socialism is shortages. First and foremost, socialism must unsettle you with a shortage of certainty:
“Society” (originally by Jerry Hannan); Copyright: Record High Publishing, Bike Music
~~~~
“Materialism, sometimes called naturalism, is the belief that matter — molecules in motion — is all that exists. Everything else: mind, consciousness, spirit — must somehow be reduced to the orchestrated firing of neurons.”
Have you watched the “The Real Housewives of Entrenched Materialism”? How about “American Democratic Greed is Good?”
The word “materialism” is a broad range category label. The word covers our known physical universe: the 118 known chemical elements that make up earth and those that make up our bodies. The word is hard science evocative and yet has been used to promote social ends by physical reductionists: Marx’s dialectical materialism along with Social Darwinism. As a hardcore metaphysical scheme, materialism presented solely by scientific fact is believed to be all the truth you need to know while ignoring theism altogether. As transformed into an ideology by evil men using a hammer and sickle formulation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, Lenin, Marx and Trotsky could “justify” class struggle.
These days the class struggle continues. The word’s now inferred meaning is typically approbated to denounce Wall St. “fat cats” by Leftists (Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, et al) who want to bring the 1% to their knees with inordinate taxation (so as to enable Social Democratic redistribution or materialism as agreed upon consumer envy. Ergo, we are all to become “fat cats” until the money runs out).
Leftists hate Wall St. “greed”. They want to create a more palatable shared widespread greed.
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, is egalitarian when it comes to creating Unitarian greed:
“Bernie Sanders says it’s not just Wall Street and corporate America that would pay more if he’s elected president: All workers would face a slight payroll tax hike.
The Vermont senator who’s seeking the Democratic presidential nomination said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the across the board increase would come as part of his push to guarantee paid family leave.”
Sounds so benign and reasonable, doesn’t it? Tell me. Why does government need to “interpret” your money and your life decisions?
“…He acknowledged that tax would apply to everyone.
“Yes, it would,” he said. “But it would mean that we would join the rest of the industrialized world and make sure that when a mom has a baby, she can, in fact, stay home with that baby for three months rather than go back to work at the end of one week.”
Sanders, who has been elected to the Senate as an independent, has advocated for several other new taxes to pay for his potentially pricey policy proposals.” (Emphasis mine)
Bernie Sanders, Greed Monger
Sanders is, of course, goading the Me Generation, in the midst of unprecedented wealth:
“What do students value, and are those values any different from those of previous generations? … [studies of] students…reveal further characteristics that distinguish Generation Me from prior cohorts. A consistent trend in these data is the decline in interest in abstract and intellectual concerns and the increase in practical and materialistic ones.” –Jean M. Twenge, The Rise of Self and the Decline of Intellectual and Civic Interest, The State of the American Mind by Mark Bauerlein and Adam Belllow, copyright 2015 Templeton Press (emphasis mine)
So, how about we remain free and act not like the rest of the industrialized world and pay for our time off ourselves without middlemen exacting their overhead fees?
Why is mom working? If she is married then likely her family needs a second income. Payroll taxes and government mandated health care come out her check. If she is a single mom, then likely she needs to work and/or wait upon government assistance. Payroll taxes and government mandated health care come out her paycheck. The idea that a materialist ridden government will be altruistic towards you with your own money is utterly absurd.
If Bernie Sanders is sounding so generous with your own money then why not let us each keep more of it? Why doesn’t he tell government to get out of our pockets instead of deeper into them?
Well, if he did that then he couldn’t run as a Democratic Socialist and bureaucracy wouldn’t get its controlling “share” of your money and life.
Now tell me, why can’t people take off work and spend time with their families. Is it because they do not have enough money? How does taxing people more solve this problem?
This, my friends, is the essence of democratic socialism – fixing problems created by government (excessive taxation in this case) with more government (excessive taxation). Aren’t we already being forced to pay Federal, State, Medicare and Social Security taxes along with an Obamacare SCOTUS “mandated” (read coerced) health insurance?
Did you receive a raise this year? If you did then Sanders wants to take away 0.2% of that increase to finance just his family leave policy, a policy that you could finance with your own untaxed money.
Why is government involved in your quality of life decisions beyond national defense? Are you not able to govern yourself and your time and money? Or is it that you hope that someone else under coercion from the government will pay for your quality of life decisions? Now tell me. How do singles benefit from a Family Leave Policy or men in having to pay for maternity care or breast exams? These “bennies” are political handouts to certain focus groups (read special interest groups) in return for votes, nothing more. Big Brother does not care about you or the unintended consequences of myopic thinking.
Like “Participant” trophies given to children who played in inter-city sports competitions their parents paid the fee to join, so Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders wants to award citizens “trophies” from a coerced offering of your tax monies-your gold earrings. Bernie Sanders and those like him have decided that you and your husband are not smart enough to manage your own money and affairs. You get the booby prize instead!
The Booby Prize!
How about we cut out the middle-men altogether and spend our time and own money on our own family instead of sending our money through a labyrinth of government money laundering sieves which only shower havoc on families and small businesses, to name two prominent victims. Such a process leaves “we the people” with pennies on the taxed dollar. This “policy” makes no sense in any way, shape or form. But, people buy into the nonsense because its sounds socially and paternally idealistic.
~~~
Resident Evil m-Virus (“m” for Marx)
The Resident Evil Virus (the one that kills the host; the one created by Umbrella Collective) as mutated…
According to Karl Marx, “Rousseau correctly described the abstract idea of political man as follows:
“Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.”
All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships to man himself.” (emphasis mine)
Golden Calf created from gold earrings melted down.
Here we see the recreation of man as materialism’s Golden Calf and the ideological assumption of Communism or what I call “Resident Evil: Redistribution.”
Karl Marx wanted to abolish all personal property and all religion to establish an anthropocentric materialist utopia. Now consider that redistributive taxation is removing your personal property and giving it to the Collective. And, I don’t have to tell you that Theism is being abolished, with Marx’s beyond-the-grave-blessing, under the guise of separation of church and state. Theism is being replaced by scientism, “the metaphysical belief that science tells us all that can be known or is worth knowing.” (-John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in the Quest of Truth)
Both acts are Karl Marx inspired dialectical materialism.
~~~
“The richness of human life only begins to make sense if mental experience is more than epiphenomenal froth on the surface of a purely materialist reality. If we were simply machines, human discourse could be no more than automatic mouthing, with no true exchange of rational argument taking place.”
Our exponentially growing government does not want competition from you or from your business or from your religion. Those in power want utter social control. Do you realize this?
We can see this in the Social Democrat’s penchant to control your money, your words and your guns. We are moments away from unmitigated tyranny. There are people rallying the flag for tyranny in its most beguiling form: “Social Democracy.”
And while Europe has decided to accept paycheck tyranny in the form of Social Democracy they have done so in order to have government be the treasury that supplies their material needs. By believing that their greed is justified because it is socialized they have signed on to the government broker’s whole life enslavement policy – “a greed with which we have agreed.”
Contrast that statement against the following:
“Watch out,” he said to them, “and beware of all greed! Your life doesn’t consist of the sum total of your possessions…Don’t be anxious about your life – what you should eat; or about your body — what you should wear. Life is more than food! The body is more than clothing!…Which of you by being anxious can add a day to your lifetime?…Yes: where your treasure is, there your heart will be too.”
-Jesus, from Dr. Luke’s Gospel account.
~~~
Consider the following statements:
“Of course many supporters of European integration have an ideological dislike of competition…For many Euro integrationists, much of the appeal of the project lies in the fact that it is an alternative to the “jungle capitalism” that supposedly defines the United States.” (emphasis mine)
-Daniel Hannan, British MEP, “The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America.”
“All too many confuse a market economy with consumerism, seeing a buy-buy-buy mentality as the outcome and goal of economic liberty. But consumerism is the muddled idea that only in having more can we be more. Rather than the Cartesian formulation, “cogito ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”), some have come to believe that shopping is the proof of existence: “Consumo ergo sum.” Consumerism is wrong not because material things are wrong. Consumerism is wrong because it worships what is beneath us.”
And,
“The problem isn’t just a numbers game, and it can’t be solved by simply tweaking this or that budget line, or wringing a little waste out of the system here or there. What threatens to bring freedom to an end is that we have forgotten the end of freedom, in the other sense – its aim and purpose.
The confusion is all around us. Liberty is confused with license, cronyism with capitalism, mere schooling with education, Social security with genuine intergenerational solidarity, and real social responsibility with taking money from one group and giving it to another – and never mind the cultural devastation wrought upon the recipients by this Orwellian form of “welfare.” We have come to believe that the government is a Good Samaritan.” (emphasis mine)
Culture Considered: A conversation between Roger Scruton,a philosopher, and Terry Eagleton, a Marxist, about culture and the best way to infuse its value, whether as Scruton would have it-as of traditional worth or as Eagleton would have it-as a radicalized deconstructed whatever?
Capitalism tends to overtake high culture with base consumption. Marxism tends to come up lazy and empty handed as its namesake, with little to add to culture except ad hoc criticism.
“Most people who read “The Communist Manifesto” probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of “the workers”.” Thomas Sowell, economist
In response to the collectivist ideologies of Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren and their proposed free market epitaph “You didn’t build that…” I offer two videos that provide insights about our humanity, creation, transcendence and economics. Epicurus, by the way (see previous posts regarding Epicurus), knew about humanity at a base level. Epicurus withdrew from transcendent.
The first video includes an interview with Rev. Robert A. Sirico of the Acton Institute. I first heard this interview while watching Fox Business’ Varney & Company. It contains a surprise ending.
In the second video Rev. Robert A. Sirico speaks at Creighton University about his conversion from Marxism and socialism and his reckoning of justice with a God-given humanity and transcendence. He speaks of going on to embrace a morals-directed free market economics which in the act of creation produces a bigger pie for all to share in.
Transcendence takes acknowledgement and submission to the Sublime. It takes one to be faithful in small things. .And, what you create-“build”-transcends all the output of man-made ideologies and political jingoisms. Grab some coffee first before you sit back and enjoy truth.
Tax the wealthy and there will be no money for investments and new jobs. Monies for charities will dry up. Tax the wealthy and you hurt charities and the middle class the most. Obama has no clue as to what he is doing. Sadly, people voted for just another politician.
Are you as a Christian morally perplexed by the economic based social justice issues of the day? If so then I highly recommend the following book! And, if you read Sojourners Web Magazine – the Social Gospel’s Mother Earth Magazine – then I really, really, really recommend the following book to you. This book will help dispel the notion promoted by Sojourner’s Jim Wallis that government can be a proxy Good Samaritan. It will help counter the Marxist nonsense you will read on the Sojourner’s web page.
Here is a blurb about the book:
Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by The Rev. Robert Scirico, President of the Acton Institute.
Introduction: The End of Freedom
Here are the chapter titles:
A Leftist Undone
Why You Can’t Have Freedom without a Free Economy
Want to Help the Poor? Start a business
Why the “Creative Destruction” of Capitalism is More Creative than Destructive
Why Greed is Not Good – and Why You Can Get More of It with Socialism than with Capitalism
The Idol of Equality
Why Smart Charity Works – and Welfare Doesn’t
The Health of Nations: Why State Sponsored Health Care is Not Compassionate
Caring for the Environment Doesn’t Have to mean Big Government
Sojourners, Jim Wallis: “Republican budget is an immoral document.” What a load of partisan crock! Wallis plies you with this pietistic propaganda so as to pluck at your heart-strings! He’s implying that government has the moral responsibility to determine who gets what in our society. Why on earth would anyone put government in this position? Oh yes, the Evil One would. Jesus never called the government to come and follow Him. Jesus never told government to do anything for the poor. Never. Judas wanted that but Jesus, never. Sadly, though, people, completely ignoring history, subscribe to Sojourner’s brand of Gnosticism – mixing gospel with government. They do so not just at their own peril but also at the peril of the poor.
The U.S. Senate controlled by Harry Reid and the Democrats has not passed a budget in over 800 days. This is morally reprehensible. With no budget there is no accountability to the American people with regard to how taxpayer money is being spent. I don’t have to tell you that when there is no accountability for how our money is being spent then there is a lot of sleight of hand going on.
The House Budget Committee on Thursday released a report “demonstrating that economic hardships have been made worse by Washington’s misguided interventions and the lack of a credible plan to lift the crushing debt burden.”
The report, “Debt Overhang and the U.S. Jobs Malaise” comes at a timely moment: it has now been 800 days since the Senate has passed a budget.
“It’s really incredible” said Rep. Todd Young, R-Ind., a member of the House Budget Committee, “Democrats don’t get it. They either have trouble figuring out their priorities or they don’t want to reveal them to the American public. Instead we just get criticism for our plan, which is the only comprehensive plan out there.”
Wallis is a radical redistributive leftist hell-bent on radical redistributive social “justice.” Yet for Wallis and his ilk, true justice, justice for all, is just collateral damage in the war against poverty. It is to be thrown out the window for the sake of putting the poor on a pedestal. And with this shameful idolatry (remember the Israelites worshipping a golden calf – a facsimile representation of God?) comes the same old Robin Hood story – it’s perfectly OK to steal from the rich especially if you can villainize them first. Wallis and Obama know that a sucker (subscriber) is born every day.
You will be told by socialist quacks like Wallis (Marxist ideologues in sheep’s clothing) that voluntary charity doesn’t go far enough, that government needs to be involved.
Remember when the disciples brought a young boy to Jesus in response to enormous hunger needs?:
“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
The loaves and fishes freely offered by the young boy went as far as Jesus wanted it to go – to thousands of people! And so too, the widow’s mite. Don’t buy Wallis’ loaves and fishes. They will cost you everything.
The Democrats have done incredible damage to wealth creation, human initiative and human flourishing with their reckless spending and onerous regulations. They tax and regulate people out of business while at the same time building more casinos to strip away money thereby creating more poverty and more economic dependence. I live in Chicago. I see first hand the devastating results of the Dem’s social programs.
Voting for Democrats is like shooting yourself in the foot and also killing the poor person whose neck you are holding down to the ground with the jackboot of your “charity.”
The Republicans are correct – we need economic freedom for people – all people – to thrive. The Democrats redistribute what isn’t theirs to distribute. All private property and human rights are at risk under Obama the Terrible and a Democrat regime.
The Rev. Scirico’s book came out this year. It encapsulates much of what I have been posting about over many months. I have been writing about social justice issues ever since learning that Christians are now recycling socialism under the guise of social gospel.
Here is the web site where you will find the Rev. Scirico and others who can explain economics, charity and human flourishing better than Sojourners ever will: http://www.acton.org/
“No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.” Thomas Sowell, economist
“Barack Obama’s political genius is his ability to say things that will sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail — regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who have. Shameless effrontery can be a huge political asset, especially if uninformed voters outnumber those who are informed.”Thomas Sowell, economist
Marxists know that when you redistribute money you redistribute values. They stole this knowledge from Christ. So, what values does government redistribute?
If we make government the dispenser of charity will Christ be seen?
Do we give to the poor in the name of Uncle Sam or in the name of Jesus?
Government should not be the middle man between us and our brother. That would be dehumanizing. And, enabling dependence on what is not of God is not compassionate.
When the poor receive alms from us the response we long to hear is “that’s So Jesus.”
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In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Let’s Talk Turkey
November 25, 2020 Leave a comment
Let’s Talk Turkey
But first, a word from our sponsors ….
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace….We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” ― Samuel Adams
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
While I was on Twitter, a few years ago, I would jump in on threads where socialism and capitalism were discussed (Better, the terms were tossed about.). The anti-capitalists would denounce capitalism as “unfair” and the rich as “greedy” while insinuating “equality” and “fairness” occurred naturally within the materialist realm of socialism. As an example, they pointed to Scandinavian countries (where, amazingly, none of them had the gumption to take up residence. That would take initiative and responsibility and money on their part.)
The anti-capitalists, assuming a superior moral position, never talked in-depth about the mechanics of socialism other than it being a redistribution of wealth from “rich” to “poor” via confiscatory taxation. And, whether they were oblivious to or welcoming of the growing soft despotism in America that gives people the illusion that they are in control, I could not determine.
On Twitter there were also those who proclaimed Jesus to be a “Progressive”. They offered a litany of “Progressive” attributes assigned to Jesus, among them “anti-rich”, their presumed antithesis to “Blessed are the poor” [“…in spirit”]. There were those, too, who said that the early church was an example of socialism because the early Christian shared everything in common. Apparently, these folks had never read that Jesus warned about the dangers of the love of riches and not that someone who was rich shouldn’t be. Did these folks also not comprehend that the early church did what they did out of love and not out of coercion?
In the current hopped-up milieu of socialism as social justice*, what is the mystique and lure of socialism, central planning, and top-down government when …
-from “Democracy In America” by Alexis De Tocqueville, Chapter VI: “What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear”
Long before social media came around fostering populist socialism, I inured myself against the idea of a free lunch. In the 80s I watched Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free to Choose Series on TV. The following video is part of that series.
Plain-spoken Milton Friedman, economist of the Chicago School of Economics, addresses the issue of social responsibility that seems to be the motivation behind a rejection of capitalism and the attraction of socialism. He also presents the fundamental difference between capitalism and socialism: capitalism – an economic market operating under the incentive of profit; socialism – the government market under the incentive of power. Included are his thoughts on collectivism, social justice, moral values, individual responsibility, the doctrine of social responsibility, and philanthropy.
For the many of you around the world who live in disparate circumstances and who read my blog, I pray that you will benefit greatly from this video.
A final word from our sponsors ….
* Pope Francis is Envisaging and Engendering an Open World:
“On the other hand, if we accept the great principle that there are rights born of our inalienable human dignity, we can rise to the challenge of envisaging a new humanity,” he proposes. “We can aspire to a world that provides land, housing and work for all.”
As one can surmise, Francis welcomes the populism of socialism and “for the good of all” envisages a communist version of Catholicism. For example, if you are a Catholic in China, (or the world for that matter) in his vision you’ll be provided land, housing and work provided that you are the Chinese Communist Party’s version of a “good citizen”.
The above helps explain why Pope Francis deplores the populism that elected Trump. A movement of “free people” is hostile to coercive top down rule and to non-democratic central planning and to the liberty-annihilating communism the Pope dreams of and so desires so as to reshape the world into his Let Us Dream image. The Pope/CCP desires the Ring of Power to conform all men to its will.
The Trump movement seeks to take back life, liberty, and country –identity – from the Ruling Class Obama-Clinton-Biden-Cuomo types who talk down to Americans, considering them “bitter clingers” and “deplorables” and rubes. The Trump movement detests the privileged elites (including Francis), and the unelected bureaucrats, and, essentially, those who are “more equal than others” and deign to tell them who they are and what they are to think and what they are to do. The Trump movement fights to keep America from becoming a third world country, as Democrat mayors prove it is possible with their “Open World” policies.
The Trump movement deplores the overreach and suffocating control of globalism. The movement seeks to remove the tentacles of the “Open World” beast that wants to devour the U.S. – our individual rights, our liberty, our Constitution and our identity – to feed its One World Fratelli tutti chimera. “We the people” reject the Great Reset.
The One World forces and the purple and scarlet dressed Whore of Babylon are gathering to fight against the Lord, as foretold.
“The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last…
The great battle of our time.”
Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Added 11-26-2020:
Podcast:
Totalitarian Democracy Roger Kimball in conversation with Mark Bauerlein
Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion
Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University.
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Filed under 2020 current events, capitalism, cultural Marxism, Culture, Current Events 2010, Economics, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, social justice, socialism, Thanksgiving Tagged with Alexis de Tocqueville, capitalism, Democracy, Economics, Marxism, Milton Friedman, Pope Francis, Samuel Adams, social responsibility, socialism, Thanksgiving. Progressivism