Posted on 08/30/2019 8:12:15 AM PDT by John Conlin
The United States is the freest, wealthiest, most tolerant society the world has ever known. Even today’s poor live lives undreamed of by royalty less than a century ago.
Yet in what seems like a major disconnect from this reality, we have major politicians calling for a transformation of society. Why is this? Well, other than pandering for votes and power, which is a large part of it, there is another more basic and more dangerous process at work.
And that is success breeds failure. This is a common and accurate theme in management thinking. Success breeds complacency. Success can lead an organization from lean and mean, to fat and happy, to obese and stupid. Real-world business results show hundreds of examples which prove the point.
This process, one of an individual accepting unearned success, knowledge, and wealth as a “given”; thinking of it all as “just the way it is” seems to be a common thread in human thinking. We intellectually take ownership of all past successes and think of them as almost our inalienable right.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
You wrote the piece, how’s about posting more than a excerpt?
So many parents supply so much to their “children” even up to the 30s today that there’s too much time to sit around and think.
I can honestly say that with almost EVERY decision in my life, whether it’s trading stocks and commodities, deciding which job to take or whether or not to stay with a gal or ask one out...
Thinking TOO LONG has almost EVERY TIME had an adverse outcome.
Too much time to think. Too much propaganda out there to make one think the wrong way.
And this is what you get.
Idle hands and such.
Nothing succeeds like success. Sorry, but your premise is faulty.
Even today’s poor live lives undreamed of by royalty less than a century ago …I do not see “today’s poor” living in edifices that even remotely resemble Buckingham Palace (royal residence since 1837) or the prior Buckingham House on the same site (dating back to the 1500s or so).
What century ago king dreamed of a CD player while listening to his Victrola? TV? FM Radio? Fresh fruit from Chile and New Zealand? Microwave oven? Refrigerator? Air conditioning? MRIs? Cellphones?...
“Even today’s poor live lives undreamed of by royalty less than a century ago.”
You lost me right there.
that’s not true?
Not much lately, this used to be heard around York County, PA. “Shirtsleeves to shirt-sleeves in 3 generations”. A man starts an Enterprise from scratch, in his shirtsleeves and is successful. His son inherits it, wears a coat and tie, but knows how hard Dad worked. The grandson, who did not help build it, takes it for granted, pizzes it away and it goes under....leaving the grandson to find a shirtsleeves job to survive. (This adage predated welfare and other gov’t Dole).
How many kings live in the tropics? Even those would go swimming for “air conditioning”.
Overseas trade was quite active less than (and even more than) a century ago, and that included the ice trade for refrigeration before electronic refrigeration.
Technology availability is not the same as living like royalty; it’s like what the proles were given in Nineteen Eighty-Four to keep them desensitized while the Upper Party lived in true luxury and relative freedom.
I guess you all don’t post much to Free Republic. Due to copyright issues, you MUST post an excerpt... posting the entire article isn’t allowed. Give it try and see what happens. One would hope you would understand the rules of your own site.
Make that “Inner Party”. (The “essence” may have been close, but no, “Upper Party” not accurate.)
Not if you are blogging. Then the reverse applies. Check with site management.
Did you bother to read before commenting or just share your wisdom with no knowledge of what you are actually talking about? I’m betting you would agree with the premise if you cared to pry open your mind for just a wee bit ;-)
Seriously? You must like social media. Food, health, heating, cooling, technology, travel... but SURE a handful lived in very big palaces. That’s your point?!
I’ve only posted a total of 1,519 threads and 157,143 replies.
If you own the content and the copyright, copyright issues on what you own and choose to post are rather moot.
(Not that the default web site permissions settings will recognize your ownership...)
What say you, John?
Seriously, you are comparing the standard of living of our poor to that of King George V or Queen Victoria and their related nobility? These government-subsidized poor certainly are not starving, but the kind of things available to royalty of “less than a century ago” are still way out of reach of such people.
This truth especially for the kids of successful people. Kids want to enjoy the spoils of whatever the parents earned. And it’s true on a large political scale: the parents who went through WWII and the Depression wanted their kids to avoid such hardships. The Hippie revolt against mom and dad and government (Big Daddy) happened at a time when the American economy was booming and there was a hedonistic and moral laxity in the air: do your own thing, sex drugs and Rock & Roll, drop out turn on, etc. Idealism rather than practicality was the virtue of choice. The hard learned success of mom and dad gave rise to kids that wanted to waste their life away “finding themselves” in Tibet. And these Children of God, the ME generation, who went to Woodstock became spoiled children for the rest of their life. (I think part of the reason they like being children is that they don’t have to think about getting old and dying. It’s a self-sustaining solipsistic state of supposed innocence and God like self flattery and delusion. However, getting old is inevitable and second childhood will just be the continuation of a permanent state of childhood.) Anyway, the whole thing is almost Oedipal in that hatred of government (Big Daddy, the Man, the Industrial-Military Complex) comes about through wanting to be spoiled and loved by MOM. Mom is now the generous side of government entitlements and benefits. So success breeds failure.
Totally true, no king was safe from dying of an infected scratch, assuming the medical treatment didn't kill him first!
We have fat “poor”, they had fat kings.
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