Hope you are doing well.
I think that Rush was correct yesterday when he said that socialism is far too little understood to be effective as a rhetorical target without explanation. To understand what's wrong with socialism, we should first realize what we are taking for granted when we oppose socialism.The fundamental target of socialism is ownership. But what is "ownership?" IMHO "ownership" is best understood as society's memory. Specifically, it is society's memory of who has done how much of value. The foundation of ownership, certainly, starts out by people finding things and appropriating and defending their stake in them. But then things are bought and sold over generations - and what remains of ownership is the residue of what people have done for each other in, basically, the past century. There are instances of old money, certainly, but at least in America there is a tendency for a family to go "from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations."
The socialist attacks ownership on the basis of claims of unfairness which are basically second guesses as to the value of the activities in which people have in the past engaged. If you work for someone, they retain the benefits of your labor but they "thank" you for it by giving you ownership of something else - almost universally, dollars. And you in turn "thank" the store owner for laying by a store of nails and for allowing you to take ownership of a box of them, by giving the store owner some of those dollars. And in turn the store owner thanks the manufacturer of the nails by paying for a replacement box. He retains some of that "credit" for his own needs at the grocery store, and so on. The point is that ownership connects effort with reward - and that socialism is nothing but a system of criticism and second guessing for the purpose of diverting credit from exertion, savings, and risk taking - to the mere talk of the socialist himself.
The evil of socialism is therefore the evil of envy - the begrudging of the credit of ownership which is the due of the person who owns something. The socialist makes much over the evil of inherited wealth, and thereby sets at nothing the virtue of saving and investing for the benefit of posterity.
This shows up prominently in the Social Security system, which purports to be an insurance system with the feature common to insurance of saving against the eventuality insured against. The government, however, has spent the positive cash flow of Social Security, "balancing" its spending by writing IOUs for the money it has spent and placing the IOUs in a tightly guarded box known as the "Social Security Trust Fund." So long as the cash flow of Social Security is positive - so long as the SSTF is not actually needed - all is well. But the moment the cash flow the Social Security turns negative, the government (the social security administration) will reach into its vault to withdraw from the SSTF - and find there only "safe government bonds" which are simply IOUs that the government wrote to itself. The Social Security Administration's problem is, theoretically, solved - but the Treasury Department's problem has just begun because the Treasury is responsible for coming up with the money to redeem those "safe" government bonds.
The key point to recognize is that the SSTF, as a claim on the government's revenues, does - inherently, can do - nothing to help the government a decade hence to cover the negative cash flow of Social Security. Any more than it would help you ten years from now if, for example, you wrote yourself an equivalent IOU every time you paid your rent. At the end of the ten years those IOUs would be a record of how much you had paid in rent - but they wouldn't help you buy a house.
So Social Security, like socialism generally, separates you from your own money - then expects credit if it then returns some of what it took from you.
Thanks for the 2 cents. Excellent.
Glad you’re doing better and welcome home.
Just ask the people in Africa who are living under tyranny. Skin color doesn’t matter, it is the soul and the mind.
Just thought you all would like to read TBM's "2 cents". Short, sweet and to the point.
TBM - good to see you getting around FR.
[Mr] T
Thanks,TBM!
A big ten-four on that 2 cents...
Glad you’re doing much better.
Well said! It’s good to hear from you again and I hope all is going well for you.
http://ibdeditorials.com/cartoons.aspx
I wish I knew how to post the actual image - today’s cartoon in Investors Business Daily should persuade any thinking voter to run from Obama!
http://ibdeditorials.com/cartoons.aspx
I wish I knew how to post the actual image - today’s cartoon in Investors Business Daily should persuade any thinking voter to run from Obama!
Hey, how’s it going. Glad you’re feeling better, and congratulations on your marriage. Socialism fails, regardless of the skin color of its advocates.
A very good quote.
I’ll add my vote of hope for the fulfillment of MLK’s dream.
BUMP!
I’m sorry I’m not qualified to respond. I was just told I was too stupid to realize I am a racist.
God help this country.
THIS TELLS THE STORY - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgeM1tDXqGE
I agree.
I was just now thinking about you, Trueblackman, and wondered if you were back. A little Search, and here you are! Wonderful to see you back and looking forward to you wisdom being shared with all of us! We missed you!!!!