Posted on 03/09/2019 10:17:08 AM PST by blam
A middle class that outnumbers the combined poor and aristocracy is a relatively new phenomenon, dating back to around 1900. The rise of the middle class was the result of Industrial Revolution capitalism. It has been one of the most significant and epochal developments in history, yet the intellectual reaction for the most part has been to either ignore it or treat it with disdain. Now the project to destroy the middle class is well under way, with unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences that promise to be just as epochal as its creation.
Intellectual condescension towards the middle class is so common it’s a cliché. What’s rare are attempts to go back in history and see things through the perspectives of that despised group and its progenitors, the poor.
In 1800, virtually everyone was poor, living under conditions of deprivation and grinding poverty. Even being wealthy was no picnic; present-day poverty-line Americans live better. Life expectancy was an estimated twenty-nine years. Farming, the occupation of most, was dangerous, backbreaking labor from dawn to dusk. Most of those so engaged eked out a tenuous subsistence. There was no electricity, no running water, primitive sanitation and health care, and none of the machinery, gadgets, and appliances we take for granted. Only a few wealthy poets who didn’t have to wrest a living from nature waxed euphoric about its “joys.”
As the nineteenth century progressed, primitive factories, mostly in cities, began producing goods of better quality, in more quantity, and at lower cost than had been possible by artisans handcrafting their wares. No doubt conditions in those factories were abysmal—long hours, pittance pay, child labor, dangerous and filthy conditions, and horrible accidents and injuries. All that has been well-chronicled and dramatized, but an important point gets overlooked.
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(Excerpt) Read more at straightlinelogic.com ...
A fundamental tenet of socialism and communism is the destruction of the middle class.
Some old white guys once wrote, “all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves”
Based on what principle, logic or definition of terms is this not just nonsense?
"Middle class" meaning who, you and me, or somebody else?
"Unsuitable" meaning what, unable to distinguish right from wrong?
And this applies to how many, 10%, 50%, 90% -- all?
And for this reason we must suffer under a military dictatorship??
It brings to mind a quote from Lincoln on the alleged virtues of slavery:
Send us a post card on how you like it there, FRiend.
Some old white guys once wrote, “all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves”
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As white guys, the Declaration and the Constitution will soon be banned-—all Google searches will show “declaration of peanut substances causing allergic reactions” and “constitution of a horse—an old expression....” But NO mention of dusty old documents by the white men.
PC will have caused free speech to finally be gone. Not just athletes and TV stars losing careers, but local people detected on Twitter or Facebook saying non PC remarks will be in gulags or just “disappear.”
Our country will go down in a quiet manner with no rules broken about using violence. And no speech that is triggering. And every person on every comment forum in newspapers and elsewhere will have obeyed the rules of posting.
So you are a Democrat & Unionist?
Welcome to Free Republic, a conservative site.
Do you like facts? Do you know any?
The richest 10% already pay 90% of income taxes--how is that not enough for you?
The richest 10% create nearly 100% of private sector jobs -- how do you get more jobs by making them poorer?
Sure, the old Industrial revolution was rough, uneven, fits & starts, unfair to some, but the fact is over decades it lifted many millions of families out of poverty, slowly, steadily but more surely than any other time in history.
Would you prefer those millions stayed poor?
Of course not, but like every Democrat you just love to complain, "it's not faaaaaaaaair" because somebody got more or less than somebody else.
Well, your socialist ideas have been tried repeatedly and always fail.
What works is capitalism, the freer the better.
The rising tide lifts all boats, it's the only thing which does.
If Socialists take over most of us will be blessed that our lines died out.
We are gonna be high grounded into the killing fields.
There aren't enough Americans left to save the republic. And, at, what? 75K a month "new neighbors and friends", we are going to be stampeded over with the likes of AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and every Castro like politician they can muster up.
It's a race to the finish now and their side is working with nitrous oxide.
Normalcy basis reigns. I don’t see it ever changing until it is too late, unfortunately. Main Street USA is the frog in the boiling pot of water.
Communism’s greatest enemy is not the capitalist, rather it is the bourgeiosie, the fat, happy middle-class wage drone or shopkeeper who has little concern beyond his creature comforts. That group is most likely to resist change simply because of inertia.
They will be out voted by Guatemalan dirt farmers. Whole villages are being imported to the USA as I type. Guaranteed.
I live in rural central Pennsylvania, sometimes referred to as Appalachian "Alabama" between Philadelphia & Pittsburgh.
We are already ruled by those big cities and only occasionally (i.e., 2016) break free of the Democrat choke-hold on PA politics.
It will be most interesting to see if we can repeat 2016 next year -- so far the data suggests, "no".
I won't debate how "democratic" is South Africa, but the US is supposed to be a constitutional republic, not a democracy, so the analogy with South Africa is weak.
And I see nothing on the horizon here which would in the slightest amount make me wish for a dictator to "put things right".
If you do, you'll have to kill me first, FRiend.
“If Socialists take over most of us will be blessed that our lines died out.”
Our low birthrate is the cause, not the effect; the American culture (based on the WASP model) isn’t being transmitted to a next generation in sufficient numbers.
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