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Quote of the Day: Capitalism and Socialism
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” – Winston Churchill
How can you tell we are entering a socialist society in the United States? The tell is the amount by which shared miseries have grown. Fuel and food prices have soared. There are scarcities of critical items, including baby formula and amoxicillin, scarcities that once they start never seem to grow away. People are worried that what they say might get them fired or imprisoned. Not for actual crime, but for thoughtcrime. And violent crime is growing — as it seems to in every socialist society from the Soviet Union to Venezuela. (Of course, the government denies that violent crime exists, except by wasters who oppose the government — January 6th trials, anyone?)
How can you tell we were still a capitalist society in the previous administration. Most of us – until the Covidians took over in 2020 – were doing pretty well. Energy was cheap and abundant. (The US had become a net energy exporter.) The economy was booming and everyone was getting wealthier. There was record-low minority unemployment and many minorities were moving from poverty into the middle class. Even as those in the middle class were becoming wealthy. Some were getting a lot wealthier than others (and others decried that as Just Not Fair), but the rising tide was lifting all boats.
The only people that were miserable tended to be those eating their own livers because this growth was occurring under the administration of That Awful Trump. (That was Just Not Fair, either.) It was a self-imposed misery. Of course, Trump was a capitalist to the bone, while those running the current administration were to a man/woman/whatever-they-identify-as socialist. Those who profit by working for the government think socialism is the greatest thing ever. It has been – for them.
Rarely have two administrations offered a starker contrast between the vices of capitalism and the virtues of socialism as this one and the one that preceded it.
Published in Group Writing
This is true, the greatest contrast I have seen in my 84 years.
Don’t let this particular contrast deceive you. The work to get us on the path to socialism and the statist mechanisms to keep us on that path have been under development for a long time. The most serious moves were initiated two decades ago with the adoption of the Patriot Act after 9/11.
The Patriot Act facilitated the institutionalization of domestic surveillance that Americans had never experienced and the Obama Administration perfected it. We now constantly face methods that we had only read about in history books and other publications detailing the operations of the Nazi Gestapo, East Germany’s Stasi, and the Soviet Union’s KGB. Donald Trump, with his wide-ranging associations with persons of the Ruling Class a la the Clintons likely had some insight into the direction America was taking. But it is also likely that this awareness fell fall short of the bureaucratic power installed in the intelligence and law enforcement components of the federal government using powers granted under the Patriot Act. We saw how that has been used to disable his Presidency and any positive effects resulting.
This New World Feudalism will allow the Ruling Class to share the blessings of capitalistic production while the peasantry live in various levels of misery.
I am not arguing that. It has been going on since the Wilson Administration. I was just showing how it could e reversed by putting someone who is a capitalist in charge. I am mordantly amused by the fools that were so offended by Trump’s character that they willingly sold themselves (and continue to sell themselves) into serfdom rather than permit someone who is not their kind dear, but will run a capitalistic country. At the end none of them will have the self awareness to ask themselves
Exactly, all right before their eyes.
He might have a point, if those at the top of socialism were ever miserable too.
They constantly have to watch their own backs, for fear one of their subordinates will pull them down. The only ones that are not miserable are the ones totally without self-awareness and too stupid to realize their own peril. Or perhaps too senile to realize their peril and too useful as figureheads to replace. (Remind you of anyone?)
I have said that my view is the Presidency is a capstone exceeding any other possibles for this man and he doesn’t care a whit what happens beyond occupying that position.
Or as I put it, even when he was much younger, he only ever wanted the title, not the job.
It’s not as if he was ever a bright star.
Fourth magnitude at best.
I feel particularly bad for those who felt the enthusiasm and hope of the Trump years and started new or expanded their existing businesses. The owner of my hair salon, for example, expanded to a second store with 8 chairs. She is now the only one working there (her husband runs the other ) and I’m sure the rent has stayed the same.
It is the same situation with several small restaurants in town.
I am retired, so not directly involved, but we try to do what we can to patronize these people who are just victims of their own optimism – destroyed by the policies of the left.
I’ve found that many people who benefited from the Trump policies etc, somehow didn’t think it would be a problem to replace him with Biden. I can’t really feel any sympathy for those people, nor do I feel any need to patronize their businesses.
The upper middle class and some skilled folks who know how to do things that folks need still do very well. The latter tend to be bottom up Republicans. Republican politicians tend to be top down opportunists. Democrats are just fools and the folks who are making it big time don’t even recognize that what they push is socialism because they’re making most of their money from what they call the private sector. Then they’re the Chinese who probably can’t believe we’re doing our self destruction for them with just a little push. We’re in good historical company. Every country that ever existed did the same. We have two years and one national election to reverse it. The Chinese have all South America and all Africa, and Europe insanely is going along with the top down idiots. If they steal the White House again, then what?
I cringe whenever anyone makes a reference that suggests America has something we should call national elections. Progressives and non-thinking Democrats have been constructing mechanisms to cheat in the counting of statewide ballots in some critical swing states. That then results in the selection of a questionable slate of electors in the Electoral College for President and Vice-President. State legislatures have the power to deal with this.
This past 6 years have been a classic embodiment of “cutting off your nose to spite your face”.