Science of Civilization Lesson #2: What’s the most deadly kind of government on Earth?
“Big Government”
One third of millennials approve of communism, probably because they don’t know what it is:
January 2020: Poll of young Americans found 70% will “vote socialist” and half of them think communism is OK
Gulag in Latvia | Image Rakoon.
According to a poll commissioned by the Washington, D.C. area nonprofit Victims of Communism, 70 percent of Millennials say they are likely to vote for a socialist while one in three view communism favorably.
The same poll also reported that 27 percent of people believe President Donald Trump is the biggest threat to world peace. The survey placed the U.S. president over North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, has a plan that students in his state should understand why Cubans swim to Florida more than Floridians swim to Cuba:
DeSantis signs bills requiring Fla. schools to teach horrors of communism, ‘patriots’ who escaped
Douglas Ernst, Washington Times
“We have a number of people in Florida, particularly southern Florida, who’ve escaped totalitarian regimes, who escaped communist dictatorships to be able to come to America,” Mr. DeSantis said Tuesday. “We want all students to understand. Why would somebody flee across shark-infested waters, say, leaving Cuba, to come to southern Florida? Why would somebody leave a place like Vietnam? Why would people leave these countries and risk their life to be able to come here?”
At a guess, the move is likely to unify immigrants and non-immigrants more than burning down Wendy’s does.
University diversity test coming:
How radical. Instead of marking universities on their diversity of skin color, DeSantis wants to mark them on their diversity of ideas. Florida will require universities survey staff and students on beliefs.
The survey will examine “the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented” in the state universities and colleges — and seeks to find whether students, faculty and staff “feel free to express beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom,” according to the bill, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
Think of it as a scorecard for the university, with the promise of financial support for universities that pass:
But DeSantis and bill sponsor Sen. Ray Rodrigues suggested that budget cuts could be imminent if universities and colleges are found to be “indoctrinating” students.
“That’s not worth tax dollars and that’s not something that we’re going to be supporting moving forward,” DeSantis [said].
Imagine a situation where a university has an incentive to teach both sides? Spread this idea around….
Western Civilization is not dead yet.
Excellent news. Governor Ron DeSantis is excellent and possible presidential material.
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President Ron and Speaker Don sounds good to me.
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Christopher Hitchens has a relevant quote to the de-Marxification of universities and comments how the indoctrinated people of North Korea think, which is much the same as most students in most “universties” of the West.
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Is DeSantis swimming against the tide of wokeness? Can we stop the long march through the institutions?
Readers might ‘enjoy’ these quotes from 1984 which give some view of the future as the nasty ‘old normal’ is erased in favour of the shiny and virtuous ‘new normal’
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/153313-nineteen-eighty-four
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The reason Socialism gets such a high rating, in two words, Free Money!
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. DeToqueville
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Tytler listed the cycles of civilisation as:
From Bondage to Moral Certitude;
from Moral Certitude to Great Courage;
from Great Courage to Liberty;
from Liberty to Abundance;
from Abundance to Selfishness;
from Selfishness to Complacency;
from Complacency to Apathy;
from Apathy to Dependency;
from Dependency to Bondage.
And historically, no country has ever reversed the cycle.
Also see https://internationalman.com/articles/the-cycle-of-freedom/
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Would the cycle be any better played in reverse?
I’m not sure it would be a good thing to stop the cycle either, even in the liberty or abundance stages. My hunch is that there are other virtues (e.g. inventiveness) that are low in the good times. A bit like AC power, where voltage is at a peak when current is at zero, and vice versa. Would civilisation have arisen at all without the cycle?
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If Liberty means allowing people to do the things they want to do, and “selfishness” means people go and do the things they want to do … then how is there a distinction?
As for “no country has ever reversed the cycle” … that’s bollox, Russia has moved from totalitarian Communism back to rediscover their history as a kind of parliamentary monarchy with Orthodox Christian overtones. Their wealth is steadily increasing as a consequence.
Many of the Nordic countries have stepped back from their style of Socialism, becoming more business friendly.
Even Zimbabwe of all places has finally admitted that they do need economic growth, and it won’t come from their previous Communist strategy. They finally got out from under the thumb of that horrible dictator.
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Thank you for that list. America needs a leader who has the intellectual gravitas to explain history of civilizations and the inherent superiority of capitalism over communism and socialism. It would be a monumental tragedy to learn the hard way.
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To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher: Socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money.
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Along the same lines:
Mega rich socialists are socialists with other people’s lives and money and capitalists with their own lives and money.
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The quotation is “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”
Often I hear people say that socialism sounds great, but…
It does not sound great to me at all. A life planned for you and executed according to plan sounds like a wasted life even if the bureaucrats involved in the planning were modestly competent. They never are.
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Socialism, communism and renewable energy are the only three things that look good on paper, yet they demand that everything complies around them.
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It’s the tyranny of “50% + 1”. When that half realises they can legally take your possessions and throw you in jail if you object. McAfee was lined up for 30 years because he objected. He was never going to get a fair trial.
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“One third of millennials approve of communism, probably because they don’t know what it is.”
Oh I think they know what it is allright, it is ‘Free Stuff’.
They love it and will vote all day for it.
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So true Ronin. However living off “free stuff” becomes a life of serfdom.
That’s the part they don’t get…
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Isn’t that what using Google products has taught us?
You’d think these younguns would have been early adopters of that knowledge.
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Will come as a suprise having to queue for a diminishing rationed supply though
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I agree, back when I was a young guy I believed the same thing and I had no idea what Comunism or socialism was. I was a fan of Che Guevera, Castro, Joe Stalin and other glorious communist leaders because of the wonderful way they spoke truth to power and took care of their people. I kid you not.
It wasn’t about getting free stuff, it was about total self delusion.
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Until the Marxists took over the universities, a process which started in the late 1960’s with Rudi Dutschke’s “long march through the institutions”, modern universities were products of The Enlightenment and based their authority and legitimacy around such Enlightenment values as the belief in reason, individual liberty, progress of mankind, tolerance, free speech, diversity of opinions and ideas, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.
Now, thanks to the Left all those Enlightenment ideals have been destroyed except that in regard to religion they are at war against traditional Judeo-Christian values but have replaced traditional religion by their own secular religion comprised of beliefs in Marx, “climate change”, LGBTI issues, BLM etc as their corrupt ideological and moral underpinnings. Those Leftist “religious” beliefs are not separated from state like traditional church and state as with the Enlightenment but are tightly integrated into it.
It’s good to see an attempt to return modern universities to their origins in the Enlightenment.
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The transformation of proletarian or classist Marxism happened when the Frankfurt School (Herbert Marcuse, etc.) migrated to Western academia as Critical Theory. In the 1950s Antonio Gramsci’s cultural Marxism took over from the economic hegemony, which had failed to engage the West’s proletarian class, and later coalesced with postmodernism’s sceptical critique of the hegemony of language and reason. Their mantra of the authority of the message is the prerogative of the receiver, and the feelings of the receiver can’t be questioned, has been a natural haven for minorities among the culturally oppressed, subjugated by the cultural memes of the privileged oppressors (especially old, white, Christian males). This is the essence of Critical Race Theory which emerged from Critical Legal Studies.
The universalism of Marxism (now called neo Marxism to sound more fashionable) sits uncomfortably with postmodernism which is avowedly anti any claims to ‘universal ideology’ (except of course, hypocritically, their own theories!). This ideological instability is the reason ‘neo Marxist postmodernism’ will ultimately implode. We can see this with CRT which claims to be anti-racist from the perspective of black minorities but is racist from the perspective of white majorities. Sadly, not much chance of old fashioned love and forgiveness moderating this flawed culture war!
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David, it started MUCH earlier than that in the U. S.
When my eldest son was in high school in the mid 80s the assigned text was “A History of the United States” by a Marxist named Howard Zinn. This horrible text was the “approved” text for ALL high schools in California (yeah, that’s how subversive our curriculum was, even 40 years ago).
Zinn taught that my country was genocidal toward the Indians, black slavery was due to the inherent evil of the “settlers”, ad nauseam.
My son became a follower of all manner of people and things Leftist. The great linguist Noam Chomsky was a huge influence on him. And he was deep into it. No manner of reason could get thru to him.
So, by that time the University teachers/professors were populated by the Leftist protesters from the 60s
Reprobates teaching the malleable minds of freshmen and sophomores. Of course, by the time they were juniors they were thoroughly indoctrinated with the poison we all now see.
Take one look at “Critical Race Theory”, and there it is. Same swill born in the 60s and taught in our time.
Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.
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I have written fairly frequently from my home here in Florida.
This may help explain why one can have a different perspective,
and retain some optimism while living here.
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Thanks Richard, do keep sharing. Happy to hear all the good news we can get.
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Interesting to note that in the US, young men in the 1960’s could avoid fighting communism by going to college.
Now capitalist Walmart sells underwear made in communist Viet Nam.
Is irony the right word?
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Two interesting PDF documents :-
Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship
by Eric Kaufmann
https://cspicenter.org/reports/academicfreedom/
& Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy By Andy Ngo
https://www.pdfread.net/ebook/unmasked-andy-ngo/
Thanks JO & Keep kicking the Hornets nest.
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‘Imagine a situation where a university has an incentive to teach both sides?’
Academic freedom to speak openly has reached the High Court, so its only a matter of time before normality resumes.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2021/06/26/peter-ridds-high-court-case/162462960011946#mtr
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Linking to rubbish from Morry Schwarz’s stable of woke publications demonstrates your insensitivity to politico-philosophical nuances el gordo but that’s to be expected of a person who refuses to abstain from fatuous optimism such as “only a matter of time before normality returns” as if such “normality” was ever present.
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Schwartz
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Back in the day universities were places where adversarial behaviour was expected, but in a brainwashed society we have to fight for our freedom to speak.
The article seemed fairly balanced to me, perhaps I’ve lost my critical faculty.
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The idea of academic freedom.
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2021/06/the-idea-of-academic-freedom-explained-by-stone-and-forrest/
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There is always going to be a battle of social ideals, how much those ideals gain ground within a society dictates its structure and direction, what any ideal doesn’t factor into its progress is the ability of people to think freely and that’s why we saw last century the countries that had developed, adopted and fought for true democratic/republic gave its people the best overall standards of living.
Just as the only constant in life is change so is a nations and where we see good/bad, yin/yang, fluid/solid, free/oppressed such is the fate of its inhabitants that over time opposing forces will continually struggle to find equilibrium in the ever changing strengths.
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An illuminating, thorough, but lengthy read, is: The Black Book of Communism.
Highly recommended as a reference upon the horrors of Communism/Socialism.
Full text on Archive.Org, 850 pages.
https://archive.org/stream/TheBlackBookofCommunism10/the-black-book-of-communism-jean-louis-margolin-1999-communism_djvu.txt
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What’s the most deadly kind of government on Earth?
“Big Government”
In the last 24 hrs I have become aware of Britney Spears and how big government is ruling her life.
The gov, through her father, forces her to wear an IUD, take medicine and live on $2,000/wk in spite of being worth $60 mil. Her father forces her to do concerts, takes a percentage of the gate and takes a salary many times hers.
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Never been a fan of Britney Spears especially the example she sets for children but this news if true is pure slavery in a developed world, here Tucker talks to Rose McGowan about this with her personal experiences regarding the case, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7kU_CmFRDU
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Britney Spears, is this the same skank who shaved all her hair off and got around knickerless, that one, ok, I think she is being ‘minded’ for her own good, the IUD is because she would be mother to who knows how many sprogs by now, she is definitely on some sort of spectrum and needs professional help.
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I have seen articles whereby many in the music industry may have been Monarch mind controlled slaves. From research over the years, its not beyond possibility. Think twerking…
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Ah but Ronin, the Democrats are only looking after us “for our own good” too.
The case of Brittany Spears seems remarkable.
Given the money involved would anyone be surprised if some stars are exploited?
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Jo
It might be interesting to get a look at the cash flow of Gretanomics too
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Yet another thing that was lambasted as “Conspiracy Theory (TM)” for years until … finally … oh yeah it turned out to be true.
Weird how many times that happens.
And afterwards all the people who couldn’t possibly believe a word of it are the same ones tut tutting about how could this possibly have happened?
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You know the Democratic political machine are out there trying to get dirt on this bloke, DeSantis. They’re trolling through all his social media contributions, interviewing old girlfriends and college mates. Trying to find some embittered distant cousin or perhaps a slave trader going back generations. Once they have amassed some info then slowly release it to the compliant MSM over the next few years. Try to avert any Presidential aspirations for DeSantis. I’m hoping not. There is no equivalent in Australia who looks to come close to his projection of confidence, sensible COVID strategies and political nous. He must also have a very good team backing him. His speech at that rock concert in Florida was excellent- but barely rated a mention in the media.
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And they know that Project Veritas and others are trying to watch them as they do it
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Here is a 1.5 minute US video on Cultural Marxism at the academic level and how you can get a Bachelor degree in English Literature at UCLA and never have to study Shakespeare.
https://youtu.be/btVNUDN_P3E
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The none most terrifying words in the English language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCedOQJ0ZEA
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I once had a discussion with a school teacher who claimed that socialism was just as legitimate a system as any other. My reply was that socialism cannot exist in a free society and a free society cannot exist in a socialist society. Socialism takes away freedom of choice by definition.
Additionally, once socialism takes root is almost impossible to get rid of it. You no longer have a choice. Dependent people will sell their souls. Elites like that it keeps the riff raff out of the country club. Dependent people sell their votes easily. People’s votes are bought with their own money. It is a form of slavery. The worst American President was FDR. We still struggle with the chains of socialism he shackled us with. He flooded the swamp.
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‘The worst American President was FDR.’
Is that because of his Keynesian thinking?
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I’m not sure that FDR was economically literate enough to be a disciple or critic of Keynes based on an understanding of economic principles. The principal architect of the New Deal was Henry Morgenthau Jr. Since Morgenthau was a proponent of monetary policy and disliked fiscal policy strategies, the case is difficult to be made that he was a strong Keynesian. On the other hand Morgenthau believed in a severe progressive tax to pay down debt instead of reducing the scope and size of government. This was very similar to the ideas presented by Keynes in his 1936 book: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
One of Morgenthau’s subordinates, Harry Dexter White, butted heads with Keynes at the Bretton Woods conference. It is now known that White was a communist and White’s lieutenants Frank Coe and Solomon Adler were as well. FDR was sympathetic to socialism in general and tolerated known communists in government service. White was exposed as early as 1939 but FDR did nothing.
Was FDR:
just too clueless?
just incompetent?
just complacent?
just in on it?
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FDR’s New Deal was clearly the first practical application of Keynesian economics during the Great Depression and Hitler also embraced the idea.
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Most of what is now called the “New Deal” came from President Hoover.
FDR started with a campaign against Hoover on charged of economic meddling and spendthrift, and then after FDR won on that campaign platform, he took what Hoover was doing, rebranded it as “New Deal” and turned all the dials up to 11 … a total reversal of what he promised to do. It was Hoover who invented the endless “Alphabet Agencies” and then FDR added to the momentum afterwards.
For example the Federal Farm Board (FFB) was created in 1929 to centrally plan agricultural prices while in 1933 the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) came along to do much the same thing … and there were a bunch of these market meddling operations.
Hoover attempted to artificially keep wages high, which is precisely the wrong thing to do during times of unemployment.
https://www.aier.org/article/5-myths-about-the-great-depression-and-new-deal/
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How about the ‘Do Nothing’ President, Calvin Coolidge, he let the economy run riot during the roaring 20’s, reckoning it was Congress’ job to reel them in….. his motto was ‘ Walk quietly and carry a big stick’.
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Ronin:
I thought that was Theodore Rooseveldt “speak softly and carry a big stick”.
As for Silent Cal, he became President when Harding died and the scandals associated with his time. He was widely regarded as honest.
He presided over a boom and left before it ended, but not before expressing reservations (but there was little Federal regulation of the economy then).
I think his most appropriate quote was “I have noticed that nothing I have never said ever did me any harm.”
Sometimes written as “If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it.
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Dave in the States, as they say, you can vote yourself into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out…
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The worst was Wilson. An avowed racist he segregated the Federal workforce and stopped racial progress completely. He hated the Constitution and imprisoned objectors to WWI, who were eventually freed by Harding. He is the origin of the modern Democratic party.
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Wilson is also the father of modern globalism. We can thank him for creating the environment for allowing Agenda 21, the IPCC, all the COPs, and the general idea of the UN, although it was called Wilsonionism 100 years ago. He engendered the League of Nations. But it wasn’t until Obama, and now Biden, that treaties could be enacted unconstitutionally, without being ratified by the Senate, and be gotten away with. Wilson failed to win ratification of the Versailles Treaty which was required for entrance into the League. So ironically, the US was not a member of the League.
That didn’t stop back door participation. It was no secret that Herbert Hoover’s administration was Wilson’s third term, only with an R behind it. The first RINO president?
After Matsuoka rendered the League of Nations inert in 1933, it was FDR that reincarnated it as the UN during WW2.
My opinion that FDR was the worst is based mainly on the New Deal and its destructive legacy. The New Deal allowed a creeping socialism to take root. FDR attempted to pack SCOTUS when they struck down New Deal policies. His VP was Henry Wallace who was an avowed socialist. When FDR sought a 4th term even the Dems of the time had had enough, and demanded he get rid of Wallace and take a more conservative Dem as his running mate. Leftist institutions such the IMF and the world bank were fostered under FDR. Communists in his administration were quietly supporting Mao while FDR looked the other way.
New Deal administrators such Coe and Adler eventually made their way to China and became part of the CCP, among Mao’s inner circle. Coe probably helped promote the Great Leap Forward.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1980/06/08/frank-coe-73-accused-in-50s-red-probe-dies/8cc7f46b-9e65-452e-ae22-644538100dee/
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Not being a student of US history, I must believe you.
But we have something similar here, our worst PM was Whitlam. He had a theory that he would raise public service pay and force the private sector to follow. Ever since our PS has been the highest paid in the world. Our Reserve Bank Governor [Stevens?] was touted to be BOE Governor but wouldn’t take the pay cut. But it’s not just the mandarins, it filters all the way down.
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Good to see some good news !!
Communism is oppression of culture and religion and people and freedom. Unions stem from the same crap. Once they gain numbers, they become more aggressive. Once they are in control they become oppressive. Limiting unions and distancing one self from unions is a way to dismantle the establishment. Bottom-feeding bunch of thugs and mafia. Just look at Victoria and the chairman Dan.
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“Florida: schools to teach downside of communism: etc. ”
This isn’t a step in the right direction; it’s a complete halt, a full reversal, and a move back towards the place we came from and found so worthwhile half a century ago.
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A red and blue team debating in schools, on the benefit of capitalist and socialist economic theory, would be a wonderful education.
‘Both support for socialism and attacks on it appear to be on the rise.
‘Socialism can mean different things to people. Some see it as a system that institutionalizes fairness and citizen rights, bringing higher levels of social solidarity; others focus on heavy-handed government control of free markets that work more effectively when left alone.’ (The Conversation)
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Most people today (present company excepted) are too dumbed-down, ignorant and lazy to understand the Free Enterprise System.
I recommend they watch Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” series. Playlist here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXD32Z5YYifX8J3Kp-WBA9Ongy0p1C1u9
Also, anything by Thomas Sowell.
There are many other resources.
There is no excuse to be ignorant about Free Enterprise, even in the context of a heavily censored (by the Left) Internet.
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Thomas Sowell dismantles Frances Fox Piven (Socialist) Egalitarianism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26QxO49Ycx0
Also see Milton Freidman: Free To Choose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWgNe8v6KFc&list=PLAC0112857F2D3EAA
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“Jordan Peterson Does A Devastating Critique Of The Communist Manifesto”
Link at
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2021/05/16/jordan-peterson-does-a-devastating-critique-of-the-communist-manifesto/
Also Chiefio raises the point that “economies of scale” means there is likely a point at which too big gets inefficient too
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“The same poll also reported that 27 percent of people believe President Donald Trump is the biggest threat to world peace. The survey placed the U.S. president over North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.”
Trump was the only President NOT to start a war somewhere, yet these numnuts put him above those warmongering criminals, sheesh, you just can’t make this up.
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There are people who can and do make this stuff up. And profit in money or power doing it.
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The best argument against Democracy is a conversation with practically any millennial. H/t to W. Churchill.
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A poll conducted on Millennials attitude in 2018.
‘The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), a right-wing think tank, is not at all happy with the results of a survey they commissioned from international polling agency YouGov Galaxy to find out the attitudes of “Millennials” (people born between 1980 and 1996) in Australia to socialism and capitalism.
‘The poll found 58% were favourable to socialism and 59% thought that “capitalism has failed and government should exercise more control of the economy”. (green left)
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The big leftward drift of universities has taken them away from the learning tools of logic and reasoning and the questioning of the orthodoxy and they are now simply a place where one is told what to think, which of course is all based on their Woke-Marxist ideology. The absurd racial attack on maths and physics is a good example of how their view has changed 180 degrees to one where they now fear the pursue of logical and rational ideas and thoughts, which would expose the lies that underpin their ideology. The sad reality is that universities are now not much different from mosques that teach Islamic extremism, with both seeking to indoctrinate and radicalise young minds to further their own ideological cause. In the case of Islam, the threat is Judaism and Christianity and with Woke-Marxism the threat is western democracy, which is underpinned by Judaism and Christianity. Perhaps this is why the left show such support to radical Islam, because they share the same enemy, even though their ideologies are opposing in so many areas.
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I grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. During my time in high school, I can remember the principal coming on the intercom twice. I distinctly remember his announcing that the USSR was not going to contest the naval blockade of Cuba and that the ships were going to return home. The second time was when Kennedy was assassinated.
My area would have been targeted. MacDill Air Force base was not far away.
As a result of the Cuba incident. Before I graduated from high school I was required to take a course in Americanism vs. Communism. At that time Democrats were patriots. Kennedy certainly was and he was a capitalist too.
Things have changed.
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As I’m sure you’re aware, Charles, politicians are adept at telling an electorate what they think they want to hear to gain and maintain their power and resulting privilege. That goes all the way back to advisers to the chieftain. Now, especially when an election cycle looms, politicians will do the same. That was no more evident than Nancy Pelosi beating the drum for an abolition of gender pronouns and descriptors in Congress, while still maintaining them on her social media and hypocritically, without amy embarrassment (nor blowback from the leftwing trashmedia) making a speech IN Congress about being a proud daughter, wife, mother, grandmother!
Nancy, as a Democrat, doesn’t have the hypocrisy tag on her own, but is making an artform of it and that’s because there’s no accountability from a fawning activist media attempting to morph the Democrats even further away from their Southern Confederacy roots, into a designer Marxist perpetual ruling party. Nancy doesn’t believe any of the drivel she’s spouting, she’s just been around long enough to know that her seat is safe and her fridge is full of her favorite ice cream if she appeases the lobby group which will fill the campaign coffers.
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Capitalism and Communism don’t work…they are the extremes of society. I am a Tribalist; ie: all human beings are tribal in nature, and this reflects on the various societies that exist in the 21st Century. The belief of of one system over the other continually changes with time. While the Socialist belief is currently in ascendance. My belief is that, as the 21st Century progresses, “The New Capitalism” based on the ridiculous notion of AGW will temporarily rule, until it is realised that AGW is totally irrelevant and relies on baseless scientific assertions.
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Agreed. It’s an old rhetorical trick to present people with two alternatives with the tacit message that there are no other options. In this instance, the Left try to tell us it’s either them or capitalism.
I’d put in a vote for Distributism. Wealth is like manure in a garden – for best results it should be spread thinly and evenly. So if government intervenes in the economic life of the community (I say, if), that intervention should only be in the direction of breaking down concentrations of wealth. Government should support the interests of individuals and families over the interests of corporate entities.
The AGW hoax is one of the latest in a long line of gimmicks used by corporations to accumulate wealth to themselves. And accumulating wealth is not the same thing as creating it.
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Every single thing we know is from those who experienced things in the past. If we erase that, we lose perspective. Good or Bad, our history produces us. DeSantis knows that. As a Floridian, I agree with him. Lessons lost, will be lessons re-learned.
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I have an online chat friend in Estonia who’s an artist and he and his family plus wider community have no illusions about what the imposition of dictatorial communism was. It always has to be enforced because no one in their right mind would want to actually live under a communist authoritarian system, and suffer the oppression it always brings. There was an obvious reason Communists were always paranoid about “counter-revolutionaries”, because no one liked communism except the violent oppressive thugs at the top of the system.
The ‘Iron Curtain’ and Berlin Wall were designed with hundreds of machine-gun posts and land-mine belts plus razor wire, not to keep the West out, but to deter and prevent people from escaping communism, to the west. They wanted communists to have no interactions with the West or its culture, because if they saw the difference they would never want to be communist, or would need to be “re-educated”. Even the communists understood that much about themselves, so they carefully controlled all international and internal travel with permits and check-points, to make sure people had the right permissions to travel and stayed on a leash and stuck in a communist country, unable to travel to the West at all, without Communist party approval.
Same thing where Chinese people risked their lives to swim to Hong Kong from mainland China, to try and escape the Communist Party’s corruption and arbitrary oppression of life and cruelty. I once knew a Chinese but Australian educated engineer who did exactly that when young. he then applied to study in Australia and emigrate as far from the Chinese communist party as possible. They all detest life under a communist parties so much, they are willing to risk death to get away from it.
It’s a disgrace that this vile oppressive system is now fawned after by the young and inexperienced and apparently the very poorly-educated. The idea that we don’t have a right to our own personal food, clothing and shelter or even our own bed, and will be lorded over by local party hacks and enforcers is why people hate Communism. It’s a system which prevents people from having a good life and if you dare say life should not be like that, you’ll be destroyed by the local Communist party’s hacks.
In the West any one can dissent and entertain communism or ‘believe’ in it even, and no one destroys you. It was the same in the 1970s. The law, the system and the police still protect ‘communists’ here and hopefully they eventually realize that communism means even their own pillow belongs to ‘The Party’, comrade.
Communism is a constant war against basic human needs, it’s also just like an involuntary military service where no civilians are really present in the entire country. Their non-uniformed ‘civilian’ life was not called a “military-dictatorship” for nothing. The State controlled all available civil resources via the party hacks just like a military does via officers in uniform.
In the West, barring total war or direct strategic threat the use of of involuntary conscription isn’t used. All advanced Western militaries found that voluntary service via a free people makes by far the most professional and effective combat force. Not only does the Western State not compel volunteers to stay in service, it also pays them well, and has the right to constantly weed out the unsuitable, and replaces them with better people. The State evaluates if any serving volunteer is fit to serve in a combat capacity. If they are not the State will discharge them back to a support role or civilian life. But it’s not even a voluntary organisation once it, it’s a profession.
But even in the military under communism people were pressed into service at any time, the state was always poorer, and the military paid particularly poorly, so they were far less professionally focused, officers were typically very corrupt and double-dealing because the people in such service were there only to get-by, not to serve the interests of a brutal system they probably detested, but had to play along with to not get plowed-under by it. And when they were discharges they know their options would be much more limited and they would be poor, so corruption while they had some power was all they had to further themselves. They trick was to not get caught. And the further they were up the hierarchy the less likely it was they would get caught, so the corruption and criminality was usually greatest toward the top of a Communist military dictatorship system, where only the most evil people would rise to, and thrive.
That is why no one liked Communism and no one prospered under it, it was and is a system that can only be sustained via continuous fear of violence and relentless oppression and the people in control at the very top were the best experts in the entire population at imposing fear and oppression.
It’s not a debate about economics or fairness and ideals, it never was, as only the free western world and like-minder allies had that option available to the majority of the population, where even deluded ‘communist’ ideologues are protected and free to change their mind, as they see fit.
There will always be bad oppressive corrupt people in any population, free or otherwise, some are in banks, some are in the police, some drive a truck, but we have police for that, and freedom, including economic freedom, is the only system that people both want to live in, and to serve under to further its interests, and to do the best they can to make humanity even better.
All “isms” are bad if you are not free to chose, to act and to own, your bed, your cloths and you financial resources sustained by the community you live in, free of all external oppression and coercion via threats.
This is where communism has and always will fail humanity, as far as organizing principles go it’s been a very bad joke, it was built by self-appointed saints, for crooks to be crooked. It’s really an organised-crime racket which works against human freedom, to further the few at the expense of the majority, which is the exact opposite of what it originally claimed to do and be. Communism was and always will be a totally unacceptable system of government for humanity.
All ideologies and tacked-on side-issues become irrelevant once choosing our own best path in a life that is free has been removed.
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The World Almanac published a list of the greatest inventions, innovations and discoveries over the last several hundred years. US citizens had about 250 out of 450 or so. The Soviet Union had 1. High Octane gasoline. Capitalism provides all the incentives, tools and processes to take advantage of man’s innate desire to imagine and improve. Nothing else comes close.
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Also – pretty much all of the great inventions, music, literature, discoveries, business ideas etc are the product of one person, or very rarely 2 or 3 like-minds. But this can only happen in societies where reward and recognition for individuals is permitted. Communism is noted for being run by committees with idiots over-ruling anything not fitting the sacred theory. Did any committee ever do anything other than get in the way of good ideas or take them over and ruin them?
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The USSR did NOT invent hi-octane gas.
We did, right here in America. And that was a massive step forward. All our fighter planes used it.
Can’t remember where I read it, but without this gas planes like the P-38, 47 and the P-51 mustang could not have reached the altitude there were able to. In both theaters.
(If we even did) give the Communists the ability to make that it was due to the infiltration of Communists in the FDR admin and that treasonous bastard Harry Hopkins.
For the REAL history of all this, and much more, go buy and read Diana West’s book, “American Betrayal”. Everyone here should do so. Even the trolls here, like Gene Ayre, (or however you spell it), Peter Fitzroy and their ilk would do themselves a great service to actually know what really happened in WW II and the lend-lease program.
Even Frank the Cripple (FDR, BTW) is on record and was willing to give up Australia to the Japs if he could keep arming Stalin. The quotes AND the citations are in this book. Good luck finding them elsewhere.
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I commented on this on James Lindsay’s Facebook page.
I said
He’s a supporter of DeSantis.
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