Socialism vs. Capitalism

[canukian]

Which do you think is better? Which is moral? Do you believe that Christ supports one or the other?

I am a Christian Socialist, so I believe in socialism. I see capitalism as cruel and unjust. I also believe that the Bible supports socialism.

Acts 2:44-45:

Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.

Acts 4:32-35:

Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.

so then, they did not share their common property with those who did not believe now did they?

 

[Notamonkey]

In John 12 Mary annointed Jesus feet.
"But one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume slod and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief;as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it."
John 12:4-6 NIV

Socialism is like Judas, it's a front for theft, greed, and coveting, not caring for the poor, to make a "utopia" on earth and end poverty, but Jesus said, " You will always have the poor among you,...."

Socialism is hypocrisy, those who claim others are greedy are the one's who are. They just want what you have in the name of poverty. They stoak others into coveting to get support(buy votes) to that end. Social Security is a fine example of "caring for the poor". It was put into the general fund and looted(Judas) by the government for other pet projects and is nothing but a giant ponzy scheme full of IOUs. Those funds are taken from us without our consent yet it is called a "contribution" on our pay stubs.

 

[Andrew Ryan]

Kapitalismus!

 

[Notamonkey]

Oy vey, Acts 4 has nothing to do with socialism, but charity of the body of Christ done willingly, without compulsion(force), and there is no government involved. Confiscating wealth isn't charity, it's theft. This scripture is used all the time by those who hold on to a man-made ideology, socialism.

 

[Rora]

Ehh, I don't think any government system really works the way it should.

Socialism and Communism look great on paper but don't seem to always work out in practice. Capitalism just seems cruel.

I do whatever is necessary (pay taxes, comply with laws, etc), but after that is done, I choose to ignore the workings of the government and do my best to help those in need and focus on living a Christ centered life.

 

[Andrew Ryan]

This scripture is used all the time by those who hold on to a man-made ideology, socialism.

Not meaning to nit-pick, as it were, but capitalism is also a man-made ideology, no?

 

[godisreal36]

In John 12 Mary annointed Jesus feet.
"But one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume slod and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages. He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief;as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it."
John 12:4-6 NIV

Socialism is like Judas, it's a front for theft, greed, and coveting, not caring for the poor, to make a "utopia" on earth and end poverty, but Jesus said, " You will always have the poor among you,...."

Socialism is hypocrisy, those who claim others are greedy are the one's who are. They just want what you have in the name of poverty. They stoak others into coveting to get support(buy votes) to that end. Social Security is a fine example of "caring for the poor". It was put into the general fund and looted(Judas) by the government for other pet projects and is nothing but a giant ponzy scheme full of IOUs. Those funds are taken from us without our consent yet it is called a "contribution" on our pay stubs.

Interesting, i never considered Judas before along with Christian Socialism. Interesting

 

[godisreal36]

Not meaning to nit-pick, as it were, but capitalism is also a man-made ideology, no?

Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, no political belief will help you. Tell Mr obama to Put the bible down if he's going to use it to rob people and if his preacher will use it to damn people, at least until he starts Going to a church where they don't damn countries to hell.

Some say Mr Obama covered Jesus name in order to Promote Good and fair governing, apparently he was being bipartisan or something. When Obama's Preacher said May God Damn America, was it out of love or hate?
Let's cover Jesus name in the name of politics, and then damn the whole country on Sunday morning... it's hate. The high and mighty Obama is not a Christian, at least not a good one worthy to use bible scripture. One minute he's covering Jesus name, his preacher damning America the next.

 

[Rora]

Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, no political belief will help you.

I agree with this statement 100%.

 

[TheReasoner]

Jesus is the only way to get to heaven, no political belief will help you. Tell Mr obama to Put the bible down if he's going to use it to rob people and if his preacher will use it to damn people, at least until he starts Going to a church where they don't damn countries to hell.

Some say Mr Obama covered Jesus name in order to Promote Good and fair governing, apparently he was being bipartisan or something. When Obama's Preacher said May God Damn America, was it out of love or hate?
Let's cover Jesus name in the name of politics, and then damn the whole country on Sunday morning... it's hate. The high and mighty Obama is not a Christian, at least not a good one worthy to use bible scripture. One minute he's covering Jesus name, his preacher damning America the next.

Well. You're damning yourselves, aren't you? Heard of Sodom godisreal? Why did they burn? Because they did not care for the "orphans and the widows". Because they did not show hospitality to the sojourner. Just read Ezekiel. What does the bible say of the king who does not plead the case of the poor? And what does it say about immigrants? Can you see either of these issues mirrored in the conservative Americans? I cannot. Stricter immigration laws, kicking people back to the poverty from whence they came to seek hope in the US. Laws reducing taxes to the very richest so they can live even more hedonistic lifestyles. Does it really matter to them if they might not be able to buy yet another sports car every week? The reductions a somewhat increased taxation places on these people in the upper echelon is negligible. Yet the benefit to the poor is potentially extreme. Yet the conservatives oppose it. How is that "Christian"?

Did you know that the US gives less than any other western country to foreign aid? And that of what it DOES give most is tied up in US assets - meaning the US gives to it's own companies and businesses when it is giving to those in need? Did you know that the conservative states who are the most eager to shout about how good and christian they are - usually with some sexual connotation - happen to be the largest consumers of pornography? Did you know that the USA is the country in the west with the highest teenage pregnancy rating - BY FAR? And - furthermore - that the conservative states are the worst? Did you know that no other country in the world has a larger part of it's population in prison at any given time? Did you know that the US is almost in perpetual armed conflict with someone else, and that the frequency with which these conflicts has arisen has been and still is increasing? So tell me, where is the "Christian" behavior in this? Where is the "Christian" behavior many Republicans so proudly claim to be shining examples of? And where are the fruits of this work?

Is it in the high rate of violent crimes - such as rape?
Is it perhaps in the full prisons?
Is it in the broken promises of how much to give in aid to the poor?
Or perhaps the broken word in the numerous violations of the human rights declaration?
Perhaps we can see Christ in all the conflicts the US has started and the conservatives so vehemently support?
Is it in the rather extreme porn production?
Or maybe it is in the highest rate of teenage pregnancies?
Can we see Christ in the high abortion rates?
Or perhaps in the overthrowing of other democracies and the training of despots' death squads in other nations?
Is it something we can see in the distribution of wealth when the richest 1% own more than the "bottom" 90% of the US population - combined?

I think not.

Jeremiah 5:9
"Should I not punish them for this?" declares the LORD. "Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?"

 

[Algol Omega]

The only moral system is that which respects the Individual: Capitalism.

Did you know that the US gives less than any other western country to foreign aid?

Only the government gives less; the largest private donations are ALWAYS from United States Citizens, time and time again; meanwhile, even after having our own crisis, not a single country even comes close in matching our private donations.

 

[gluadys]

The only moral system is that which respects the Individual: Capitalism.

I have no experience of capitalism respecting the individual. The only thing I see capitalism respecting is the dollar.

I notice in your signature you speak of classical liberalism. I would agree that liberalism is founded on respect for the individual. I think liberalism is a decent philosophy and compatible with Christianity. But I think socialism has more respect for the individual than capitalism does.

Only the government gives less; the largest private donations are ALWAYS from United States Citizens, time and time again; meanwhile, even after having our own crisis, not a single country even comes close in matching our private donations.

That's true. Privately, Americans are remarkably generous. Too bad their government doesn't imitate them. Because private resources can't match government resources, so no matter how generous private donors are, they can't provide the same level of resources the government could. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the government matched private donations at least dollar-for-dollar. Or better.

In Canada, the federal government and several provincial governments do exactly that: and in some cases even triple private donations, so that every dollar an individual donates results in four dollars for the recipient charity to distribute. Yet that is still only a small fraction of Canada's foreign aid (which is almost as negligible as that of the U.S.)

Another big difference, of course, is that private charity is real charity i.e. it is given, with no expectation of repayment. Foreign aid is not charity. It consists of loans to be repaid with interest.

But the real issue is justice. Neither loans nor charity provide justice. Nor are they adequate substitutes for justice. Justice is at the heart of really respecting individuals.

 

[TheReasoner]

Americans generous Algol Omega? In terms of how many dollars are given, yes. But as a portion of what a country has, or even private donations per capita... Nope. The US is rather stingy.
Check this out:
List of most charitable countries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So yes. In absolute terms the US is the best donor. But neither per capita nor as a percentage of the GDI. And this is mirrored for aid on a governmental level as well.

Consider, the US gives 28.6 billion US to charity. The US has a population of 307,006,550. Sweden and Norway gives 4.55 and 4. billion respectively and has a population of 9,302,123 and 4,827,038 respectively. Do you REALLY think this looks good for the US? Nah, it does not.

 

[Algol Omega]

I have no experience of capitalism respecting the individual. The only thing I see capitalism respecting is the dollar.

Then you know nothing.

Capitalism is the only system wherein it is truly possible for two men to compete; wherein a woman can be respected for getting to the top. It is only through Capitalism, that a man can choose to work for himself, or to work for another. Capitalism is the only system wherein an employee can really unionize as he so chooses; wherein the employer has the right to do with his own capital as he chooses. It is only through a Capitalist society, that a consumer can go elsewhere.

"If one upholds freedom, one must uphold man’s individual rights; if one upholds man’s individual rights, one must uphold his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness—which means: one must uphold a political system that guarantees and protects these rights—which means: the politico-economic system of capitalism." - Ayn Rand

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams

I notice in your signature you speak of classical liberalism. I would agree that liberalism is founded on respect for the individual. I think liberalism is a decent philosophy and compatible with Christianity. But I think socialism has more respect for the individual than capitalism does.

You're either very ignorant, or you're very arrogant. today's liberalism is nothing more than neo-Statism. Respect for the individual begins and ends with Individualism: the respect that each man is his own individual; the respect that each man is his own property, and everything he works for belongs solely to himself.

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." - Thomas Jefferson

"Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil." - John Adams

That's true. Privately, Americans are remarkably generous. Too bad their government doesn't imitate them. Because private resources can't match government resources, so no matter how generous private donors are, they can't provide the same level of resources the government could. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the government matched private donations at least dollar-for-dollar. Or better.

It is not the government's place to aid, period. If people want to aid, that's their own problem.

"I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form." - Calvin Coolidge

But the real issue is justice. Neither loans nor charity provide justice. Nor are they adequate substitutes for justice. Justice is at the heart of really respecting individuals.

And you think there's justice in taking away a man's fruits of labors without due process? Anything that violates a man's liberty, is NOT justice; it has no respect for the Individual, period.

I don't give a damn how poor you are, or where you're from; in reality, ANYONE that violates a man's liberty is nothing more than a tyrant and deserves the worst.

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." - Andrew Jackson

Americans generous Algol Omega? In terms of how many dollars are given, yes. But as a portion of what a country has, or even private donations per capita... Nope. The US is rather stingy.
Check this out:
List of most charitable countries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So yes. In absolute terms the US is the best donor. But neither per capita nor as a percentage of the GDI. And this is mirrored for aid on a governmental level as well.

Consider, the US gives 28.6 billion US to charity. The US has a population of 307,006,550. Sweden and Norway gives 4.55 and 4. billion respectively and has a population of 9,302,123 and 4,827,038 respectively. Do you REALLY think this looks good for the US? Nah, it does not.

Please, the United States is stingy on a per-Capita basis? That's your only argument. Maybe most people don't want to donate to foreign aid because we have realized how corrupt the system is.

Perhaps a lot of us don't believe the world is worth the time or money we can give, and so far - those of us, like myself, that don't believe in interfering with the rest of the world, haven't been wrong one bit. Every single time we try to 'aid' someone, there's always someone complaining about us not giving enough despite the fact they can't give for [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], always someone talking about how the United States is the big bad wolf despite the fact that they're the ones murdering and raping women and children, and those people we aid, turn into just a bunch of terrorists at the end of the day.

So you want to call America, stingy? Go ahead. Just know that at the end of the day, no one has any right to talk about any other country donating, when just a portion of our population is donating more than every other country combined.

"Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else." - Ayn Rand

 

[gluadys]

Then you know nothing.

- Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand is a blithering idiot who teaches the polar opposite of Christianity. And I am not speaking from ignorance. I have read a lot of her work.

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams

Yet modern capitalism gives exactly that power to major corporations and financial institutions through the fiction of treating them as individuals. Or haven't you been paying attention to what has been happening in your country with billions of dollars of tax money gone to the thieves who bankrupted your financial system in the first place while many individuals lost house, home, jobs, dignity. It has even got so bad that your Supreme Court has sanctioned public corporate lying (by Fox news) and the buying of elections by corporate interests. Fine way to respect real individuals.

You're either very ignorant, or you're very arrogant. today's liberalism is nothing more than neo-Statism.

I specified, as you did, classical liberalism.

Respect for the individual begins and ends with Individualism: the respect that each man is his own individual; the respect that each man is his own property, and everything he works for belongs solely to himself.

As a Christian, I believe all that I have comes from, and belongs ultimately, to God and is to be used as God directs. No one has ever gained anything solely by himself and should not treat it as belonging solely to himself.

Poverty is a scandal to a nation, for if God's laws on economics were being implemented there would be no poor among us. Poverty is not to be handled with charity, but with justice, by responding to the just claims of the poor and eliminating the structures of greed and oppression which deny them the just reward of their labour.

That doesn't relieve us of the duty of charity, for where economic justice is not being practiced, charity provides a modicum of necessary relief, but it is a band-aid, not the full implementation of biblical justice enjoined on the community under God.

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." - Thomas Jefferson


And the equal rights of others includes their equal right to the necessities of life (water, food, shelter, health care) and the necessities of living in human dignity (education, recreation, worship). Any legal or economic system (whatever it is called, "capitalism", "socialism" "democracy") which does not uphold and protect those rights for all is not a free society that respects the rights of individuals.

Ayn Rand defends the rights of plutocrats to hold on to the wealth they have plundered from the poor through the fiction that they have "earned" it, while denying the rights of the poor for justice. Hardly a fitting model for one who follows Christ.

It is not the government's place to aid, period. If people want to aid, that's their own problem.

In the view of God's prophets, it is the government's place to uphold the rights of the poor against those who would oppress and exploit them. Rulers (whether kings, priests, judges, elders ----elected representatives or CEOs) who fail to do so are condemned as shepherds who have abandoned, or worse, despoiled the flock--the people whom God loves. Scripture has one and only one criterion of good government: there will be no poor among you. And one means of assuring it: justice for the poor.

"I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form." - Calvin Coolidge

I wonder what Coolidge would have to say about the guardians of the people's savings who did not guard them safely, and having lost those savings demanded that the very people whose trust they had violated provide them with $7 billion to start over again, and then spent some of it on bonuses for the incompetent managers who had created this debacle.

And you think there's justice in taking away a man's fruits of labors without due process?

No, I most certainly don't. And I accuse the large corporations of doing just that: robbing the poor of their rightful wages, living wages sufficient to maintain self and family in dignity. Even worse, they are destroying the very basis of life by rampant exploitation of the material environment. Deforestation, pollution of waterways, smog-filled cities, destruction of natural habitats, the biggest mass extinction since the loss of the dinosaurs--and all of it in the teeth of sound environmental assessment or respect for human rights. Respect for the individual?!?! Have you looked at how local populations---the actual possessors and users of the land for millennia---are treated by mining companies? Do you know that governments sign away the rights of their people in order to lure corporations to set up shop in export processing zones? Due process is obliterated by the demands of unregulated capitalism and its puppet governments.

Furthermore, any government that calls itself socialist but engages in the same practices deserves the same condemnation. I am not big on labels if they consist of false advertising. As Jesus once said, many will call him "Lord, Lord" whose works are of the devil.

Anything that violates a man's liberty, is NOT justice;

Like paying him less than he needs to feed himself. Like dumping one's product on the market below cost to drive competitors out of business. Like refusing to negotiate a fair deal with local communities if one wishes to set up business on their land. Yes, there are innumerable ways capitalism violates justice.




"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." - Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson has it right on. Capitalism exploits those who "have neither the time nor the means of securing favors to themselves". Such have the right to expect government to redress their grievances--to demand from the government equal protection for their rights.



"Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else." - Ayn Rand[/QUOTE]

As usual, she's wrong. Freedom means freedom from every coercive power--including the coercive power of the landlord, the employer, the banker, the HMO, the corporate rulers of our time. We have tax-supported courts, after all, to hear appeals against the unjust coercion of landlords, et al. But when government favours the oppressors and writes laws and regulations that deny justice to the poor, the nation is in deep moral trouble.

Even nature, whose power is beyond human control, is not an oppressive power except when humanity makes it such. Nature does provide for all, abundantly. It is humans who commandeer her abundance for a few. And, in our day, are even undermining her ability to provide at all. God is surely weeping when he sees young ocean birds dying of malnutrition because their stomachs are full of waste plastic instead of food, when life-sustaining forests are bulldozed down for a few years worth of beef production for the rich before the land can no longer sustain any plant life at all and precious water resources are poisoned by the leachate from tailings ponds.

 

[Algol Omega]

Ayn Rand is a blithering idiot who teaches the polar opposite of Christianity. And I am not speaking from ignorance. I have read a lot of her work.

Ayn Rand is a blithering idiot? Please; and she doesn't teach the polar opposite of Christianity, she teaches from a realistic viewpoint. Objectivism is exactly that: objective, unlike Marxism.

Yet modern capitalism gives exactly that power to major corporations and financial institutions through the fiction of treating them as individuals.

Except for the fact corporations wouldn't have any legal power if it wasn't for statism to begin with. What we have today is called a Keynesian society; it's a mixed economy, but not mixed via Capitalism; it is corporatism.

Or haven't you been paying attention to what has been happening in your country with billions of dollars of tax money gone to the thieves who bankrupted your financial system in the first place while many individuals lost house, home, jobs, dignity. It has even got so bad that your Supreme Court has sanctioned public corporate lying (by Fox news) and the buying of elections by corporate interests. Fine way to respect real individuals.

1. Bailouts are the result of the Statist ideology known as Corporatism; Capitalism has no respect for corporate welfare, and such demands that corporations fail and succeed on their own merit.

2. So you should be allowed to send money to whatever political entity you want, but corporations shouldn't? It's tyranny to say a corporation has to do XYZ with its money, and hypocrisy to say someone or a group of people aren't allowed to do with their money as you can.

3. Freedom of speech is meant to protect ALL forms of dangerous and unpopular speech; but hey, maybe we should become an Islamic theocracy, or better yet - let's just go back to the dark ages where people are punished for not speaking out against the church. Or wait, you may like that too much.

I specified, as you did, classical liberalism.

How ignorant.

As a Christian, I believe all that I have comes from, and belongs ultimately, to God and is to be used as God directs. No one has ever gained anything solely by himself and should not treat it as belonging solely to himself.

Again, it is not your place to tell someone what they may or may not do with their possessions. If you bothered to read the NT contextually, you may learn that even Jesus was against coercion.

Poverty is a scandal to a nation, for if God's laws on economics were being implemented there would be no poor among us.

There will always be the poor; just as there'll always be the rich.

Poverty is not to be handled with charity, but with justice, by responding to the just claims of the poor and eliminating the structures of greed and oppression which deny them the just reward of their labour.

Please. As an employer investing capital into my own business as I see fit, I have absolutely no moral obligation to hire you or anyone else. In fact, nobody is forcing you into not working any more than they can force you to work in a Capitalist society. It is, however, YOUR place to seek work and to prove yourself worthy to the employer.

That doesn't relieve us of the duty of charity, for where economic justice is not being practiced, charity provides a modicum of necessary relief, but it is a band-aid, not the full implementation of biblical justice enjoined on the community under God.

Economic justice is a farce.

And the equal rights of others includes their equal right to the necessities of life (water, food, shelter, health care) and the necessities of living in human dignity (education, recreation, worship). Any legal or economic system (whatever it is called, "capitalism", "socialism" "democracy") which does not uphold and protect those rights for all is not a free society that respects the rights of individuals.

Oh how you twist words to suit your own self-righteousness, just like a tyrant.

Samuel Adams -

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!

Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.

It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

I firmly believe that the benevolent Creator designed the republican Form of Government for Man.

Andrew Jackson -

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Sun Tzu -

A leader leads by example not by force.

Thomas Jefferson -

I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.

Whatever be their degree of talents, it is no measure of their rights.

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Ayn Rand defends the rights of plutocrats to hold on to the wealth they have plundered from the poor through the fiction that they have "earned" it, while denying the rights of the poor for justice. Hardly a fitting model for one who follows Christ.

Ayn Rand doesn't defend Plutocracy, as it is a system wherein the wealthy rule the state.

Ayn Rand -

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

Do not be misled . . . by an old collectivist trick which goes like this: there is no absolute freedom anyway, since you are not free to murder; society limits your freedom when it does not permit you to kill; therefore, society holds the right to limit your freedom in any manner it sees fit; therefore, drop the delusion of freedom—freedom is whatever society decides it is. It is not society, nor any social right, that forbids you to kill—but the inalienable individual right of another man to live. This is not a “compromise” between two rights—but a line of division that preserves both rights untouched. The division is not derived from an edict of society—but from your own inalienable individual right. The definition of this limit is not set arbitrarily by society—but is implicit in the definition of your own right. Within the sphere of your own rights, your freedom is absolute.

The development from Aquinas through Locke and Newton represents more than four hundred years of stumbling, tortuous, prodigious effort to secularize the Western mind, i.e., to liberate man from the medieval shackles. It was the buildup toward a climax: the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment. For the first time in modern history, an authentic respect for reason became the mark of an entire culture; the trend that had been implicit in the centuries-long crusade of a handful of innovators now swept the West explicitly, reaching and inspiring educated men in every field. Reason, for so long the wave of the future, had become the animating force of the present.

Since the golden age of Greece, there has been only one era of reason in twenty-three centuries of Western philosophy. During the final decades of that era, the United States of America was created as an independent nation. This is the key to the country—to its nature, its development, and its uniqueness: the United States is the nation of the Enlightenment.

America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more—and nothing less. The rest—everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything “noble and just,” and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history—was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle. The first consequence was the principle of political freedom, i.e., an individual’s freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by the government. The next was the economic implementation of political freedom: the system of capitalism.

America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to “the common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

 

[Algol Omega]

In the view of God's prophets, it is the government's place to uphold the rights of the poor against those who would oppress and exploit them. Rulers (whether kings, priests, judges, elders ----elected representatives or CEOs) who fail to do so are condemned as shepherds who have abandoned, or worse, despoiled the flock--the people whom God loves. Scripture has one and only one criterion of good government: there will be no poor among you. And one means of assuring it: justice for the poor.

Jesus Christ said it himself, there'll always be the poor amongst us.

Nowhere in the entire Bible, is a system that uses coercion/force without due process condoned.

I wonder what Coolidge would have to say about the guardians of the people's savings who did not guard them safely, and having lost those savings demanded that the very people whose trust they had violated provide them with $7 billion to start over again, and then spent some of it on bonuses for the incompetent managers who had created this debacle.

Those corporations, whatever they did, were protected by Statism - nothing less. If we were in a Capitalist society where the individual is required to own up to a vigilant mind, most of those CEOs would never have gotten away with whatever crimes people believe they committed.

No, I most certainly don't. And I accuse the large corporations of doing just that: robbing the poor of their rightful wages, living wages sufficient to maintain self and family in dignity.

A corporation is under no obligation to hire anyone; it is your job as the employee to prove your worth, you are the one with a moral obligation.

Even worse, they are destroying the very basis of life by rampant exploitation of the material environment. Deforestation, pollution of waterways, smog-filled cities, destruction of natural habitats, the biggest mass extinction since the loss of the dinosaurs--and all of it in the teeth of sound environmental assessment or respect for human rights.

Deforestation? Except for the fact they always restore those forests; not to mention the fact that renewing forests is a whole lot better for the environment than letting it do its thing.

Pollution of waterways? Please, maybe if you people stopped worrying about getting the government on your side, and owned up to a vigilant mind, it wouldn't be happening. It is your own fault that corporations can get away with pollution, because you expect the government to hold your hands for you.

Destruction of natural habitats? See above.

Smog-filled cities? Again, see above.

Mass extinction? Again, nature is the reason for extinction.

Respect for the individual?!?! Have you looked at how local populations---the actual possessors and users of the land for millennia---are treated by mining companies?

Those people could've done themselves a favor and quit. Nobody forced them into working; and they could've protested. But instead, we're all being taught to use the government to take our responsibilities for us.

Do you know that governments sign away the rights of their people in order to lure corporations to set up shop in export processing zones?

Yes, it's a statist ideology known as Corporatism.

Due process is obliterated by the demands of unregulated capitalism and its puppet governments.

Unregulated Capitalism hasn't even existed for the past century, thanks to your Statist leaders.

Furthermore, any government that calls itself socialist but engages in the same practices deserves the same condemnation. I am not big on labels if they consist of false advertising. As Jesus once said, many will call him "Lord, Lord" whose works are of the devil.

Yeah, that's why you're not calling a spade a spade. Everything you mentioned is nothing more than Statist ideology.

Like paying him less than he needs to feed himself.

No one is under the moral obligation to hire; by investing my own Capital, I have absolutely every damn right to hire people how I want, and if they don't like it, they can go elsewhere since at the end of the day, THE EMPLOYER IS THE ONE RISKING HIS CAPITAL.

Like dumping one's product on the market below cost to drive competitors out of business.

Those who cannot compete, shouldn't be in the market.

Like refusing to negotiate a fair deal with local communities if one wishes to set up business on their land.

It is not the community's land, period. All land is private.

Yes, there are innumerable ways capitalism violates justice.

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." - Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson has it right on. Capitalism exploits those who "have neither the time nor the means of securing favors to themselves". Such have the right to expect government to redress their grievances--to demand from the government equal protection for their rights.

Again, you twist words to suit your own tyrannical method.

As usual, she's wrong. Freedom means freedom from every coercive power--including the coercive power of the landlord, the employer, the banker, the HMO, the corporate rulers of our time.

Oh she's right, as there is no such idea as coercion without the state for those with a vigilant mind. Only idiots let others get away with coercion.

We have tax-supported courts, after all, to hear appeals against the unjust coercion of landlords, et al.

The court system is no more right than any state, period. A landlord is under no obligation to rent his land, or any property out. He has absolutely no moral obligation to lower any prices.

But when government favours the oppressors and writes laws and regulations that deny justice to the poor, the nation is in deep moral trouble.

Yet, you favor such ideology.

Even George Orwell, once a self-avowed Socialist, warned in his book about Marxism:

After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard its position. It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called 'abolition of private property' which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals. Individually, no member of the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit. In the years following the Revolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization. It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport -- everything had been taken away from them: and since these things were no longer private property, it followed that they must be public property. Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.


The reality at the end of the day is, Capitalism does not use the state; rather, it is a system of meritocracy, where you either succeed or fail on your own merits. It is thus, the only system that best respects Individualism; for there is no Individualism without the respect of an Individual's liberty.

We have the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: but not the right to take from someone else to enhance our own life nor the right to happiness itself.

 

[gluadys]

Ayn Rand is a blithering idiot?

For sure.

Please; and she doesn't teach the polar opposite of Christianity,

Sure does. She despises Christianity and all it stands for. For her Ego is all.

she teaches from a realistic viewpoint.

That is so laughable.

Ayn Rand doesn't defend Plutocracy, as it is a system wherein the wealthy rule the state.

Follow her recommendations and plutocracy is the inevitable result.

Except for the fact corporations wouldn't have any legal power if it wasn't for statism to begin with. What we have today is called a Keynesian society; it's a mixed economy, but not mixed via Capitalism; it is corporatism.

I wonder what Coolidge would have to say about the guardians of the people's savings who did not guard them safely, and having lost those savings demanded that the very people whose trust they had violated provide them with $7 billion to start over again, and then spent some of it on bonuses for the incompetent managers who had created this debacle.

Those corporations, whatever they did, were protected by Statism - nothing less. If we were in a Capitalist society where the individual is required to own up to a vigilant mind, most of those CEOs would never have gotten away with whatever crimes people believe they committed.

1. Bailouts are the result of the Statist ideology known as Corporatism; Capitalism has no respect for corporate welfare, and such demands that corporations fail and succeed on their own merit.

Do you know that governments sign away the rights of their people in order to lure corporations to set up shop in export processing zones?

Yes, it's a statist ideology known as Corporatism.

Due process is obliterated by the demands of unregulated capitalism and its puppet governments.

Unregulated Capitalism hasn't even existed for the past century, thanks to your Statist leaders.

Furthermore, any government that calls itself socialist but engages in the same practices deserves the same condemnation. I am not big on labels if they consist of false advertising. As Jesus once said, many will call him "Lord, Lord" whose works are of the devil.

Yeah, that's why you're not calling a spade a spade. Everything you mentioned is nothing more than Statist ideology.

But no one calls it corporatism, do they? They call it capitalism. If you want to say that label is false advertising, that it's not really capitalism, that you detest corporatism as much as I do, then we have some common ground.


Unfortunately, we have no historical example of the wealthy ever actually practicing capitalism without the support of a compliant state, so all actual "capitalism" has been "corporatism" or "statism" (aka "fascism").


As you say:

History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.

Couldn't agree with you more. (And that goes for historical governments labeled "socialist" too.)

2. So you should be allowed to send money to whatever political entity you want, but corporations shouldn't?

Right. Corporations are not individuals. Corporations are not citizens. Corporations don't vote. Why the H--- should they be permitted to use their economic power to influence elections? Their owners, managers, boards of directors all have sufficient private wealth to donate. Let them use that to support parties and candidates of their choice.

The domination of the electoral system by big money ensures the continuance of that corporatism you just denounced and squelches all hope of democratic rule.

(I think that is something even Ayn Rand would agree with.)

3. Freedom of speech is meant to protect ALL forms of dangerous and unpopular speech;

Which means it should protect us from deceptive manipulation of information of the sort which was sanctioned in the Fox news case. Lack of honesty and integrity is always dangerous. That is why it is illegal to make false claims about a product in advertising after all. Too bad it is not just as illegal to make such false claims when it comes to oil companies funding lies about global warming.

Again, it is not your place to tell someone what they may or may not do with their possessions. If you bothered to read the NT contextually, you may learn that even Jesus was against coercion.

Jesus was against violence. He wasn't against lawful duties. He protested the exploitative manipulation of the law when it deprived the poor of their rights: e.g. his comments on the vow of korban. And note, under the law, destitute parents (and other relatives) did have legal rights, entitlement, to the resources of their kin.

You might also like to study the biblical laws on economic redistribution of wealth, keeping in mind that these were legal obligations, not personal and optional acts of charity.

To deprive the poor of their security, to make them solely dependent on the optional charity of the almsgiver, is injustice. It makes the donor feel good to be generous, but at the expense of respect and dignity for the recipient.



>
>There will always be the poor; just as there'll always be the rich.
>

Which is why God is always insistent on practicing justice for the poor. Otherwise, they will always be crushed under the heels of the rich.

Please. As an employer investing capital into my own business as I see fit, I have absolutely no moral obligation to hire you or anyone else.

Like paying him less than he needs to feed himself.

No one is under the moral obligation to hire; by investing my own Capital, I have absolutely every damn right to hire people how I want, and if they don't like it, they can go elsewhere since at the end of the day, THE EMPLOYER IS THE ONE RISKING HIS CAPITAL.

Who talked of hiring anyone? I am talking about people they have already hired--to whom they owe what their labour is worth--as St. Paul reminds us. And of people whose livelihood they have destroyed as the recent BP oil spill has destroyed the livelihood of people working in the fisheries. Where else are they to go? At least many of them are lucky enough to be living in the U.S. so they don't get picked up for immigration offenses when they do, in fact, go where work is.

You really want to respect individuals, remove national barriers to job-seekers.

In fact, nobody is forcing you into not working any more than they can force you to work in a Capitalist society. It is, however, YOUR place to seek work and to prove yourself worthy to the employer.

A corporation is under no obligation to hire anyone; it is your job as the employee to prove your worth, you are the one with a moral obligation.

The real problem we face is people being forced not to work and people not being adequately paid--or even paid at all--for the work they do.

Economic justice is a farce.

It's a major biblical prophetic theme. God's justice demands it.

I firmly believe that the benevolent Creator designed the republican Form of Government for Man.

It's a natural sentiment in the face of an oppressive monarchy. But it depends on the republic doesn't it. The People's Republic of China is a republic. The Third Reich was a republic. Pinochet's Chile was a republic. Castro's Cuba is a republic.

Of course, so are France, Italy, India, and Brazil. A republican form of government is not sufficient to ensure freedom. One also needs a commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Equally, monarchy is not always oppressive, as the experience of the UK, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and modern Japan attest. Parliamentary democracy matches republican democracy in safeguarding the rights of individuals. That is to say, it succeeds just as well and fails just as often.

Andrew Jackson -

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth defending.

Yes. That's certainly not what we have now is it.

 

[gluadys]

In the view of God's prophets, it is the government's place to uphold the rights of the poor against those who would oppress and exploit them. Rulers (whether kings, priests, judges, elders ----elected representatives or CEOs) who fail to do so are condemned as shepherds who have abandoned, or worse, despoiled the flock--the people whom God loves. Scripture has one and only one criterion of good government: there will be no poor among you. And one means of assuring it: justice for the poor.

Jesus Christ said it himself, there'll always be the poor amongst us.

Have you checked his statement against the passage in Deuteronomy he was quoting from? You might find it enlightening.

Let us also remember that he was speaking to Judas who was cloaking his thievery under this pretense of compassion for the poor. Much like pious-sounding corporations who publicize their "generosity" toward those whose living they have stolen.

Deforestation? Except for the fact they always restore those forests;

!?!?!?! What dream world are you living in? What proportion of the Amazon has been reforested? Even in Canada where we do have reforestation projects, the amount of reforestation is pitiful next to the amount of deforestation. Have you seen the plans for removing most of the boreal forest in northern Alberta? And, of course, what gets replanted is basically only a tree farm. You can't really replace a forest. It is a whole eco-system.

Of course, even planting a lot of tree farms would be a big help right now.

not to mention the fact that renewing forests is a whole lot better for the environment than letting it do its thing.

If one really renews forests. But the best way to keep forests thriving is not to clear-cut in the first place. Harvest the forest sustainably instead of destroying and replacing it with tree farms.

Pollution of waterways? Please, maybe if you people stopped worrying about getting the government on your side, and owned up to a vigilant mind, it wouldn't be happening.

It appears you are unaware of the many court cases citizens have launched in attempts to preserve clean waterways. Or of how skewed the law often is in upholding the right to exploit over the right to maintain a viable environment. Government policy too. In my own province of Ontario, the government has been handing out rights to draw water to bottling companies without even making an inventory of how much fresh water we have. Several towns are noticing significant drops in their water tables. In Alberta, the government has responded to the danger of tailings leachate into the Athabasca river by ending the program for testing water quality.

And when have corporations shown enough sense of civil responsibility for the welfare of the community that we don't need to watchdog them as much as the government? Talk to the people of Walkerton, ON about the seven deaths in their town when the water system was under private management. Or consider the recent application of a private corporation (thankfully defeated through public vigilance) to put a waste dump on top of one of the purest water sources in the world (check out Site 41). Or the equally irresponsible attempt to have a natural lake declared a tailings pond so the company would not have to spend money on building one. Also fortunately defeated via public vigilance. (Fish Lake, BC)

If you think people haven't been vigilant and haven't been protesting both corporate and government irresponsibility, you don't know much about the environmental movement at all.

Destruction of natural habitats? See above.

Ditto.

Respect for the individual?!?! Have you looked at how local populations---the actual possessors and users of the land for millennia---are treated by mining companies?

Those people could've done themselves a favor and quit.

Did you think I was speaking of the employees? No, I am speaking about the people who live on the land and work on the land and get their food from their own fields, forests and streams. You know: independent, hard-working decent people who ask nothing of no one but to be allowed to continue an independent, self-sustaining way of life. Just the sort you claim capitalism is for.

But then, with no consultation, no compensation, their forests are cut down, streams have acid dumped into them from the use of cyanide in the mining process, their children start getting illnesses and rashes, the fish disappear, and in some cases they are forcibly dispossessed of the very homes they live in.

They couldn't quit working for the mining company because they weren't working for them. But they were forced to quit the work they had by the destruction of their habitat and local economic structures and the brutal political and economic tactics of the company.

Like dumping one's product on the market below cost to drive competitors out of business.

Those who cannot compete, shouldn't be in the market.

So everyone is supposed to be able to put their product on the market below the cost of production? There is a reason even the WTO frowns on dumping excess production on the market below cost. Because it is not FAIR competition.

Even worse when it is supported by government subsidies.

When competition is fair, those who cannot compete should leave the market, but that is no grounds for justifying the destruction of other people's businesses through manifestly unfair tactics.

Like refusing to negotiate a fair deal with local communities if one wishes to set up business on their land.

It is not the community's land, period. All land is private.

Legally, in many cases, it's not because the land has never been privatized. That makes it "legal" for governments to give it away to foreign investors. The people who have made their homes there might just as well be serfs, or even wild animals for all the "rights" they have to their own land.

The court system is no more right than any state, period. A landlord is under no obligation to rent his land, or any property out. He has absolutely no moral obligation to lower any prices.

But when he chooses to rent out his property, he is morally obligated to treat all potential tenants equally and without discrimination, to keep the property habitable and in good repair. (And yes, tenants have obligations too--which many also violate.) Again, that is why we have courts to handle landlord-tenant disputes. As well as laws spelling out their respective rights and obligations.

If you want to deny a tenant the right to sue a landlord who has not provided garbage collection or seen to the extermination of vermin or maintained the property, you must equally deny the landlord the right to prosecute for non-payment of the rent, or for damage to the property by the tenant.

But when government favours the oppressors and writes laws and regulations that deny justice to the poor, the nation is in deep moral trouble.

Yet, you favor such ideology.

Even George Orwell, once a self-avowed Socialist, warned in his book about Marxism:

No, I am not a Marxist. Marx had some good and some bad ideas. His good ideas were taken from the Hebrew prophets. I don't need Marx's bad ideas. Also, George Orwell never ceased to be a Socialist. He abhorred Stalinism because it was a betrayal of Socialism. If you have read Animal Farm, you have both his understanding of Socialism and of how it was betrayed by the Stalinists.

The reality at the end of the day is, Capitalism does not use the state; rather, it is a system of meritocracy, where you either succeed or fail on your own merits. It is thus, the only system that best respects Individualism; for there is no Individualism without the respect of an Individual's liberty.

You know, the thing about people like yourself, is you have this theory, this vision, but it has no grounding in reality. Its full of prejudices about people living in poverty, about the causes of poverty. Its full of self-justification for the wealthy--even though the wealthy actually got their wealth (and retain it) through Corporatism not Capitalism.

I'm more pragmatic. An ideal capitalism that exists only in Randian literature doesn't interest me. I see what passes for capitalism in real life, and I don't like it. Apparently you don't like it either.

Despite the harsh words, you and I have several ideals we hold in common. You happen to call that vision "Capitalism" and I happen to call that vision "Socialism". What we both agree stands in the way is Corporatism/Statism the unholy alliance of political and economic oppression.

As a Christian I look to scripture, not Ayn Rand, as the best guide for achieving "shalom" in society. Usually translated simply as "peace", "shalom" means much more than the absence of war. It means that fullness of life that grows out of harmonious and just relations among all individuals in a society and is safeguarded and upheld by government structures at the highest level. Micah describes shalom as a society in which every one "shall sit under their own vines and their own fig trees, and none shall make them afraid."

You will notice, it says nothing about a right to own more property than another or to hire another. When everyone has their own vines and fig tree, none will be exceedingly wealthy and none will be poor and desperate either. There will be no need to hire oneself out to another, for each can provide for oneself. There will be no need for landlords, for each will have their own home. As Isaiah says: "They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat."

How many today plant for others to eat while they go hungry themselves? Far, far too many. How many have no home and no hope of building one? Far, far too many.

I don't care whether those opportunities come through private or public action, as long as they come. But I do think democratic (not Marxian) socialism is the most promising way to get those results.

 

[Algol Omega]

Also, George Orwell never ceased to be a Socialist. He abhorred Stalinism because it was a betrayal of Socialism. If you have read Animal Farm, you have both his understanding of Socialism and of how it was betrayed by the Stalinists.

I never said he stopped being a Socialist, though I don't think of him any less a fool like anyone else that believes in wealth redistribution (rather than charity; voluntaryism). It just so happens that he knew the follies of Marxism himself all the while being an advocate for it himself, whom should've known that Karl Marx believed in using a despotic engine to further the agenda of wealth redistribution, which makes him my favorite tool.

As a Christian I look to scripture, not Ayn Rand, as the best guide for achieving "shalom" in society. Usually translated simply as "peace", "shalom" means much more than the absence of war. It means that fullness of life that grows out of harmonious and just relations among all individuals in a society and is safeguarded and upheld by government structures at the highest level. Micah describes shalom as a society in which every one "shall sit under their own vines and their own fig trees, and none shall make them afraid."

So now you think everything I get is from Ayn Rand? You really are naive. Everything I advocate is the result of the study of human history; the reality that at the end of the day, no human can be trusted to govern any other human.

Oh, and don't act like we have anything in common relating to the world of politics and its family. You seem to believe that the ends justify the means, I don't. At the end of the day, anyone that violate's another man's liberty is a tyrant; no matter what their objective is.

I'm more pragmatic. An ideal capitalism that exists only in Randian literature doesn't interest me. I see what passes for capitalism in real life, and I don't like it. Apparently you don't like it either.

I never claimed to be Pragmatic. In fact, I absolutely abhor anyone that's either a self-avowed Pragmatist or a Populist when it comes to politics (hence why I hate neocons like Sarah Palin, they justify everything with the majority argument). There are no principles in either, except that which tyrants use to suit themselves. (I have more respect for Communists than I do Pragmatists/Populists: at least a Communist has the guts to be straight-forward, upfront, and understands we cannot be mixed together; unlike every other Statist ideology, which includes Pragmatism and Populism, where it's always a coward hiding behind something else.)

Oh I just noticed something else:

Legally, in many cases, it's not because the land has never been privatized. That makes it "legal" for governments to give it away to foreign investors. The people who have made their homes there might just as well be serfs, or even wild animals for all the "rights" they have to their own land.

I don't care about the legalities; just because something is or isn't legal doesn't mean jack to me. Yes, what we have is quite obvious serfdom, legal slavery; that is definitely wrong. All land that belongs to a government should fist and foremost be rendered unto private ownership, ownership by and of the individual.