World Socialism Will Ultimately Prevail over Capitalism and Individual LIberty

[Divinus Arma]

Yep.

Remember, I am an ardent capitalist and conservative who believes in literal and originalist interpretation of the constitution.

It is my opinion that individual liberty and true capitalism will be overrun by socialist autocracy, and that the people are powerless to stop it. It is inevitable.

I have come to the realization that the values of the United States have died in the cradle. Our infant idealism of the individual as sovereign and people's power to limit government died a very very long time ago.

We are no longer a collection of sovereign states, united for the common good by a federal government of limited specifically written powers. The concept of the sovereign state is no more. America is nothing more than a single nation with 50 administrative regions, and nothing more. The power of the federal government has completely eclipsed "those powers left to the States". The "States" are nothing more than geographically determined divisions of local administration.

Individua liberty has been stolen. Economic freedom has been stolen. And we Americans are all blinded by an educational institution that indoctrinates us into the illusion that we are somehow morally superior. We are inspired by the goodness of our founding fathers and the moral duty we feel to protect those that seek self-determination. Our revolution was one of inspired rejection of elitism and autocracy. But America has become the elitist autocracy we rejected more than 200 years ago. What makes our revolution any better than that of Over Cromwell, France, Russia, Mexico, or any other? We are not unique. The idealism of our founding fathers was nothing more than a brief anomaly in the world history of autocratic socialist governance.

America is no longer the "States United". It is ONE state.

That said, I have come to the conclusion that this is inevitable across the world. There will continue to be brief moments of liberty in pockets of the world, and populist libertarians will continue to sound their cries so long as free mediums of speech are available.

Now let me explain why this is inevitable:

Freedom and capitalism lead to economic propserity. This prosperity leads to both complacency and a sense of entitlement in the masses. They become sedated and demand greater benefit for reduced effort. As this occurs in capitalism, an economic disparity occurs where the selfish ignorant complacent entitled masses begin to engage in less and less work. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the educated driven visionary entrepreneurs achieve great economic success. The safe and complacent masses at the bottom then feel jealousy and entitlement towards the earnings of the fewer successful risk-takers. They pressure legislators to give them greater and greater benefits and the entrepreneurs are left with less and less. The middle class, meanwhile, are just as complacent and don't give a damn what the hell is going on. The politicians, interested only in their personal benefit, appeal to the lowest common denomitors and steal from the wealthy to give to the self entitled masses.

Capitalism will remain in highly regulated form. Free speech will become more and more regulated and conviluteed to meet the demands of the shallow masses and political elite. Land rights are taken away. Guns are taken away. The state becomes all powerful and led by the same cycle of "democratically elected" turds from the list of nepotism-apointed options provided to us.

And any resistance will be met with manipulation, distortion, and isolation.

Violence as a control measure is a thing of the past. We will socailly evolve towards this end because natural selection has been disrupted to allow the dregs and waste of the world to overpower the survivors and liberty loving capitalists among us.

Thus, we are doomed to be ruled over by a very few elite who manipulate the masses like the dogs and scum that humanity ultimately is.

And it has already begun. The United States of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin has been destroyed. And so the transition into the New American State has already occurred before we realized it.

But is is inevitable the world over. It isn't bad, good, or indifferent. It's just the way it is. And I'm done fighting for a cause that cannot win. I will continue to serve my community. I will continue to care for my fellow man. And I will continue to believe in the ideals of individual liberty so long as I live. But humanity cannot sustain that which it is incapable of.

[Reverend Joe]

That's called COMMUNISM, . One of the two bases of Socialism is absolute freedom (the other being financial equality.) Saying "Socialist Autocracy" is like saying "democratic facism." It doesn't make any sense.

And it doesn't work like that- yes, we will become an autocracy, but why in the hell is the government going to steal from the rich?! They will leave them in their place, because they are being paid to do so.

[Crazed Rabbit]

One of the two bases of Socialism is absolute freedom

Theoretically, perhaps. In practice, definately not so.

And it doesn't work like that- yes, we will become an autocracy, but why in the hell is the government going to steal from the rich?! They will leave them in their place, because they are being paid to do so.

Rich and poor people have the same amount of votes (one), and there are many more poor than rich.

Crazed Rabbit

[Reverend Joe]

Theoretically, perhaps. In practice, definately not so.

Oh... never mind.

Rich and poor people have the same amount of votes (one), and there are many more poor than rich.

Even Stalin admitted that it doesn't matter who votes, but rather who directs the votes, and who counts them. As long as their are two parties, they will tell us who to vote for; and no matter who wins, the Rich win too.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Oh... never mind.

Alright, how many socialist countries allow you to choose not to wear a seatbelt?

As long as their are two parties, they will tell us who to vote for; and no matter who wins, the Rich win too.

A bit less of the class warfare, please. Certain parties base their platforms on socialism, 'redistribution of wealth', etc. Don't try telling me the rich win with the democrats in the USA.

DA, I have a bad feeling that you are right. I read once that civilizations go through stages of rise and decline. Socialism could become triumphant in this country, but I do not think it would be so in the long run, perhaps just another phase in a cycle.

Crazed Rabbit

[Reverend Joe]

Alright, how many socialist countries allow you to choose not to wear a seatbelt?

Whoop de damn doo. This country isn't socialist- it is far too rightwing and far too totalitarian- and we require a hell of a lot more than just that.

A bit less of the class warfare, please. Certain parties base their platforms on socialism, 'redistribution of wealth', etc. Don't try telling me the rich win with the democrats in the USA.

YES! Yes, they frickin' do! Do you seriously believe that there are more than maybe 3 or 4 honest politicians in Washington?! It doesn't matter one bit what they say- they are all rolling in the money the rich give them, and there is no way in hell that they will do anything to harm that. If you get right down to it, the only reason they hate each other is because they have different talking points.

And it isn't class warfare any more than smashing bugs is interspecies warfare.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Alright, how many socialist countries allow you to choose not to wear a seatbelt?

What state are you from? Seat belts are mandatory in Ohio and lots of other states, as they should be. Your tax dollars are paying the bills of seatbelt-less car crash victims if you prefer the typical republican "it costs me money" objection to the the the "people die and get injured because they aren't wearing their seatbelt" objection.

You do realise that you can have components of both socialism and capitalism to create a synthesis, a best of both worlds...

That's the way to go imo. Can you imagine a capitalist library system? Nothing on the shelves but stephen king and harry potter. They're already leaning too far in that direction anyway.

[Silver Rusher]

That's called COMMUNISM, . One of the two bases of Socialism is absolute freedom (the other being financial equality.) Saying "Socialist Autocracy" is like saying "democratic facism." It doesn't make any sense.

And it doesn't work like that- yes, we will become an autocracy, but why in the hell is the government going to steal from the rich?! They will leave them in their place, because they are being paid to do so.

Isn't communism a TYPE of socialism?

[Reverend Joe]

Isn't communism a TYPE of socialism?

ACTUALLY, not really. The extreme forms of both have a common goal of eliminating the market economy entirely; however, whereas Socialism does this by granting absolute freedom to the people and creating a true democracy where every man is involved, Communism attempts to harness the power of totalitarianism to "wipe the slate clean" and create a new system from the ground up. Neither can ever really work, but lesser forms can certainly exist.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Getting back to DA's original points, I think the federal government in the US will continue to expand, absorbing more and more duties held by the state governments and providing more and bigger government-run services, leading to increases in spending and taxes. This won't be called socialism or anything; it will simply be. Few will care as Americans become more sedentary both physically and intellectually. Our politicians will demonstrate time and again that they can agree on taking as much power for themselves as possible. Our rights will decay - like a lobster in a pot with the heat slowly rising, the general populace won't realize it.

Our only hope may lie in a civil war one day. Hopefully not, but I don't see much other course. We haven't found people willing to change the current trend. Though Lemur, you give me a little more hope.

[Lehesu]

God, not another Civil War. The South will lose again and we will have to put up with their bitching for another 200 years...

[Reverend Joe]

Getting back to DA's original points, I think the federal government in the US will continue to expand, absorbing more and more duties held by the state governments and providing more and bigger government-run services, leading to increases in spending and taxes. This won't be called socialism or anything; it will simply be. Few will care as Americans become more sedentary both physically and intellectually. Our politicians will demonstrate time and again that they can agree on taking as much power for themselves as possible. Our rights will decay - like a lobster in a pot with the heat slowly rising, the general populace won't realize it.

Our only hope may lie in a civil war one day. Hopefully not, but I don't see much other course. We haven't found people willing to change the current trend. Though Lemur, you give me a little more hope.

Ever read "Farenheit 451"? The revolution won't just happen; everything we take for granted has to be taken from us in a single instant for change to occurr.

[Divinus Arma]

weeee ha ha ha fun! yay! Good back and forth. hee tee hee hee.

And no I am not drunk. Yet.

Getting back to DA's original points, I think the federal government in the US will continue to expand, absorbing more and more duties held by the state governments and providing more and bigger government-run services, leading to increases in spending and taxes. This won't be called socialism or anything; it will simply be. Few will care as Americans become more sedentary both physically and intellectually. Our politicians will demonstrate time and again that they can agree on taking as much power for themselves as possible. Our rights will decay - like a lobster in a pot with the heat slowly rising, the general populace won't realize it.

Our only hope may lie in a civil war one day. Hopefully not, but I don't see much other course. We haven't found people willing to change the current trend. Though Lemur, you give me a little more hope.

This is well articulated Alexander the Pretty Good. Exactly my point: The expansion of the federal government feeds onto itself like the blob, consuming more and more aspects of societal governance be they private or public.

However, I disagree on the premise that it will end in civil war. I am actually conceding to liberals that socialism will ultimately prevail as the natural order of human civilization.

So all of you angry socialist out there can chill out. Look, let's be frank. Humanity is filled with living breathing dung. An overwheliming number of people are just poops floating down the river of life. It isn't society that's too blame, or capitalism, or even socialist programs that encourage government reliance. It's a physiological defect which leads to an inability to adapt. Nature would normally take its place and allow these genetic rejects to kill themselves. Sometimes they do. But more often than not, they breed. And in large numbers. (And btw, race has NOTHING to do with this. )

This means that two events are going to occur: (1) The gentically inferior will numerically overwhelm the genetically superior and will be taken advantage of by politicans, socialists, and capitalists alike (2) The genetically superior will be forced to carry the burden of the inferior.

If the talent of the world does not support the talentless, then ultimately the talentless will destroy the talented. Thus, in order to ensure their own prosperity, the successful will be required to support the dregs and wastes of humanity. It simply become a cost of doing business.

This is what I mean by socialism taking over the world. We will have an obligation to support the retarded masses. And its already occurring.


So. I am not arguing that this is a bad thing or a good thing. I am arguing that it is inevitable and something that the rest of us will have to deal with.

There is no way to identify these wasteful beings ahead of time. Look at PAris Hilton: She's a human piece of crap, and she inherited a ton of loot. Thus she is being supported by the very system I am talking about. Does she actually contribute anything other than what publicists exploit and promote? Nope. On the other hand, look at Bill Gates. That little nerd made a fortune and he is leaving virtually nothing to his kids in comparison to his fortune so that he can engage in long-term philanthropy. So, you never know who will be a turd and who won't be. But usually if the breeding is reeeeally bad, most of the kids will be nasty too.

[lancelot]

Yep.
We are no longer a collection of sovereign states, united for the common good by a federal government of limited specifically written powers. The concept of the sovereign state is no more. America is nothing more than a single nation with 50 administrative regions, and nothing more. The power of the federal government has completely eclipsed "those powers left to the States". The "States" are nothing more than geographically determined divisions of local administration.

America is no longer the "States United". It is ONE state.
.

That has been the case since the end of the civil war when politicians began to say the 'United States is' as opposed to the 'United States are'...

Time for an other civil war?... The South will rise again!!

[caravel]

I'm confused as to why some Americans are afraid of this big mythical "socialist takeover". Where are these socialists? Does this stem from the cold war era communist histeria, where an evil communist was to be found hiding under every bed? The US is a virtual two party system: Republicans and Democrats, neither of which have anything to do with republics or democracies let alone solialism. Basically there is no freedom, because you have two choices: Representation of the rich elites or representation of the rich elites. In simple terms the OP seems to be referring to the welfare state and the hangers on this type of system amasses. Those that don't better themselves but apparently demand the same benefits as those that do?

Socialism won't benefit these select elites, capitalism obviously does. If you're referring to the restrictive almost totalitarian approach of the modern nanny state, apparent here in the UK under Blair, then you may have a point, but this is in no shape or form "socialism".

[Lemur]

DA, if there's one thing you can confidently predict about the future, it is that current trends will not continue in a linear fashion. They never do.

Does anybody know if there's a term for the linear-trend prediction fallacy? I.E., "If Oklahomans continue to have babies at their current rate, by 2050 all of American will be Oklahomans." Or, "If the Isle of Man's economy continues to grow at its current rate, by 2060 everyone in the world will speak Manx."

The one thing you can say with confidence about the future is that it will gob-smack you with all sorts of crazy things you never saw coming.

Right now you're despairing over the presumed triumph of nanny-state socialism over liberty and capitalism. To which I say -- pffffft. Nothing lasts forever, the only constant is change, and linear trends never play out to their theoretical maximum.

[rory_20_uk]

Look at the UK. We've had a Nanny State in the parst far more extensive than is present at the moment. In some areas of the UK it is in fact crumbling (privatisation of government assets, the NHS).

[Duke Malcolm]

Capitalism will remain in highly regulated form. Free speech will become more and more regulated and conviluteed to meet the demands of the shallow masses and political elite. Land rights are taken away. Guns are taken away. The state becomes all powerful and led by the same cycle of "democratically elected" turds from the list of nepotism-apointed options provided to us.

Do you come to Scotland often?

[Rodion Romanovich]

It is my opinion that individual liberty and true capitalism will be overrun by socialist autocracy, and that the people are powerless to stop it. It is inevitable.

If the state becomes totalitarian it seldom tends to keep socialism values of equal rights to all and good living standards and social security for all. Rather, totalitarianism is a system that promotes something similar to the differences in wealth of capitalism, only that the way the money is distributed is different from a free market. But on the other hand we've never had a free market either and no country has it today - much of distribution of wealth in European countries too is ruled by friendship and stuff going on behind the scenes. For example how many missions are given to friends of the rulers at a higher production cost rather than being given to other companies who happen to be less good friends of the rulers etc. It's for instance funny with all these things when billions of tax payer money is spent on finding a slogan or similar, I believe that exists in all European and American countries. Or when some building, design or architecture mission is given to someone, then billions are spent on repairing the first version of the work after the first version was clearly not working as it should. Free market is an utopia that has never existed and probably never will. Only time such freedom has ever existed was before civilization (which was before homo sapiens during homo erectus), and quite conveniently at that time there was also the best ever social security. Social security can never be 100% and free market can never be 100%, but both can be 99% at the same time if people would try to strive for both rather than for unrealistic utopias.

I have come to the realization that the values of the United States have died in the cradle. Our infant idealism of the individual as sovereign and people's power to limit government died a very very long time ago.

We are no longer a collection of sovereign states, united for the common good by a federal government of limited specifically written powers. The concept of the sovereign state is no more. America is nothing more than a single nation with 50 administrative regions, and nothing more. The power of the federal government has completely eclipsed "those powers left to the States". The "States" are nothing more than geographically determined divisions of local administration.

The same would be true for most unions. The same is on the way of happening in the EU - which would be a disaster, recreating the late Roman Empire, which as we all know was a pretty horrible place. Early Rome has some virtues worth striving for, but the late roman empire is a horrible thing we should never create again. One really bad thing about having a centralized power very far from the home of most is that there's really no way of launching a successful rebellion in the case of a madman gaining power and using a coup or hidden means of acquiring totalitarian power. If the government that has most of the power lives close to your own house you can go and kill them if they go nuts and do coups, but if they're moved to Brussels then there's little possibility of gaining freedom in the case of a constitutional disaster such as a madman getting totalitarian power. That's why both EU and the USA should be careful and be preserving the local power and keeping the power of the central institutions limited, preferably as limited as possible.

That said, I have come to the conclusion that this is inevitable across the world. There will continue to be brief moments of liberty in pockets of the world, and populist libertarians will continue to sound their cries so long as free mediums of speech are available.

One reason why this seems inevitable is that the crucial steps towards totalitarian rule are steps that don't immediately look like steps towards totalitarian rule. The increasing of central EU power is a step towards totalitarian rule and restriction of liberty of the individual, but who would make a rebellion against a slow, gradual constitutional change? When finally something is done that is illegal - a coup - the people working against liberty have already received too much power to be able to stop easily. We should perhaps be ready to launch rebellions in response merely to constitutional changes, rather than waiting for actual coups, if we want to avoid disasters (disasters both for ourselves and outsiders) such as communism and nazism from happening again.

Freedom and capitalism lead to economic propserity. This prosperity leads to both complacency and a sense of entitlement in the masses. They become sedated and demand greater benefit for reduced effort. As this occurs in capitalism, an economic disparity occurs where the selfish ignorant complacent entitled masses begin to engage in less and less work. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the educated driven visionary entrepreneurs achieve great economic success. The safe and complacent masses at the bottom then feel jealousy and entitlement towards the earnings of the fewer successful risk-takers. They pressure legislators to give them greater and greater benefits and the entrepreneurs are left with less and less. The middle class, meanwhile, are just as complacent and don't give a damn what the hell is going on. The politicians, interested only in their personal benefit, appeal to the lowest common denomitors and steal from the wealthy to give to the self entitled masses.

I agree that classes turning against each other is seldom as much a deliberate action from rulers, as it is an inevitable development. But remember that the "jealousy" of the poor towards the rich isn't entirely unfounded in modern society. One of the main methods of getting rich is by buying and selling stock - hardly anything that helps society because you produce neither products nor services for others - but the stock market is very unpredictable and it's less about skills than about luck, or having a large amount of money when you start buying and selling, and/or the influence that allows you to buy/sell before the average customers so you can take more advantage of the fluctuation in the stocks. Jealousy towards those who make benefits from stock and interest of money inherited from their parents without them doing any real work for the common good at all is justified. Jealousy towards a hard-working medic, engineer, author, actor etc. is not. The poor tend to see the successful stockbrokers, the rich tend to look at the medics and engineers etc., unless they're stockbrokers in which case they're glad the society form temporarily happens to favor people in their line of work without caring about the consequences for society of that. The jealousy doesn't only lie in laziness, it lies in unpredictability and randomness. The best way of getting motivation for work is belief that you can affect your future by choosing how to act. It's a fact that a decent job such as medic, engineer or lawyer doesn't make you part of the richest elite by working hard - the economists, stockbrokers, investors and people who were born by rich parents get richest.

Capitalism will remain in highly regulated form.

With my definition, socialism as seen in for instance many European countries are a form of capitalism, not a rival ideology. All societies since the invention or money have been capitalistic societies at the bottom, since they've been based on economical success, whether regulated or not.

Violence as a control measure is a thing of the past. We will socailly evolve towards this end because natural selection has been disrupted to allow the dregs and waste of the world to overpower the survivors and liberty loving capitalists among us.

Notice that economical success hasn't been proportional to amount of work, to intelligence, to good organizational ability, or just and ethical behavior. It has been based on what was most economically profitable, whether that required strength or not. An common pattern already in the earliest civilizations: A weak, stupid man with rich parents buys 10 slaves who cuts out gold from a mine for him. He gets richer than a farmer who is strong, intelligent and caring for his family. The farmer has to pay taxes because the influence of people like the first one causes tax raises and similar. At the end the slave-owner gold miner buys prositutes and wives and gets ten children, while the farmer is inprisoned for theft when he tries to steal food for his family after the tyrannic taxes made them nearly starve. Economical profit is not proportional to how strong or good human being you are. That's why most forms of capitalism since the beginning of civilization have worked so badly.

Free speech will become more and more regulated and conviluteed to meet the demands of the shallow masses and political elite. Land rights are taken away. Guns are taken away. The state becomes all powerful and led by the same cycle of "democratically elected" turds from the list of nepotism-apointed options provided to us.

And any resistance will be met with manipulation, distortion, and isolation.

This sounds like a typical conspiracy theory to me. Since we live in a capitalism it's far more likely for rich people to get influential and affect politics, and rich people tend to favor capitalism more than socialism. They also tend to favor unjustly regulated forms of capitalism more than normal capitalism or socialism. With unjustly regulated forms of capitalism I'm referring to the above system where friends of the rulers get missions to construct things etc. Please show some proof of your alleged "socialist world conspiracy". Your current ruler is for instance conservative, not left wing or middle.

Thus, we are doomed to be ruled over by a very few elite who manipulate the masses like the dogs and scum that humanity ultimately is.

Isn't the point of the capitalism you're advocating that the elite should rule the masses? I assume what you're really meaning is that a group will be an elite measured in society terms, while as humans being scum? That's nothing unique but something that has existed since the dawn of civilization. There have been exceptions local in time and space, and studying those suggests that it's very well possible to spread liberty, freedom and justice all over the world or at the very least create an isolated Eden of such virtues that can remain over a long time.

And it has already begun. The United States of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin has been destroyed. And so the transition into the New American State has already occurred before we realized it.

But is is inevitable the world over. It isn't bad, good, or indifferent. It's just the way it is. And I'm done fighting for a cause that cannot win. I will continue to serve my community. I will continue to care for my fellow man. And I will continue to believe in the ideals of individual liberty so long as I live. But humanity cannot sustain that which it is incapable of.

What exactly is it you're saying has changed to the worse recently? You seem to be confusing the regulation of capitalism with totalitarianism and also with socialism. You also seem to be claiming you've once had economical liberty and free market and that it's being taken away from you - the fact is you've never had any free market. Secondly, your current rulers are conservative, not socialists. Thirdly, the theoretical unregulated capitalism has never existed and if it would it wouldn't favor strong and ethical human beings, but whatever happens to be most economically benefitial at a certain time. Fourthly, capitalism in theory isn't the same as capitalism in practise, because capitalism in practise involves regulation of the market, regulating it based on friendships behind the scenes, and in benefit of those who happened to already be rich.

[Watchman]

Excuse me, but where exactly is the "not socialist" USA not in stark financial difficulties as well ? By what I know of it the national foreign debt alone is something awesome, plus the society is displaying all the symptoms of too great income inequalities (ie. lots of serious poverty on the lower end of the scale) - and this despite all the somewhat questionable little feats of economic legerdemain used to lessen the budget imbalances (such as creative currency exchange)...

Another reason socialism is unreasonable in America is that it requires a population to be very compliant--which won't happen. Americans won't give up their guns, Americans won't give up their rights.

Americans have their silly guns, which are worth Jack Fertilizer as far as political influence goes. The French have the institution of La Rue, and their popular demonstrations can actually have effects on official policy.
France = teh win here.
You were saying...?

[Aenlic]

I agree there, Watchman. Here we are in the USA, supremely confident in our guns protecting us from our own government. Meanwhile that very government has spent the last few years vigorously and rather effectively chipping away at the very freedoms those guns are supposed to be protecting, with many of the gun owners actively supporting that policy! It's insane. Meanwhile, it seems the only people speaking out about those individual liberties are the ones labelled as "socialists" and "liberals" and "traitors" and are seen as the enemies of those freedoms. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

[Watchman]

I'm also pretty sceptical of the supposed ability of those privately-owned firearms to "protect the People from the Governement" in the first place - look at the West Bank or Iraq to see just how well untrained civilians, no matter how motivated, can fight against well-equipped modern armies. And over there the "governement" side doesn't have good legal records on the gun-owners in the first place like it does in the US...

Seems to me a way more sensible way to curtail "tyranny" or whatever would be to actually pay attention to and participate in the actual politics and governing of the state so the possession of firearms as a defense against "the Man" doesn't become an issue in the first place, rather than to strut and posture and gesticulate at the Sacred Gun and refuse to have anything to do with "damn Feds".

Anyway. A bit of a peeve of mine and not necessarily wholly relevant to the topic, that.

[rory_20_uk]

Reason has no place in the gun debate, OK? Please forget about modern day tanks etc etc and think of the industry as a whole.

If you stop Americans killing each other not only are there going to be more unemployed from reduction in manufacturing, but also due to the increased people that won't be killed.