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Socialists As Parasites

Posted by j_IR1776wg 8 years, 10 months ago to Philosophy
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""I talked of spider's webs. There's a curious parasitic wasp, very tiny, of the genus Hymenoepimecis - a clever little creature that stings a spider into temporary paralysis, and lays its eggs in the spider's abdomen. Soon the spider goes back to work, as if nothing had happened, even as the larvae grow inside him, nourished in its fluids. Then, on the night the larvae will molt and kill the spider, they chemically induce it to change its behavior. On this night, the spider is induced to spin a cocoon web, useless to the spider but necessary for the larva. As soon as the spider has finished its work, the larvae consume the spider and hang the pupal cocoon in the special web. It's quite extraordinary, really, the parasite's fine-grained manipulation of the host's behavior. But its nothing compared to what we humans can devise. That's the sort of thing I think about, Ms. Navarro. Who's inside of us? What forces might be manipulating the apparatus of civil governance into building a web that will serve their own purposes? When will the parasite decide to consume the host?""
Robert Ludlum The Sigma Protocol

Perhaps instead of treating Socialism as an illogical philosophy, we should be treating it as a disease - a parasite. Over the past hundred years or so it has implanted its larvae into our schools from grade to graduate, all branches of all levels of government, business, entertainment, and news. I understand that Objectivism is the answer on an intellectual level. I wonder what can be done on a physical level to kill the parasite before it kills its host - America?


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  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 10 months ago
    very interesting analogy. to answer the question of what can be done to stop the process; nothing. the reason I believe is the universal that is in the usa lack of educated people. the parasites will win, but it will ultimately their demise as well.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 10 months ago
      "...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security..." Thomas Jefferson DOI
      We in the Gulch spend most of our time talking or planning on running away instead of following Jefferson's common sense admonition. America is Galt's Gulch! We should be willing to fight for it!
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      • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 10 months ago
        There is no realistic way of fighting this parasite, except for helping it fail. It must be weakened from within, and choking off its oxygen supply, e.g., tax revenues, ideas, productivity - that is the best approach. Grab what you can, make your nest egg, move out of reach, and let the maggots eat themselves.
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    • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 10 months ago
      So long as America remains prosperous and people are lulled into thinking they can just ride along without paddling, we are the stung spider.

      Notice that the times America has been the strongest in our history were when we had to struggle and fight for our freedoms. We haven't really had to do that since WW II. Apathy has set in amongst the majority. Only those who are vigilant recognize the warning signs, but our cries fall on the deaf ears of those who do not wish to see the truth.
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    • Posted by $ allosaur 8 years, 10 months ago
      The ignorant are easily controlled by deceivers.
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      • Posted by gaiagal 8 years, 10 months ago
        I wish it was soley ignorance. That can be corrected. I'm surrounded by socialists who laugh at that term because they are not socialists, they are progressives. They fall into two categories, the idiots (who are definitely useful, as the saying goes) and the entitled.

        I am amazed at the idiots. Otherwise intelligent, successful people who live in some fugue state in which they know wealth distribution and the deleterious effects of government regulation will never touch them. This is where the story of the frog slowly being boiled to death comes into play.

        The others are poverty stricken to lower middle class folk who feel entitled to what you produce because they have had "bad luck." Their present circumstances apparently have nothing to do with any of their previous decisions. Outside situations beyond their control have caused all their problems.

        Idiots and you're-lucky-so-you-owe-mes.
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  • Posted by $ TomB666 8 years, 10 months ago
    There is a book "Epistle to the Babylonians" by Charles Fontenay subtitled "An Essay on the Natural Inequality of Man" which has led me to the conclusion that only a small fraction of people are even capable of understanding the issue. Objectivism, and the logic behind it, is something that less then one percent of the population can grasp.

    Socialism is something people really do not understand but the vote in favor of it because it promises "free" things. Conservatism is popular with some because it promises to keep things as they are. Objectivism is beyond scary to the great majority of people because nothing is free and you can change if you want to.

    Have you ever tried to explain TANSTAAFL to a socialist? They just don't get it. If they don't pay it's FREE! (For anyone not familiar with Heinlein "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch," TANSTAAFL is an expression he used in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and perhaps other writings.)

    We few here in the gulch understand that socialists are parasites, but they don't see it that way. In fact their view is that the rich are the parasites. They are not capable of distinguishing between people who earn their wealth and people who steal it.
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    • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 10 months ago
      Excellently well said, TomB666. There is even a movement afoot to have extreme wealth criminalized.

      In the Darwinian scheme of selection for survival, the parasites have managed to make their victims compliant through guilt and pity.

      Interesting that Heinlein in that book also refers to "Randites"!

      The socialist meme is especially seductive because it allows the moochers to rationalize their predations without guilt. In fact, they pride themselves sanctimoniously for their love of humanity and "social justice".
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  • Posted by helidrvr 8 years, 10 months ago
    All forms of COERCIVE collectivism (socialism, fascism, communism, zionism, democracy etc.) are based on a win-lose paradigm and must therefore without exception be defined as moral insanity.
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  • Posted by jpellone 8 years, 10 months ago
    I don't know how many of you have watched "Once Upon a Time' but Snow White had a great quote that she told the author.

    "You became a villain, but that's what villains do. They make themselves happy at the expense of others but it just makes them more unhappy! I know what it is to feel your heart go dark and that isn't something to idolize. It's something to pity".

    Now replace villain with liberal or progressive and reread the quote. Sad!!!
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    • Posted by 8 years, 10 months ago
      Good one jpellone! It helps explain why the response to their every failure is "more" as in more laws, more regulation, more money, and more control. Their only absolutes are that they were born to lead and are never wrong.
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  • Posted by Mamaemma 8 years, 10 months ago
    I think that it is part of human nature to want something for nothing. It is only through living the principles of Objectivism that this can be overcome and we become rational humans who are makers, not takers.
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    • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 10 months ago
      Exactly, beautifully phrased, Mamaemma. From its earliest evolution, human nature, and the nature of living things in general, takes what it needs and wants, and with the least effort. It is the genesis of economic systems to invest less than is gained. The converse would be self-destructive.

      Whether we milk a cow or our fellow man, the unthinking goal is to benefit ourselves. Profit is the value of gain over the cost of effort. In a highly complex society as we now have, the lines of milk extraction are so convoluted and blurred that people don't even notice it happening to them. And those who do notice and object are told they need to share, to be their brother's keeper, and "to give back". Of course, those who benefit, by whatever means, are not the ones who object.

      Philosophers through the ages have tried to define the right, fair, moral formula for human coexistence, the "golden mean", the "Golden Rule" in all its variations. Trade, the voluntary exchange of values for mutual benefit, is the non-exploitive answer, and it is encoded in Galt's Oath.

      So, yes, we could define the socialist or predatory meme as a parasitic disease, an intellectual and moral virus. How to get that across to the majority of do-gooders who think of socialism/liberalism/progressivism as just helping their fellow man, as egalitarian fairness, is the historic challenge of our time.
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      • Posted by 8 years, 10 months ago
        "From its earliest evolution, human nature, and the nature of living things in general, takes what it needs and wants, and with the least effort." Is that how you would characterize John Galt and Hank Rearden?
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        • Posted by Mamaemma 8 years, 10 months ago
          Can I jump in? I would characterize Galt and Rearden as living as rational and reasoning individuals who have risen above that state of human nature.
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          • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 10 months ago
            Thank you, Mamaemma. Yes, risen to the higher stage of ethical evolution. While these were fictional characters, like any good art, they hold up the ideal for us to aspire to. And there are real people like them in the world.
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          • Posted by 8 years, 10 months ago
            Thank you. I believe that 99.99% of we humans are born with the ability to exercise emotions and reason in exactly the same way that Galt and Rearden did. Emotions come automatically at birth. Reason must be chosen usually in one's teens. This choice is being taken away by Socialists before they can begin to learn how to reason. Not thinking is not part of human nature.
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            • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 10 months ago
              Emotions are value judgments. They signal to the child whether he is doing right or wrong by what his surroundings require of him. An early form of reason is inherent in every child who, from toddler on, asks "why, why, why".

              It may be in the teens, after reaching the so-called age of reason, that a young person can re-evaluate the indoctrinations received in the formative years and clean out the mess of faulty ideas accepted before the child could have a full context for understanding what was imposed. There is a saying in the Catholic Church, "Give me a child before the age of 8 and he'll be a Catholic forever." Fortunately that didn't work with me.

              The problem with a late-coming overhaul is that many of the inculcated values are wedded to emotions, and those are much harder to change because they are defended with ingenious rationalizations.

              "Not thinking is not part of human nature" -- well put. Rational thinking, however, takes effort and will, and a willingness to revise or let go of preprogrammed ideas.
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              • Posted by 8 years, 10 months ago
                Yes what seems to be normal is for humans to trek from emotions as primary to reason as primary. Unfortunately, our schools and religions (I'm an exRC) seem geared toward thwarting young minds from fully exercising their natural ability to employ reason.
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                • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 10 months ago
                  Yes, the established cultural memes operate the agenda, right or wrong. When reason stands in their way, reason must be incapacitated, usually through emotional manipulation. But reason and emotions need not be in conflict. They are not mutually exclusive or antithetical; in a well-integrated mind with no inner contradictions they are as one: A is A. A hard thing to achieve for young minds when the culture works against them.
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        • Posted by blackswan 8 years, 10 months ago
          I beg to differ. Some 2,100 years ago, Hero built the first steam engine; the industrial revolution was possible then. It was turned down, because those in power refused to give up their slaves. So, it's not that they were pursuing benefits with the least effort. They were pursuing benefits with the least THOUGHT.
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          • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 10 months ago
            Humans are resistant to change unless the alternative is more costly. What could be more effortless than having slaves? The only effort required is to keep the slaves working.

            This economy of effort is not an exclusively human invention. It applies throughout living things. A lion knows when to stop running after a gazelle. A tree will bend toward the sunlight. A penguin will waddle 30 km for food. These are not driven by thought but by the built-in algorithm of life. Humans do have the capacity for thought, so they invent labor-saving devices when needed, beginning with the earliest tools. The formula is always the most gain for the least effort.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 8 years, 10 months ago
    As I understand it, a lot of it comes from the phil-
    osophy that is taught in the colleges. So maybe
    a good strategy would be: if you are in college,
    promote Objectivism to your fellow students. If you
    are not, boycott the colleges. (Maybe an Object-tivist college could be started someday, but it
    is not around yet).
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    • Posted by masterofelectricity666 8 years, 9 months ago
      Are you sure that if high school or college kiddos with little to no real work/general life experience read Ayn Rand's books the message would sink in? What Ayn Rand's books did for me was to enhance and codify real world common sense knowledge that I already had in a different form. I learned when I had to go dig in the middle of the winter to pay my rent, know what I mean? When I was an idiot teenager, though, I was actually into socialism at one point, until reality taught me how worthless it is.
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      • Posted by 8 years, 9 months ago
        Our socialistic school system begins the children's indoctrination in the first grade. Why should we Objectivists have to wait? It is a lifetime struggle to reclaim one's birthright to Reason if one is denied the opportunity as a child.
        From one who knows.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 10 months ago
    Attend the funeral?
    Start Over?
    The next time do it right?
    Hope or pray the military upholds it's oath of office?

    Do not vote for the lesser or greater of two evils
    Do not make the best of four very bad choices

    Do not support the Government Party.

    At Any Level
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  • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 10 months ago
    this is a "sweet" analogy, and Thank You! . like
    alcoholism or other addiction, now favored with
    the title "disease," the parasitic trio of socialism,
    fascism and communism should get that title also! -- j
    .
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    • Posted by 8 years, 10 months ago
      You are welcome. I sometimes feel like the character at the end of the movie Invasion of the body snatchers screaming "They're coming, they're coming" except he was listened to and I'm not.
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  • Posted by cjferraris 8 years, 10 months ago
    Socialism is the novacaine that allows all of our teeth to be removed. It doesn't take away all the pain of the removal, but just enough to where we don't really feel it until after it's done.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 10 months ago
    I think that schools are the place to start. With all due respect to marshafamilaroenright who is concerned that vouchers will inspire the state to become more involved in the operation of her school, we need to encourage vouchers as a way of building a non-government school system.

    Of course, to many, the idea of tax funded vouchers for education is less that ideal, it would be a step in the right direction. To put it in the terms of the health care debate, it would be "single payer education".

    With the resulting market for providing private schools, entrepreneurs would be able to start schools and, at least at some level, introduce capitalism to education.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 10 months ago
      William I don't understand how a government-controlled voucher system would lead to building a non-government school system. The only instance I can think of, in my lifetime, of the government giving up control was DARPA turning the Internet over to a private entity. I cannot envision the unions allowing their puppet politicians to permit any level of capitalism into education.
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      • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 8 years, 10 months ago
        There are strong voucher movements to provide choice in education with some degree of success. The failure of the public school system is so obvious that it's hard to defend.

        Of course the teacher's union and the school system itself is desperately fighting against them so this is not an easy fight. Nevertheless it does seem like it has at least a chance of growing.

        Once people have vouchers to pay for education then a market is available for us to meet. With educational costs exceeding 10K per student per year there's a lot of potential for someone who actually knows how to run a business to build an efficient school.

        It still leaves the government with a significant amount of control but would be a step in the right direction. We have to start somewhere, we are not going to convince the current educational system to promote our values.
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