How Badly Does Modern Collectivism Hurt You?
Posted by CircuitGuy 11 years, 5 months ago to Culture
How bad is collectivism today? Clearly the US is not Galt's Gulch or Stalin's USSR. We're somewhere in between.
I'm writing down some negative ways collectivism could affect individuals, from most innocuous to worst.
A) Collectivism is an annoyance at present. I usually find good ways to work around it.
B) If it weren't for poor gov't policies and collectivism, we might have fantastical things like a cure for cancer, affordable space travel, robots than can do most human tasks.
C) Collectivism keeps me from my dreams. (e.g. “A union or affirmative action is keeping me for being promoted out of turn, and there are no other options for me to do the work I love.” “A personal passion of mine is illegal.” “I can't get funding for my organization because of a sweetheart network around gov't, financial institutions, and my industry.”)
D) One or more Gail Wynands, Ellsworth Tooheys, or Wesley Mouchs are out to sabotage my life and are having some impact on me. We all agree these types exist. This item says your name personally is on their “list” of enemies or people to sabotage.
E) My business or career is failing because of collectivism and poor gov't policy (e.g. regulation, taxes, monetary policy).
F) We are on the cusp of totalitarianism and/or severe economic collapse similar to in Atlas Shrugged.
This is not an exclusive list, just the first six things that came to mind.
I'm curious which of these things are happening to Gulch members. Is it we're at A and B and just mindful of preventing the more severe items? Or we over halfway through a real-life Atlas Shrugged?
Note: I expect it varies depending on location, industry, interests, experiences, etc. Also, it could be a mix, say A and F but not B-E; they don't necessarily happen in order.
I'm writing down some negative ways collectivism could affect individuals, from most innocuous to worst.
A) Collectivism is an annoyance at present. I usually find good ways to work around it.
B) If it weren't for poor gov't policies and collectivism, we might have fantastical things like a cure for cancer, affordable space travel, robots than can do most human tasks.
C) Collectivism keeps me from my dreams. (e.g. “A union or affirmative action is keeping me for being promoted out of turn, and there are no other options for me to do the work I love.” “A personal passion of mine is illegal.” “I can't get funding for my organization because of a sweetheart network around gov't, financial institutions, and my industry.”)
D) One or more Gail Wynands, Ellsworth Tooheys, or Wesley Mouchs are out to sabotage my life and are having some impact on me. We all agree these types exist. This item says your name personally is on their “list” of enemies or people to sabotage.
E) My business or career is failing because of collectivism and poor gov't policy (e.g. regulation, taxes, monetary policy).
F) We are on the cusp of totalitarianism and/or severe economic collapse similar to in Atlas Shrugged.
This is not an exclusive list, just the first six things that came to mind.
I'm curious which of these things are happening to Gulch members. Is it we're at A and B and just mindful of preventing the more severe items? Or we over halfway through a real-life Atlas Shrugged?
Note: I expect it varies depending on location, industry, interests, experiences, etc. Also, it could be a mix, say A and F but not B-E; they don't necessarily happen in order.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 7.
YOU are claiming that SOX makes it harder to raise venture funding.
SOX is an effort to make those responsible for cheating, now things that are illegal, personally responsible.
How do laws against cheating others hinder fundraising.
I can only conclude that you and your ilk feel it's OK to be dishonest in business and you don't want to comply with the rules set up to keep people from being cheated.
In fact I'm sure he means the opposite of your question, that it is not morally right to cheat regardless of law.
It's YOU who is claiming the law is bad for business. Explain how when all it does is hold those accountable for making dishonesty illegal. Are you suggesting that you want a dishonest environment because it's better for business?
And you think that keeping cheating legal makes it easier to raise money for business?
No, I have not voted for the lying politicians that we now have in office from the President to the lowest of the low serving in the Senate and House of Representatives.
I am in agreement with you that the choice is often down to voting for the lesser of the evils. A good reason for the electorate to pay more attention to the primary elections.
Fred
I asked you to define "cheating". "Cheating" has NOTHING TO DO WITH LAW. Honesty and cheating are moral concepts, not legal ones.
Sorry, khalling, gotta reprise the tobacco aisle sign again:
"Selling tobacco products to minors isn't just wrong, it's ILLEGAL".
"Raised legally" and "raised honestly" are two different things.
What sensible candidates? Lesser of evil type candidates might be a better term. And yes. I have voted for such. Though I am loath to use the term "for" here, as it really is more of an "against" the even worse candidates action. Would be nice to see a "none of the above" option on a ballot!!
As I said elsewhere, my father always said that you can't make a man eat a can of peas all at once, but you can make him eat a whole can of peas... one pea at a time. That's how it's been done.
If we'd have hanged Elvis, we might not have rap today. had LL Cool Beans or whatever started spewing the vile "lyrics" typical of rap back then instead of Elvis swiveling his hips, he *would* have been hanged.
Instead, we had Elvis... then the water was turned up a bit with the Beatles... then a bit more with the "hard" rock bands... pretty soon it came to a boil, but we were too used to the temperature to do anything about it.
Back in the 60s and 70s, the pop culture (aka media aka Hollyweird) began promoting the questioning of everything; but not merely questioning it. "Questioning" became synonymous with "criticizing". If one simply asks, "Why do we do things this way?", the question can be answered. But, if one simple belittles and makes fun of long held traditions, for which the conscious reason might be long forgotten, then one is more tolerated when one embraces mores in conflict with the abiding culture.
I remember driving my father nuts asking the "why" of masonry practices. He'd never been taught the "why", he was just taught to do. I had to learn the "why" on my own.
But, included in the new messages of Hollyweird, along with the belittlement of traditional culture, was the insinuation that, because the elders couldn't explain the countless "whys", they were stupid, slow, backwards. To be cool, one had to reject traditional culture. And you know, among young people, almost nothing is more important than being cool.
Part of what inured me was that my father was a contrarian on principle. I believe it was his philosophy that the nose of authority should be tweaked just because it was the nose of authority.
The rest is owed to Heinlein, Asimov, and Pournelle. And I suppose John W. Cambell.
I had a good teacher in 2nd grade who ruined me by teaching me to think for myself, not to accept what authority says. That's how I have the brass to sit here and argue with accomplished people with degrees and high-paying jobs. I used to say that I'm never wrong, because once someone proves me wrong, I change my mind.
I imagine I'm not unique in my stiff-necked-ness. But, most people don't grow up with these disadvantages.
said that the head of the project was surprised at how fast their program had worked !!!! 1985 interview !!!!! and they credited the surprise to the American educational system. The public education management and the Progressive war against the Founder's protections has created the American Puppet Class..
Think about the control sought by the Progressives and the Collective structure with over 20 "green energy" government backed companies with scandals including many bankruptcies. There is a reason that the protections of the republic our Founding Fathers structured have been eroded.
“It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of ‘Freedom or dictatorship?’ into ‘Which kind of dictatorship?’—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism). That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political ‘right,’ but of the ‘left’—that the basic issue is not ‘rich versus poor,’ but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism.” -- Ayn Rand - philosopher and novelist (1905-1982)
Fred
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