I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. My point is before SOX was passed, the level of corporate fraud was less than AFTER SOX passed. I do not condone fraud, and I also do not condone regulations designed to force people they are innocent without being charged with anything. To do so is immoral, unconstitutional and counter productive. btw EVERY study has shown with securities laws. An 80% reduction in not only venture capital firms but companies going public! How is that good?! Are you one of those the ends-justifies-the-means people?

"Your observation sounds right to me because there are some humans who desire a master." Interesting concept - A small minority who want someone to be their master, a small minority who want to be master whipsawing the vast majority of us who just want to be left alone to live our own lives.

Your observation sounds right to me because there are some humans who desire a master. Bastiat and John Adams are two of many who spoke of this. Some of our finest conservative people came from the Left after thinking about what they observed => Walter E Williams whom I quote below, Breitbart, Horowitz, Medved just to name a few.
"I was more than anything a radical. I was more sympathetic to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King because Malcolm X was more of a radical who was willing to confront discrimination in ways that I thought it should be confronted, including perhaps the use of violence. But I really just wanted to be left alone. I thought some laws, like minimum-wage laws, helped poor people and poor black people and protected workers from exploitation. I thought they were a good thing until I was pressed by professors to look at the evidence." -- Walter E. Williams
“Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.” -- Walter E. Williams


“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong” Dr. Thomas Sowell

“Slavery has existed all over the planet for thousands of years with black, white, yellow and other races being both slaves and enslavers. Does that mean that everybody ought to apologize to everybody else for what their ancestors did? Or are the only people who are supposed to feel guilty the ones who have money that others want to talk them out of?”… THOMAS SOWELL
"Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket...You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America." - Thomas Sowell

Slavery of the mind is no different than slavery of the body. Religions and dictatorships require non-thinking sheep to justify their existence. Their greatest enemies are those of us who ask "why?"

I have spent a good portion of my life in trying to determine the proper relationship of the Individual to the Collective. I still have no idea of where some of our fellow humans get the concept that they are made of "finer clay". Most of our governments have been based on force. The earliest attempt to justify "elitism" that I found was Plato's Republic. Thank you for this post. We who choose to think need to become the vanguard of a rebirth of Reason on Earth.

Maybe I'm getting annoying but we need to replace the public school system with one that has our children either home-schooled or sent to private, non-unionized, non-government-regulated schools of the parent's choosing.

The potential to convince people to eat of the tree of knowledge has not changed in the last 5000 years. I am optimistic that we can stop and reverse the destruction that generations of young minds have absorbed from the evil public education system which is and has been forcing them not to eat of the tree of knowledge.

yea, that's how I see it as well. why is taught so punitively? because if you are really taught that you cannot strive for the knowledge -up to and including God's, what the hell are you but a beast in the field? don't get me started on you can't know what you can't know...

I agree. Our issue is that too many of the Puppet Class fail to appreciate the Gift of America. Thomas Paine said, "That which we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly." and the spoiled whiners have no reference to challenge their indoctrination. The Progressives have attacked US from within for over 100 years and we have allowed them that opening with insufficient defense of American values. I was fortunate because =>My 6th grade teacher in 1956, told us to question all that we read, hear or see whether it is from them or from us. My Canadian born mother came across the border to have my brother and I on US soil even though our father was US and she, even more than him, instilled a love of America. The reading of history and knowing what happens to the fools who accept the free lunch points out the error of that path. A little bit of logical analysis and a long term view make America a rare gift to humanity worth fighting to preserve.

At last I've found a serious writer on this site that poses a challenging commentary.

I'm afraid you have already discovered the truth, we are indeed at least halfway through the real life Atlas Shrugged. I read the book originally 40 years ago and saw the similarities between my country of birth, East Germany and the book. Then during the clinton years it became obvious as to where the path was leading us. Now, anyone that has ever traveled in the former Soviet satellite countries can see, we are almost at the point of no return. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is when an aircraft no longer has enough fuel to turn around and must continue forward. we are at the point that if we don't turn around now, we are indeed doomed to socialism and will be destroyed as a nation that is the light of the world.

As to your personal situation in your work, remember that even if the looters are in charge, you can always take the leap into the world of self employment. At least then your life is in your own control and I guarantee, life is better under that condition. Mind you, life will be harder, but it will be better.

Fred Speckmann

Some of US think instead of blindly support a team. My 6th grade teacher in 1956, told us to question all that we read, hear or see whether it is from them or from us. My Canadian born mother came across the border to have my brother and I on US soil even though our father was US and she, even more than him, instilled a love of America. The reading of history and knowing what happens to the fools who accept the free lunch points out the error of that path. A little bit of logical analysis and a long term view make America a rare gift to humanity worth fighting to preserve.
The danger is that their are a lot of fools who support having Superman run their lives and that can splash over onto the rest of US.
The Superman Idea
The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.
They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.
The Socialists Reject Free Choice
Please understand that I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law—by force—and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes.
I do not insist that the supporters of these various social schools of thought—the Proudhonists, the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the Universitarists, and the Protectionists—renounce their various ideas. I insist only that they renounce this one idea that they have in common: They need only to give up the idea of forcing us to acquiesce to their groups and series, their socialized projects, their free- credit banks, their Graeco-Roman concept of morality, and their commercial regulations. I ask only that we be permitted to decide upon these plans for ourselves; that we not be forced to accept them, directly or indirectly, if we find them to be contrary to our best interests or repugnant to our consciences.
But these organizers desire access to the tax funds and to the power of the law in order to carry out their plans. In addition to being oppressive and unjust, this desire also implies the fatal supposition that the organizer is infallible and mankind is incompetent. But, again, if persons are incompetent to judge for themselves, then why all this talk about universal suffrage? -- Frederick Bastiat 1801 - 1850

“Despotic government has fear as its principle; and not many laws are needed for timid, ignorant, beaten-down people…
After all we have just said, it seams that human nature would rise up incessantly against despotic government. But, despite men’s love of liberty, despite their hatred of violence, most peoples are subjected to this type of government. This is easy to understand. In order to form a moderate government, one must combine powers, regulate them, temper them, make them act; one must give one power a ballast, so to speak, to put it in a position to resist another; this is a masterpiece of legislation that chance rarely produces and prudence is rarely allowed to produce. By contrast, a despotic government leaps to view, so to speak; it is uniform throughout; as only passions are needed to establish it, everyone is good enough for that.” -- Charles-Louis Montesquieu and Social Anthropology #9

Just like "common sense approach", "fair", "affordable", "quality"... since no one asks for specifics and just assumes the speaker means what they want it to mean, growing socialism is easily done. Dumb asses.

There's no massive conspiracy. Political factions (parties) have formed as the framers of the Constitution feared. Industries crop up to profit from the supposed ideological battle.

"I would also remind you that despite the moochers who make life difficult for us, never blame others, look inward and figure out how to solve the problem."
I agree that we look inward to figure out solutions...however, I'm a big fan of pointing a finger at evil and calling it what it is loud and clear too. Shining a bright light on moochers and looters and calling them out is highly underrated at this point. I want to change that. They're getting away with murder...literally.

Sorry, I thought I did, but then again I'm getting old and mistakes happen. Of course the above is a very scary statement on my part.

Fred

All of the above. There is a feeling that the little people need a keeper and are not capable of dealing with their own matters, nor do they even matter. Power is like a drug and it means that the powerful are all powerful and they can do whatever they wish

The American Puppet Class blog post is the result of two awesome daughters who are intelligent and with great hearts = compassion for their fellow humans. They need a window for their naval to see what is happening to America. http://rossabh.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/...

Whether your professor is correct (as I think he is) or not, the point is that one of the psy ops strategies is to pull the strings of the puppet class by setting them up to lie to themselves. They are a Lemming Brigade comprised of IDIOTs (In Denial Intensely Obscuring TRUTH from themselves) resulting from emotional rather than rational thought after years of indoctrination during their education and years of drinking Kool Aide.

Then you're optimistic people will eat from the tree of knowledge rather than doing what their told?

I am. I agree with Hiraghm's interpretation of the story.

Basic choice of humans: To think or not to think. In Genesis 2:17, A&E are admonished not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil lest they know what god knows. It has never varied and I guess it never will. We have to continue what we are doing to convince more people to make that choice.

as long as it doesn't taste like "light" yogurt lol

I can agree with that....