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.
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"local taxes on business (which often happen overnight and cannot be budgeted for)"
Really???? Can you give us one example?
bobo do you work for the government? are you here to help us? lol
Clue: Abstinence works everywhere it's tried.
Clue: So you say.
Clue: the ultimate minority is the individual. Forcing the diverse individuals who came to the U.S. to accept its anglo-saxon value system (in particular those aspects of an objectivist nature) did make the nation strong.
Nice try, but communism was never, ever related to any nation. I warned when the Soviet Onion fell that the communists would simply find another sanctuary. It turns out that sanctuary was already prepared for them... in Washington DC.
We haven't had a President outside the progressive power structure since Reagan.
Before him, you have to go back to Calvin Coolidge.
What can't you do this week you weren't able to do last week? The week before? A year ago? Ten years ago?
Clue: Abstinence doesn't work.
Clue: The world is more than 6,000 years old.
Clue: Bashing different minorities isn't the melting pot that made America strong.
Just what is a specific impediment? Please give us a concrete example.
As opposed to corporate care administered through corporations...
Quite frankly after watching Kodak deny their retired folks health care I don't trust corporations anymore.
I prefer this threat (threat begins at 1:36, for the impatient)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mURWOwkF...
Or this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaSmassvv...
You have not defined "cheating", nor have you defined "honestly raised".
Until you do so, you're arguments have no basis.
Laws and rules have *nothing* to do with honesty. See the tobacco sign quote above. The sign pretends that legality is more significant than morality.
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