How Badly Does Modern Collectivism Hurt You?

Posted by CircuitGuy 11 years, 5 months ago to Culture
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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.


All Comments

  • Posted by $ rossabh 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That is a key point. Conquering a nation does not require its destruction. It is much more useful as a colony under the conquering entity's control
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  • Posted by rossabh 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Just playing for real - SOROS = Soros Organizations Relying On Suckers wants those addressed by Adams who volunteer to kneel before a master (the Collective) which is antithetical to the Koch brothers who employ huge numbers of people in the production of products. The obvious desire for being a master verses the liberty to risk, work and achieve/fail, but keep the rewards is the difference.
    The Progressives with whom the CPUSA has proudly allied itself from the very early 1900s have an agenda described in Atlas Shrugged. It does not require a double digit IQ and that indicates that you are mixing rather than drinking.
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  • Posted by Boborobdos 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And has that been proven, or just screeched about often enough that the vote should be taken away from those who the right wing extremists feel they can get away with taking it from?
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  • Posted by Boborobdos 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Not when selfish is at the expense of another. Ayn Rand was promoting capitalism, not predatory abuses of poor people.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    once dead people are current in the rolls and no ID is required-voila! dead people VOTE.
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  • Posted by Boborobdos 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    And ID would have stopped any of that how?????

    Again, voter fraud is an extremely small problem and all the excitement is from the extreme right who wants to limit those who they believe won't vote for them. It is selfish and unAmerican.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    as unreliable as ID is, no ID is even more unreliable. haven't you seen those undercover videos showing the guy who goes into Eric Holder's precinct and tries to cast a vote under his name? Then there was also the undercover video of how da democratic headquarters in a major city-one of the campaign leads got illegal voters' registrations for hundreds of "people." He was charged. and then there was the city aldermen in NJ. they were also charged with voter fraud.
    http://www.truethevote.org/news/how-wide...
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  • Posted by Boborobdos 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    None of that proves voter fraud and in fact demonstrates how unreliable an ID can be.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    As I replied below, the couple clearly had ties to several US cities. I live outside the country-there is no possible use for US drivers licenses (in fact, when wallets are stolen, the drivers licenses are almost always found) unless they are used to cross the border into the US. Or never leave the States in the first place. In New Mexico and Colorado, you must show ID to vote. You must show ID to sign up for social services. It's not just about having one to drive.
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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    scott is the boy who got an ant farm for Christmas. You are one of the ants that came in the mail 6 weeks later with the special sand/protein mix.
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