"we have moved from physical slavery to psychological slavery with PC. Not sure that is any better really. "
Wow. I don't know how to explain the mechanics of my preference, but I would living as a slave, being beaten to force me to work and not being able to leave, infinitely worse than living a world where the problem is people are absurdly polite about goofy names like "differently abled" for disabilities.

" makes it very hard to get excited about pursuing dreams only to have them taken away after you achieve them."
More people are achieving things beyond the wildest dreams of most everyone in history. By this I mean living free, creating something, making millions of dollars, being able to travel safe from accident and violence. Many of them are people who couldn't have gotten education, travel, job opportunities, capital, or any of it just 100 years ago only the account of their physical attributes. I can't imagine explaining them how they didn't really achieve anything, but they could have 100 years ago, 200 years ago, or really any time in the past.

It does not mean things are perfect. We can stop and admire the achievement of human reason without saying we've achieved utopia..

America ceased to be capitalist sometime in the 1870s. Atlas Shrugged was largely about that fact, though Rand was far from first to recognize it.

There are many good conservative folks from Wisconsin. Much rather have them rather than the libs that come and infect the area with bs.

My folks have their winter place in Cocoa Beach. They happen to be conservatives from up north and tend to vote conservative. However, they report that they are nearly surrounded by snow-bird liberals. The weather there in the winter is delightful. I was just down there four weeks ago visiting my folks for a few days. For them, it is an absolute paradise and escape from Wisconsin during the dark of winter.

I still see people showing the advantage of a college education over a high school education, or not having either. Rarely do I see presentations that show what the difference is for engaging in various trades. Whether its that academia propaganda machine or media SJWs, the tradecrafts are not getting enough promotion.

Why not just say it is a mixed economy of capitalism and socialism. All nations are such, only differing in the degree of mixing. Governments have always tried to mix a bit of socialism into economies. In the USA it is referred to as welfare when instituted by law and as charity when instituted by choice.

Exactly...

Economists do not "keep insisting that parents should be everything possible to see their children get a college education." In fact, much of the research in the Economics of Education shows that the returns to college education are falling, while the returns to apprenticeship training are rising. What economists preach is that it is very difficult to get a reasonable job with just a high school diploma -- and that is absolutely correct, so I agree with you on the need for apprenticeship but am merely pointing out that your argument is not with economists -- it is solely with the Social Justice Warriors who seem to feel as though that the trades are not beneficial job opportunities, even though they often pay more than jobs requiring a college education do.

The rule of law is actually necessary for capitalism to flourish. After all, without the rule of law, one cannot ensure contract and property rights enforcement, which are two of the few legitimate government functions anyway.

What IS capitalism? It simply the Natural process to capitalize and thereby allow individuals to try and make their lives better. Certainly that's superior to the "rule of law" which are normally & unwittingly created by fools and socialists (same thing, right?

We never were fully capitalist. And there are other countries that are more capitalist in some respects.
The word "Capitalist" is used wrongly in this article.

Indeed, Tropical Storm Faye was a drenching.

Traffic is worse than it was, but when properly timed, it is not a problem in Brevard. Traffic might add two minutes to my otherwise 28 minute commute.

Capitalism is used to acculumate the wealth, and then socialism is used to steal it from the producers and give it to the politically connected in the socialist network. Thats why they call it "collectivism"

I am not sure about the value of reason over "religion" (and I include leftism in that category also) has gained more sway. I would say that it hast lost, not gained.

we have moved from physical slavery to psychological slavery with PC. Not sure that is any better really.

As to the following of dreams, rules and regulations, the incessant use of government and legal means to "investigate" and "hold accountable" people after the fact- makes it very hard to get excited about pursuing dreams only to have them taken away after you achieve them.

Socioeconomic mobility, the idea that one is limited only by their level of ambition in how high up the income/wealth ladder they can climb, has fallen significantly in the U.S. over the last century. The root cause, supposedly, is education, which is why economists keep insisting that parents should do everything possible to see their children get a college education.

The flaw I see in the education argument is that trade schools as another form of post high school education are almost never included in studies. When my father was growing up, college was harder to get into, so trade schools represented a low cost way of moving up the economic ladder. Today, a welder (as one example) is highly valued and can draw a $40K annual salary to start as a novice. The reason is that children are less often encouraged to aim for less than a college degree. The result is that nearly half of college entrants don't get that degree, leaving indebted and without skills for a decent hourly paid job. We could correct this by giving more attention to encouraging trade schools, but SJWs attack any such effort as "demeaning" and trying to keep the economically disadvantaged in a lower class.

History has proven repeatedly that a society with too generous a safety net loses its drive. There's nothing wrong with failure, as long as you have the determination to keep trying and not repeat mistakes, but if the consequences of failure are softened by economic "cushioning" it's too easy to just stop trying.

If you look at the Index of Economic Freedom, we aren't even in the top 10. https://www.heritage.org/index/

Rule of Law
Property rights? tied for 25th in the world (with 1 other country).
Government integrity? tied for 19th in the world (with 2 other countries).
Judicial effectiveness? 11th in the world

"Property rights are guaranteed, but protection has been uneven. For example, civil asset forfeitures by law enforcement and an expansion of occupational licensing requirements have encroached on property rights. The judiciary functions independently and predictably. Corruption is rare, but the Pew Research Center reported in late 2017 that only 18 percent of Americans trust the government always or most of the time."

Government size
Tax burden? 113th in the world!
Government spending? tied for 124th in the world (we are profligate spenders - tied with one other country)
Fiscal health? 131st in the world (blame our tax and spend behavior plus all of our promises to future generations)

"The top individual income tax rate is now 37 percent, and the top corporate tax rate has been cut to 21 percent. The overall tax burden equals 26.0 percent of total domestic income. Over the past three years, government spending has amounted to 37.8 percent of the country’s output (GDP), and budget deficits have averaged 4.1 percent of GDP. Public debt is equivalent to 107.8 percent of GDP."

Regulatory Efficiency:
Business freedom? 15th in the world
Labor freedom? 3rd in the world
Monetary freedom? 101st in the world

"Significant regulatory reform has resulted in the delay or withdrawal of 2,253 pending regulatory actions since January 2017. Successful challenges to compulsory unionization have expanded the right to work, but new minimum wage laws have curtailed low-income job opportunities in some areas. Subsidies for agriculture, health care, green energy, and corporate welfare continue to add billions of dollars per year to the U.S. national debt."


Open Markets

Trade freedom? 16th in the world
Investment freedom? tied for 9th in the world (with 14 other countries)
Financial freedom? tied for 4th in the world (with 12 other countries)

"The combined value of exports and imports is equal to 26.6 percent of GDP. The average applied tariff rate is 1.7 percent. As of June 30, 2018, according to the WTO, the United States had 2,228 nontariff measures in force. The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act and the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (which amends certain aspects of the Dodd–Frank bill) were signed into law in 2018."

Sorry but we are definitely NOT a free country any more. If you want economic freedom (though not personal freedom), move to Singapore or Hong Kong (at least until the Chinese take back complete control of the latter). If you prefer a European country, try Switzerland.

I voted for Trump because I thought he could at least slow down the march to a venezuelan economy here. He has done that to a degree, although we are really a semi capitalist/semi socialist/semi fascist country at present still.

That 3 day deluge was Faye wasn't it?

I agree....so long as everybody goes to north and central Brevard. I grew up here in the 50's & 60's. A wonderful place to grow up. Note: I'm still workin on the growin up thing. BUT......It is getting to be too damned crowded here now. We now have to coordinate our activities around high and lo traffic periods. We do NOT want all the liberals from up north moving in with their ideas and (lack of) values.

Great article! Thanks for sharing!

We need to bring the forces of entropy back to slightly right of center in order for this machine to run properly, efficiently and for all time immortal.

Think of how we have developed the modern day combustion engine...we've achieved the need for speed and longevity.

"Yes, but we are on the precipice of losing everything, we just don't have enough conscious beings in government to bring it back to what it was intended.."
I see it going either way. I see grave perils and cause for optimism.

I am optimistic because personal liberties have increased over time. It really feels like the long arc of history bends toward justice, as if by some magical force, but of course it's really by hard work, not magic.

I am pessimistic because of the Roman-Empire-like decadence of our prosperity. Despite the prosperity, most politicians run on how bad things are because of some villains who it will take a lot of gov't force and spending to defeat. I feel like a rare exception marveling at how prosperous and free we have become and wanting to keep going in the direction of even more liberty.

"Rich, poor, in between, would be able to rule themselves... given a common sense of the rule of law and a common morality."
This sounds like common sense now, but when they did it it was a new experiment.

"Although the task was always daunting...we've no one else to blame but ourselves."
Yes. I see people as naturally dealing with each other by groups, including social classes. People dealing with one another through mutual trades enforced by impartial law is the exception. We do a good job of it, BUT we take it for granted. If we don't put energy into the system, as it were, entropy makes it fall apart.

Yes, but we are on the precipice of losing everything, we just don't have enough conscious beings in government to bring it back to what it was intended..
Yes we did all those things, just as we have evolved from bicameral pagan cave dwellers to unicameral value creators but we let it slip through our hands and in the process have gone from the freer of slaves to being enslaved once again.

It is high time to awaken...I think we are as a whole but will it be to little to late?