This is seductive self justification for greed. I hear this from 'christians' who say God wants them to be Rich, yet these same chritians live in gated communities and send their kids to private schools and want all foreigners to be rounded up.
Greed, hate, and zenophobia all rolled up in self deception. This is just another version of the same old same old. On Sep 17, 11:53 pm, Gaar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think it important to remember just what it means, to some... > > http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000056.html > > ...I believe that there are three elements just three that we mix > in just the right ratio to perform our national alchemy. Look around > you at the rest of the world. Those who use none of these ingredients > are disasters, basket cases, failed states where misery and poverty > crush the life out of what is almost an indomitable human drive to > create, to nurture, and to prosper. > > Almost indomitable. There are governments, theories, and people that > have managed it after many years of hard and dedicated work. > > We together have wasted enough time talking about these failed ideas, > these various and sundry kleptocracies, these stinking, wretched > failures. We know what they are and we know what they look like. Today > we are hunting success. > > One of the three, any one, buys you a respite. Not a huge one, > perhaps, but a glimmer of hope. Two, and life begins to become > livable. Grey, perhaps. Uninspired. But livable. > > Pull all three together and you have a society worth living in. Pull > all three together in just the right way, and you have a reactor, a > fire-breathing creativity engine that unlocks in each of us the very > best people we can become. > > Stop guessing. Sorry, but it s not God, Guts and Guns. The Arabs have > God, the Russians have Guts and the Colombians have Guns you want to > live there? > > We re going to take a moment to look at each one of the three, each > element in this national Trinity of success and prosperity. > > These three pillars have several things in common. Their first and > greatest strength is that they are self-correcting. They require > optimism remember that: that s critical. They are beyond flexible: > they are supple. No, even more they are fluid. And yet each has > strict rules that must be rigidly obeyed for the reactor to produce > full power. This combination of a rigid internal structure, coupled > with astonishing flexibility, is what gives them, like a human > acrobat, mind-boggling capabilities that leave us gaping in awe at the > results. > > Two are pretty easy to understand. One isn t. So let s be sensible and > do the hard work first. > > The first of these three pillars has several names: private property, > the free market, enlightened self-interest but the first essential > element of the American Trinity, and the hardest to come to grips > with, is Capitalism. > > Capitalism just galls some people. They just. Can t. Stand it. > > Now I have thought about this one long and hard, and no matter how I > look at it, I come to the same striking conclusion, and that is this: > > Where you stand on the political spectrum, what you think of rich and > poor people, and what you think about rich and poor nations and how > they should act in the world, comes down, in my mind, to one single > issue, and one only: Can wealth be created, or can it only be > redistributed? > > If you believe, as I do, that wealth can be manufactured out of thin > air, then there is no limit to the amount of wealth you can amass. And > since you are creating it out of thin air, there is no moral onus on > making money you work hard to create it and have stolen from no one. > There is an expression for this: you earned it. > > Indeed, since charity depends on excess wealth, excess capacity, the > more you make for yourself the better off everyone else is. You can > even throw charity out the window if you are so hard-hearted; the fact > remains that you will spend that money to get the things you want, and > the more you have the more you can spend. That money goes to other > people. This interchange is called the economy, and rich societies > are rich because they understand in their bones the centerpiece of > Capitalist thinking: Wealth can be created from thin air by human > ingenuity and hard work. > > Now people on the left have, in their guts, a revulsion towards the > rich and the wealthy, because whenever they see wealth they naturally > assume that it was stolen from people without any the poor. That > rich man in the private jet has taken the wealth from all the poor > people and is therefore a criminal. > > If you think about all of the protestors you see on TV, whether they > be against US imperialism , or globalization, or corporations, or > claim to be champions of the Poor, both here at home and for poor > nations in the world all of this anger and seething resentment, all > of this bitterness and invective, can be attributed, when all is said > and done, to having chosen to believe that there is only so much > wealth in the world, and that rich people and rich nations gain and > maintain wealth by stealing prosperity from the weak. > > This is so idiotic, so demonstrably false, that you really have to > wonder why we are having this discussion. All of the money owed to > rich nations by the poor money that was lent to them to lift them > from poverty, and then squandered on palaces for dictators and > Socialist prestige projects like International Airports in the middle > of nowhere -- all this money totaled together, is a small percentage > of the wealth generated by rich countries in a single year. The idea > that the United States can steal 10 trillion dollars a year from dirt- > poor nations that don t produce anything of value is absolutely > insane, and yet, and yet, we hear it again and again and again from > the professionally outraged who must be obtuse beyond human > understanding to keep making such an absurd lie the basis of their > entire philosophy. > > If we can prove that our core tenet is correct, that wealth is limited > only by imagination and the desire to work hard, then not only does > the left s economic theory come crashing down like a Statue of > Lenin their entire view of US power has to be fatally flawed, as well. > Because if we make enough wealth to be able to buy our oil at prices > set by the seller consult reality for confirmation of this annoying > fact then perhaps we are not in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to > steal oil from poor Arabs. There must be some other reason for it. > Something completely unintelligible and unknowable: national security, > perhaps, or simple disgust with torture and repression and terrorism. > Things like that. > > Get this through your heads, you socialist ninnies! There is not a > big, limited pot of wealth that is filled with the Magic Sweat of > Authentic Third World Laborers, that America uses its military to > steal from when we run out of wealth here at home. > > Here s something even the dimmest hippy protester / poet should be > able to wrap his mind around: > > You buy a legal pad: $1.29 > You steal a Bic pen from the counter at Kinko s: free. > You write the script for Weekend at Bernies 3: Bernie s Revenge!: > free. > You hire someone to type it: $30.00 > You have Kinko s print 5 copies: $62.20 > You mail the 5 copies: $7.82 > 5 idiots in Hollywood love the idea: free > They enter a bidding war: free > You get a check for: one million dollars! > > So let s see that $1,000,000, minus the $101.30 in expenses uh that > means You, the village idiot, have just raised the Gross Domestic > Product by, uh, one million freaking dollars, and have made a personal > profit of $999,898 dollars and 69 cents. > > Where did the $999,898.69 come from? It came from thin air! You > created it, out of nothing. You added value to the stock of paper and > ink you started with. From the monumental talent you possess, the gift > of intellect, the pen that made Shakespeare weep with envy, you have > created WB3. You ve given millions of people two hours of side- > splitting hilarity, for which they will part with $8.00 and you have > created wealth. What s more, when you go and blow it all on the > pointless material crap that makes life so much fun, you ll be > bringing in a little extra for the Sea-Doo distributor, the BMW > dealer, the girls at Cheetahs in Las Vegas, and all the others. Not to > mention putting I dunno maybe half a million freaking dollars into > welfare, Social Security, Medicare, the National Endowment for the > Arts and the world s first fusion-powered, laser-armed, flying stealth > submarine, the USS George W. Bush. > > You did not have to steal $999,898.69 from a farmer in Angola. > > And in just the same way as your finished screenplay is worth more > than the total cost of the paper and ink you needed to write it, so > too is my 2000 Ford Escort ZX2 worth more than the hunk of iron ore, > the silica for the glass, the chemicals for the plastic and tires, and > the cost of the factory, the electricity to run the factory, and the > salary of the people who build the car. That car, like that > screenplay, has greater value than the raw materials that comprise it. > Through human ingenuity, value is added. Wealth is created from thin > air. > > More relative wealth is created from building a Learjet than making a > pencil, but then again, there are a lot more pencils than Learjets. > Any time we make either, or any of the millions of things in between, > we create wealth. From thin air. We did not go and take the money at > bayonet point from some campesino trying to scratch out a living > somewhere, and if I hear that lie again from those magnificently > dense, blind and smug idiots, well, from now on I m just going to haul > off and kick em in the nuts. We should not have to keep going over > something so simple, so basic, and so completely and totally > obvious... --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
