What we learn before we turn eighteen becomes the common sense of our later life. Just as the vast majority of people, after careful consideration of all the candidates and the issues, end up voting for the same party as their parents, so, too, most people can never break free of the paradigm impressed upon them as they grew up.
Many people repeat the time worn phrase, “Those who don’t learn from History are doomed to repeat it.” As a person who has read and studied History on a daily basis for more than fifty years, one of the major lessons I have learned is that the general public never learn from History, mainly because they don’t read or study it. Perhaps they were spoon-fed a few classes as they meandered through the American education factory, but they never tried to do more than memorize enough to regurgitate at the proper time to move on. What was presented was based upon a biased agenda of whoever picked the texts and prepared the lessons. The only way to get a broader view is to read and study.
Note how many people can give you statistics ad infinitum concerning their preferred sports team but are unable to tell you the most basic facts concerning American History, such as why there were battles at Lexington and Concord, or what was the gun trade and how it impacted the History of colonial America. Americans are woefully ignorant of History; therefore, they have no context for the History of the future, which is current events. The news of the day is text floating in a vacuum. Remember, a text without a context is a pretext. And all the many happenings of the day become pretexts for the furtherance of the Progressive corporate state.
History forms the seedbed of the future. If we can’t connect yesterday with tomorrow, the study of History today is a wasted journey into futility. We might as well read fiction, as it is usually better written and more imaginative.
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Here is a lesson from History: Socialism doesn’t work. Look at the most spectacular crash of an empire in our lives: the sudden Christmas present to the world of the unexpected evaporation of that great prison house of nations the USSR. Look at the rolling blackouts of Venezuela. Look at the pathetic pictures of a once prosperous Havana, now a slum frozen in time. Socialism provides example after example, it just doesn’t work.
Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Margret Thatcher told us that the problem with Socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money. Ronald Reagan said, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.” The way I see it, once it becomes obvious that robbing Peter to pay Paul is the foundational policy of the State, everyone will change their name to Paul.
A basic truism of economics is that if you subsidize something, you get more of it, and if you penalize something, you get less. Using this as a lens, let us look at American society today.
We subsidize businesses that fail. Look at President Obama’s green energy boondoggles. Thirty-four companies that have received taxpayer money are showing us why we end up paying Six hundred dollars for a hammer. These white elephants have either gone bankrupt, are laying off workers, or are swirling around the bankruptcy drain.
The complete list of faltering or bankrupt green-energy companies:
1. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
4. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6. SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Amonix ($5.9 million)
11. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26. GreenVolts ($500,000)
27. Vestas ($50 million)
28. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30. Navistar ($39 million)
31. Satcon ($3 million)*
32. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy. As listed in the Daily Signal.
We penalize success. Our corporate tax rate is the third highest in the world. Because of this, many of our most successful corporations are seeking to relocate to other countries with lower tax rates in a practice known as Corporate Inversion. Some stock holders might call that due diligence. Our wanabe Big Brothers call it treason. Our Dear Leader followed his habit of ruling by decree and declared the procedure to be illegal. Afterwards, he renewed calls on Congress to pass a law to prohibit the practice of putting the cart before the horse constitutionally speaking. We can’t build a fence to keep intruders out, but we can build a legal fence to keep earners in to pay for the very system that is penalizing them for succeeding.
The evidence that Socialism doesn’t work is all around us. The cratered hulks of socialist failure abound. Yet, in America today, we are told that the majority of Millennials have given up on Capitalism and embrace Socialism. This shouldn’t be surprising. If you receive a trophy for showing up, it should not be surprising if you expect a trophy for showing up.
And then we have the phenomenon of Bernie Sanders. An avowed Socialist who has never had a private sector job, never had a steady paycheck until he was in his forties when he was elected to public office, and was even thrown out of a Hippie commune because he refused to work.
Here is this ne’er-do-well who has never created a job, run anything productive, or even held a real job who wants to penalize everyone who works to support everyone who doesn’t, and millions of Americans say yes with their votes and their donations. If you need a visual for passing the tipping point: Obama with his fundamental transformation of America, Hillary with her “it’s my turn, I’m a woman, vote for me” entitlement attitude, and Goldman Sachs paychecks isn’t enough just take a look at Red Bernie and his fellow travelers.
How did it ever come to this? We allowed our educational system to be captured by Progressives who indoctrinated generations of America-hating, entitlement-grabbing, special interest-supporting citizens who have voted for getting more and more and more and willing to contribute less and less and less.
If socialism works, why don’t we just vote ourselves $100,000 a year, free medical, guaranteed retirement at 40, and a home in the Hamptons while we’re at it? Just charge it to Peter, if you can find him.
One final question might frame the discussion nicely, “Who is John Galt?”
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