Quote: (Today 10:55 AM)VincentVinturi Wrote:
While I agree that we ARE getting progressively more socialist in most of the Western world, it is NOT destined to go that way, and it's certainly not an indictment of a rational philosophy and resulting economic / political policies.
It certainly doesn't look promising. The huge disparities we're seeing between the ownership class (aka "the job creators") and the rest of the population are so big that some kind of conflict is bound to happen. But don't take it from me, here's ultra-capitalist and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer basically saying the same.
Quote: (Today 10:55 AM)VincentVinturi Wrote:
Quite the contrary, freedom of any kind must be vigilantly defended and upheld precisely because there are people out there who would use the state to deprive you of it with the promise of security, and the end goal of power over your life.
Agreed, though you just inadvertently described modern America. The "people out there" who are using the state as a tool of coercion are the corporations and the business class. We have failed to protect our freedoms granted to us by the founders of this country by allowing the merchant class to grow out of control and do as it pleases.
Quote: (Today 10:55 AM)VincentVinturi Wrote:
Your comment mistakenly implies that the best, or most virtuous ideology / economic system eventually wins. As history has shown time and again, that isn't the case if a nation's people are unable and unwilling to defend it.
Not really. I don't subscribe to any particular ideology and I don't know what's gonna happen, other than the fact that something will have to give. But changes are coming, whether you like it or not.