The previous post on Atlas Shrugged and Socialism caused a stir with at least one leftist veteran in the comments section. Fred G makes the erroneous point about Europe and then goes on to criticize rich Congressmen like Paul Ryan as a way to promote Socialism. Here is his comment:
Ayn Rand is pure Bull Sxxx. Look at Europe, their economies are doing fine and they do have what you call Socialism. How much longer do you think this country is going to last when all the assets go to the top 1% or 10%? The average American’s income has been stagnant for the past 30 years while the 1% and 10% got it all. That clown Paul Ryan from Wisconsin — the loudest mouth in the House always pushed for reducing Entitlements, while he had $750.00 bottles of wine for dinner. Wake-up, we have all been taken to the cleaners!
My answer was this:
Now that we established you are incorrect about Europe there is another great way to understand Socialism’s failures. Anytime the government controls something traditionally run by the private sector it has a higher risk of failure. When single systems with central control fail due to an accident, corruption or complacency the whole system or large parts of it suffer. When the private sector controls the same thing there is an incentive to do a better job due to competition. Also, when one part fails the whole system does not collapse. That is also why monopolies are avoided.
Let’s use your comment about Paul Ryan as an example. These people never suffer because they have immunity due to their wealth and position. So, what you are saying is you and those who agree with Socialism want to turn more things over to the likes of Paul Ryan & Pelosi to run? I think that makes my point and answers your objection. What do you think?
Fred G has not replied. Sometimes all you have to do is look for the contradictions in a person’s thought processes. You cannot complain about the fat cats that run our country and suggest we give them more control over it and then say it is a good thing. Oh, and the last point on a stagnant average income, under Socialism everything stagnates or goes down.
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Regarding my post about Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan. Ryan has been a follower of Ayn Rand since his College days. Hearsay is that when Ryan started in Politics his assets were $150,000.00 — now I understand his assets are 1.4 million. I am not advocating communism / socialism — I am saying that there is something wrong with our system when some CEOs take home 40 million — and the average wage is $57,000 and most likely without a Pension or Health Care!
Ayn Rand has a fantastic grip on human nature and as a result, she understands which form of government has been tailor-made for mankind.
Anyone can take the writings of any author to an extreme. I take Atlas Shrugged as an extreme position in order to bring a left-leaning society back to center using hyperbole. There is always a balance that is needed between two extreme ideas.
Also, moving from an asset value of 150 thousand to 1.4 million is not a huge financial shift over 20 years for any Congressman. I’m not defending Ryan. I’m just observing that many Congressmen get wealthy over time and many enter wealthy in the first place. I’m sure there are a lot of inside deals. They have access to information that allows them to invest where the rest of us would go to prison for insider trading. https://www.businessinsider.com/congressional-insider-trading-revealed-on-60-minutes-2011-11
I am also not arguing that there isn’t a larger wealth inequality gap than at many points in our history. Past leaders sold our country down the road with NAFTA and other trade agreements. American manufacturing suffered and along with that went the middle class. That’s another reason I and others like me fully support Trump’s trade deal position. It isn’t going to all come back in his 8-year term either. At least it sets a new tone and puts us back on the path to better incomes for Americans. We need future Presidents to be more like Trump. I’m afraid you and I won’t live to see it Fred but hopefully, the next generation will benefit.
Getting immigration under control is another factor that will help reduce the income inequality gap. We need immigration but it has to be smart and controlled. I don’t know why the left and Trump haters fight that so much. Well, I have my suspicions but it has all been said before so I won’t repeat it.
For now, we just have to continue to fight the far left Socialists and at the same time the entrenched Republican & Democrat globalists. It was never and will never be perfect under any system, just better and worse.
Like Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you.” As Christians, we need to help the poor. It is not necessarily the job of the government. We can hold people accountable but the government cannot. This is a point an old pastor made to me years ago. Ever since the government got involved the churches have pulled back and accountability went with it. That is similar to the point of Atlas Shrugged and you can see the truth of that fairly easy.
Protectionism Tariffs and Taxes to prop up our industries, that’s purely socialistic. Let’s not forget all of the public works, including infrastructure.
Using tariffs against countries that use them on us is simply a tool to get them to participate in free and fair trade. Emphasis on fair trade. I agree that we should not bail out companies as previous administrations have done. I don’t know Trump’s policy on that subject. If a company is too big to fail it should be broken up. The too big to fail issue is very much like the same problem that Socialist economies face. We have laws about that but they are not always enforced. I also agree we should start to work with Dems on infrastructure. That was another promise Trump made. I hope he does not try to push that off as an agenda item in his second term.