Saturday, January 31, 2009

America is Galloping Toward Socialism

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamic poll posed the question:

  • Does the news about stimulus packages and the federal government giving financial aid to several major corporations make you feel like the country is drifting away from capitalism and more toward socialism? Americans responded: 50% YES and 37% NO (Read).

Socialism as defined by Ayn Rand "is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good." (For the New Intellectual).

Goebbels, (a German politician and Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of German dictator Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers) said this about socialism:

"To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."

As Ayn Rand once wrote about Goebbels: "By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals".

Americans are not socialists because we do not believe in the ownership by the government of the means of production and we don't believe in sacrificing our self-interest for the good of the whole. We are by nature a people that believe in individual freedom both in the moral AND economic realm. The sooner Obama realizes this the quicker we'll get out of this mess. He called for change during his campaign but can he change his socialist views and become a freedom-loving American? The jury is out and who knows what the verdict will be.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

I strongly disagree. First off you quote Ayan Rand of all people to define socialism, a person that is totally against socialism and there for bias. If you were to look at the other end of the spectrum Marx backwards defined socialism like so "peace is the lack of opposition to socialism".
Socialism, and communism for that matter, are loaded terms which do not comply with the framers intent. to supplement this thought I point towards what's happening in Venezuela. You may point out the bad points of the social-economic goings on there (altho the standard of living there is on par with other south american countries) but the fact of the matter is that every step of the way was mandated by popular vote. That sounds freedom loving to me.
Also, this recent bail out and all that just proves while our government may not own the means of production, they can certainly impact and manipulate them. What's important to remember is that large industries have a social contract with the people, just as the government dose.