there is truth in your words

There is no shortage of propaganda – or of zealots and those who lie and commit media fraud. In your previous post, “Drill Baby Drill,” (as in this one) you present numerous package-deal slogans and statements designed to rouse emotion empty of fact. I say let us not be swayed by mere rousing emotions – let’s examine facts and judge with sober minds what is truth and what are zealot’s lies. In the previous post about capitalism you say: “But Wall Street steals its gold from hunger’s mouths … “ In this post you attempt to tie American capitalism and freedom to 1. Slavery -- not factual. 2. The desire of a rich elite to subjagate and disempower the poor -- not a rational goal for business which depends on paying customers with disposable wealth -- customers who are in fact enriched by the existence of these businesses. 3.Religious fundamentalism -- presumably in the hops that any who oppose you can be neatly labeled. You boldly make the false assertion that capitalism is grounded on, I quote: “That only property had rights to vote …” A frank distortion on your part. Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. If you create it, build it, then it is yours to keep or to sell to others who see its value. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control. You would claim that wealth is a stolen product – yet how can wealth be stolen from those, who even you, recognize, are not in possession of it? Wealth is not stolen; it is created by the productive labor and the creative minds of men. (The wealth you demean is what produced the computer and the internet you benefit from by your use -- by posting you proclaim your silent support of capitalism.) Wealth is not stolen -- it is the product of mans creativity. It is created when men of knowledge and science apply their creative energy to problems of engineering. Ideas that succeed to production take the physical form of items of value – items even you value. There is no theft involved. There would be theft if productive men were forced to produce products of value to be given away – which I presume, is the form of slavery you would support. It is a distortion and an outright lie that wealth is like some limited number, such as (for example) a handful of red jelly beans in a jar of white. Wealth is not a quantity limited item. It is a dimensionless measure – effectively infinite in scale. You are posting your message on a web-site that exists, is funded and supported, by the capitalism you profess to despise. You are directly reaping the benefits of capitalism –know or acknowledge it, or not. This truth remains. Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. Capitalism did not create poverty—it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof—I cite the pre-industrial infant mortality rate, the fact that a man was middle aged at thirty and dead before 45. The enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 per cent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 per cent per century is directly due to capitalism. Capitalism cannot work with slave labor. It was the agrarian, feudal South that maintained slavery. You are distorting factual known history when you tie slavery to capitalism. It was the industrial, capitalistic North that wiped it out—as capitalism wiped out slavery and serfdom in the whole civilized world of the nineteenth century. What greater virtue can one ascribe to a social system than the fact that it leaves no possibility for any man to serve his own interests by enslaving other men? What nobler system could be desired by anyone whose goal is man’s well-being? Observe the paradoxes built up about capitalism. It has been called a system of selfishness —yet it is the only system that drew men to unite on a large scale into great countries, and peacefully to cooperate across national boundaries, while all the collectivist, internationalist, One-World systems are splitting the world into Balkanized tribes. Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of. Capitalism has been called nationalistic—yet it is the only system that banished ethnicity, and made it possible, in the United States, for men of various, formerly antagonistic nationalities to live together in peace. Capitalism has been called cruel—yet it brought such hope, health, and progress of such magnitude that even the poorest members of a capitalist society are freer to achieve more than the wealthiest elites of the past, and even the poorest live in luxury undreamed of by pre-industrial emperors – and the fundamental fact is, even the poorest are free to labor through work and education to change their economic station – and that is the truth you seek to hide.

I think wblack missed the point. Cheap labour is not slavery, it's just cheap, taking advantage of people who are desperate. He's also failed to read any of the New (or even Old) testament to see what God really had to say about the poor, and about collecting profit from his name. We aren't talking about definitions or religious/political viewpoints, but about attitudes. Compare Jesus with Oral Roberts, Jim Baker, or any of that ilk. There's a complete difference in attitude towards people.

Congratulations on your first flame! I was going to refute wblack's statements point by point but then I read his comments on your post 'Drill Baby Drill' and realized it was pointless since he/she sounds like a disciple of Glenn Beck. A few observations from someone who is a degreed historian; It was Alexander Hamilton, one of the U.S.A.'s founding fathers, that lobbied for reserving the vote for only male property holders. Women did not get the vote until 1920. Capitalism did not free the slaves. The slaves were freed to break the spirit of the Confederacy as Abraham Lincoln fought to preserve the Union. Lincoln himself wrote in his famous letter to Horace Greeley that "my paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery, If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that." The Constitution still contains the provision for counting slaves as two-thirds of a person for census purposes. The standard of living and the rights of all workers have been realized mostly in opposition to the corporate owners in America who, not surprisingly, wanted to keep as much profit for themselves as possible. Historically wealth has been created by exploiting the labor of poor workers who in return were paid a pittance, 'slave wages' if you will. It is only through the efforts of these workers when united that have led to a higher standard of living. Always remember Jo, no matter how outnumbered you are by the idiots they are still the idiots. Keep the faith.

... Oh Yes, Yes! Jaybirds in trees, everywhere! Cursing at the Bicycle that gets you around. "Hep Me, Hep Me Please Hep Me!" You stand there Pant-leg caught in the chain yelling out offering no solutions. I got two shiny pennies Want One? .

Yeah ... I basically don't watch TV, don't read the paper, don't surf the internet for stories, don't Twitter or Facebook or whatever. It's like living in a cave with plenty of time for that silent soul space. The specific media saturation you describe is not familiar to me, but previous exposure to such things is what caused me to choose to live under a rock. (Don't you love it when people so fully engage in what you've written?) :D