Something to think about, based on history: Looking back into European History, the middle ages and Dark Ages were a series of boom and bust, meaning that as the rulers became more and...

Nick Nicholson Loc: Florida, USA

Looking back into European History, the middle ages and Dark Ages were a series of boom and bust, meaning that as the rulers became more and more greedy, and gradually extracted more and more from the peasants, eventually, the peasants rose up, killed the wealthy rulers and educated people, and typically began a commune type existence. Eventually, this allowed the luckier few to gain economic advantage, and over time, the government again grew over years into the same thing it was before the revolt. There are numerous examples in the recent past. They include Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea. In each of these countries, the wealthy ran the country, and the workers were kept poor and uneducated. Ultimately, each experienced a revolt, the rulers and educated were killed, and a communist government was installed. Sadly, I see this coming to America at some undetermined date in the future if today’s government trends do not change. Over the last 50 years, the top earning 1 percent of Americans have gone from owning 35% of America’s wealth to now owning over 50%. Corporate leaders have gone from paying themselves 30 times the wage of their average for employees to over 300 times today. Wages in real dollars have steadily declined as the wealthy and corporate leaders have gradually held wage growth down through legislation, false news, and lies. Details were provided of these issues in my earlier topic posting. Today, approximately 40% of wage earners are paid at or below the official poverty rate. If this trend continues, I can see where the poor laborers will, like others in their position throughout history, rise up and take the country to communism.

For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to communism and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all. It was democratic socialism that dug us out of the Great Depression, and the initiation of making America the greatest nation on earth with the greatest economy. Unions added to that effort, and unions are an exact example of socialism. And that was what made America great. Not capitalism, which has the habit of concentrating a nation’s money in fewer and fewer hands over time. That is exactly what has been going on in America over the last 50 years. How did nearly all of Europe avoid communism? By moving to greater degrees of socialism, which is why, at present, much of Europe enjoys far better health care, education, and quality of life than we do here in America. And the wealthy and corporate leaders own Fox News and dictate the lies and half-truths and spin that Fox spews daily to anyone listening. Fox News is carefully crafted to convince Americans that the wealthy and corporate world are his salvation and key to a wealthy future, when nothing could be further from the truth. And Fox takes great care to denigrate more factual newscasts, such as NBC, ABC, and CBS, in order to get you to believe they are the liars. This is not true. But MSNBC and CNN are not much better than Fox, on the liberal side. Please learn to get your news from more than one source, and you may be able to figure out the facts in cases.

Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

Nick Nicholson wrote:

... It was democratic socialism that dug us out of the Great Depression, and the initiation of making America the greatest nation on earth with the greatest economy...

No... it was WWII, which woke up a sleeping manufacturing giant, that pulled us out of the Great Depression. And the world's greatest economy was brought to you by the Bretton-Woods agreement after WWII.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Nick Nicholson wrote:

Looking back into European History, the middle ages and Dark Ages were a series of boom and bust, meaning that as the rulers became more and more greedy, and gradually extracted more and more from the peasants, eventually, the peasants rose up, killed the wealthy rulers and educated people, and typically began a commune type existence. Eventually, this allowed the luckier few to gain economic advantage, and over time, the government again grew over years into the same thing it was before the revolt. There are numerous examples in the recent past. They include Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea. In each of these countries, the wealthy ran the country, and the workers were kept poor and uneducated. Ultimately, each experienced a revolt, the rulers and educated were killed, and a communist government was installed. Sadly, I see this coming to America at some undetermined date in the future if today’s government trends do not change. Over the last 50 years, the top earning 1 percent of Americans have gone from owning 35% of America’s wealth to now owning over 50%. Corporate leaders have gone from paying themselves 30 times the wage of their average for employees to over 300 times today. Wages in real dollars have steadily declined as the wealthy and corporate leaders have gradually held wage growth down through legislation, false news, and lies. Details were provided of these issues in my earlier topic posting. Today, approximately 40% of wage earners are paid at or below the official poverty rate. If this trend continues, I can see where the poor laborers will, like others in their position throughout history, rise up and take the country to communism.

For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to communism and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all. It was democratic socialism that dug us out of the Great Depression, and the initiation of making America the greatest nation on earth with the greatest economy. Unions added to that effort, and unions are an exact example of socialism. And that was what made America great. Not capitalism, which has the habit of concentrating a nation’s money in fewer and fewer hands over time. That is exactly what has been going on in America over the last 50 years. How did nearly all of Europe avoid communism? By moving to greater degrees of socialism, which is why, at present, much of Europe enjoys far better health care, education, and quality of life than we do here in America. And the wealthy and corporate leaders own Fox News and dictate the lies and half-truths and spin that Fox spews daily to anyone listening. Fox News is carefully crafted to convince Americans that the wealthy and corporate world are his salvation and key to a wealthy future, when nothing could be further from the truth. And Fox takes great care to denigrate more factual newscasts, such as NBC, ABC, and CBS, in order to get you to believe they are the liars. This is not true. But MSNBC and CNN are not much better than Fox, on the liberal side. Please learn to get your news from more than one source, and you may be able to figure out the facts in cases.

Looking back into European History, the middle age... (show quote)

** For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to communism and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all.***

TruDat !!!

Nick Nicholson Loc: Florida, USA

Parky60 wrote:

No... it was WWII, which woke up a sleeping manufacturing giant, that pulled us out of the Great Depression. And the world's greatest economy was brought to you by the Bretton-Woods agreement after WWII.

Not true. WWII helped, but the only thing that built the greatest economy in the world, thus creating the greatest nation on earth, was fair wages, which resulted from Union's actions to demand decent paychecks. Nothing buids an economy but lots of people haveing money to spend on goods and servics. Nothing. Unions did that. Not WWII. Not some agreerment no one ever heard of. And we were out of the Great Depression by 1941. War needs did not create decent wages. Unions did.

Parky60 Loc: People's Republic of Illinois

Nick Nicholson wrote:

Not true. WWII helped, but the only thing that built the greatest economy in the world, thus creating the greatest nation on earth, was fair wages, which resulted from Union's actions to demand decent paychecks. Nothing buids an economy but lots of people haveing money to spend on goods and servics. Nothing. Unions did that. Not WWII. Not some agreerment no one ever heard of. And we were out of the Great Depression by 1941. War needs did not create decent wages. Unions did.

After years of wartime rationing, American consumers were ready to spend money—and factories made the switch from war to peacetime production.

In the summer of 1945, as World War II drew to a close, the U.S. economy was poised on the edge of an uncertain future. Would it be able to transition from a full-bore war economy to a fulsome and stable peacetime one? Many experts at the time had serious doubts.

As it turned out, after a half-decade of rationing and war privation, Americans were more than ready to splurge. And postwar U.S. industries pivoted more nimbly than expected, shifting from producing bomber jets and tanks to cars, TVs and home appliances. Here's how America made the shift.

Since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s call in late 1940 for the United States to serve as the “arsenal of democracy,” American industry had stepped up to meet the challenge. U.S. factories built to mass-produce automobiles had retooled to churn out airplanes, engines, guns and other supplies at unprecedented rates. At the peak of its war effort, in late 1943 and early 1944, the United States was manufacturing almost as many munitions as all of its allies and enemies combined.

On the home front, the massive mobilization effort during World War II had put Americans back to work. Unemployment, which had reached 25 percent during the Great Depression and hovered at 14.6 percent in 1939, had dropped to 1.2 percent by 1944—still a record low in the nation’s history. IOW, WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression.

Even before the war ended, U.S. business, military and government officials began debating the question of the country’s reconversion from military to civilian production. In 1944, Donald Nelson of the War Production Board (WFB) proposed a plan that would reconvert idle factories to civilian production. Powerful military and business leaders pushed back, and plans for widespread reconversion were postponed.

But with the war wrapping up, and millions of men and women in uniform scheduled to return home, the nation’s military-focused economy wasn’t necessarily prepared to welcome them back. As Arthur Herman wrote in his book Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, U.S. businesses at the time were still “geared around producing tanks and planes, not clapboard houses and refrigerators.”

Some economists even predicted a new crisis of mass unemployment and inflation, arguing that private businesses couldn’t possibly generate the massive amounts of capital necessary to run the pumped-up wartime factories during peacetime. A report released in mid-1945 by Senator James Mead of New York took this opinion, arguing that if the war in the Pacific ended quickly, “the United States would find itself largely unprepared to overcome unemployment on a large scale.”

But history proved the pessimists wrong. Most returning veterans had no trouble finding jobs, according to Herman. U.S. factories that had proven so essential to the war effort quickly mobilized for peacetime, rising to meet the needs of consumers who had been encouraged to save up their money in preparation for just such a post-war boom.

By the summer of 1945, Americans had been living under wartime rationing policies for more than three years, including limits on such common goods as rubber, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meat, butter, milk and soap. Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s Office of Price Administration (OPA) had encouraged the public to save up their money (ideally by buying war bonds) for a brighter future. In her book A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Lizabeth Cohen reported that by 1945, Americans were saving an average of 21 percent of their personal disposable income, compared to just 3 percent in the 1920s.

With the war finally over, American consumers were eager to spend their money, on everything from big-ticket items like homes, cars and furniture to appliances, clothing, shoes and everything else in between. U.S. factories answered their call, beginning with the automobile industry. New car sales quadrupled between 1945 and 1955, and by the end of the 1950s, some 75 percent of American households owned at least one car. In 1965, the nation’s automobile industry reached its peak, producing 11.1 million new cars, trucks and buses and accounting for one out of every six American jobs.

Residential construction companies also mobilized to capitalize on a similar surge in housing demand, as Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans and the GI Bill gave many (but not all) returning veterans the ability to buy a home. Companies like Levitt & Son, based in New York, found success applying the mass-production techniques of the auto industry to home building. Between 1946 and the early 1960s, Levitt & Son built three residential communities (including more than 17,000 homes), finishing as many as 30 houses a day.

New home buyers needed appliances to fill those homes, and companies like Frigidaire (a division of General Motors) responded to that need. During the war, Frigidaire’s assembly lines had transitioned to building machine guns and B-29 propeller assemblies. After the war, the brand expanded its home appliance business, introducing revolutionary products like clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers and garbage disposals.

Driven by growing consumer demand, as well as the continuing expansion of the military-industrial complex as the Cold War ramped up, the United States reached new heights of prosperity in the years after World War II. Gross national product (GNP), which measured all goods and services produced, skyrocketed to $300 billion by 1950, compared to just $200 billion in 1940. By 1960, it had topped $500 billion, firmly establishing the United States as the richest and most powerful nation in the world. IOW fair wages didn’t create the greatest nation on earth, it was driven by growing consumer demand.

BIRDMAN

Milosia2 wrote:

** For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to communism and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all.***

TruDat !!!

🤪🤪🤪

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Nick Nicholson wrote:

Looking back into European History, the middle ages and Dark Ages were a series of boom and bust, meaning that as the rulers became more and more greedy, and gradually extracted more and more from the peasants, eventually, the peasants rose up, killed the wealthy rulers and educated people, and typically began a commune type existence. Eventually, this allowed the luckier few to gain economic advantage, and over time, the government again grew over years into the same thing it was before the revolt. There are numerous examples in the recent past. They include Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea. In each of these countries, the wealthy ran the country, and the workers were kept poor and uneducated. Ultimately, each experienced a revolt, the rulers and educated were killed, and a communist government was installed. Sadly, I see this coming to America at some undetermined date in the future if today’s government trends do not change. Over the last 50 years, the top earning 1 percent of Americans have gone from owning 35% of America’s wealth to now owning over 50%. Corporate leaders have gone from paying themselves 30 times the wage of their average for employees to over 300 times today. Wages in real dollars have steadily declined as the wealthy and corporate leaders have gradually held wage growth down through legislation, false news, and lies. Details were provided of these issues in my earlier topic posting. Today, approximately 40% of wage earners are paid at or below the official poverty rate. If this trend continues, I can see where the poor laborers will, like others in their position throughout history, rise up and take the country to communism.

For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to communism and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all. It was democratic socialism that dug us out of the Great Depression, and the initiation of making America the greatest nation on earth with the greatest economy. Unions added to that effort, and unions are an exact example of socialism. And that was what made America great. Not capitalism, which has the habit of concentrating a nation’s money in fewer and fewer hands over time. That is exactly what has been going on in America over the last 50 years. How did nearly all of Europe avoid communism? By moving to greater degrees of socialism, which is why, at present, much of Europe enjoys far better health care, education, and quality of life than we do here in America. And the wealthy and corporate leaders own Fox News and dictate the lies and half-truths and spin that Fox spews daily to anyone listening. Fox News is carefully crafted to convince Americans that the wealthy and corporate world are his salvation and key to a wealthy future, when nothing could be further from the truth. And Fox takes great care to denigrate more factual newscasts, such as NBC, ABC, and CBS, in order to get you to believe they are the liars. This is not true. But MSNBC and CNN are not much better than Fox, on the liberal side. Please learn to get your news from more than one source, and you may be able to figure out the facts in cases.

Looking back into European History, the middle age... (show quote)

"Communism begins where atheism begins."
Karl Marx

"My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism."
Karl Marx

"Keep people from their history, and they are easily controlled."
Karl Marx

"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care,
shall be in state institutions."
Karl Marx

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you.
When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."
Karl Marx

"A heavy or progressive or graduated income tax is necessary for the proper development of Communism."
Karl Mar

"The last capitalist we hang will be the one who sold us the rope."
Karl Marx

" In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence:
Abolition of private property."
Karl Marx

James Madison, Property

29 Mar. 1792 Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
and shall protect each of them against Invasion;
and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive
(when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Carol Kelly

Milosia2 wrote:

** For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to communism and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all.***

TruDat !!!

True and we’re falling into the pit of darkness without a struggle. Milosia is gaining something, though I have no idea what.

SeaLass Loc: Western Soviet Socialist Republics

Nick Nicholson wrote:

Not true. WWII helped, but the only thing that built the greatest economy in the world, thus creating the greatest nation on earth, was fair wages, which resulted from Union's actions to demand decent paychecks. Nothing buids an economy but lots of people haveing money to spend on goods and servics. Nothing. Unions did that. Not WWII. Not some agreerment no one ever heard of. And we were out of the Great Depression by 1941. War needs did not create decent wages. Unions did.

By 1945 the ONLY major economy that was still functional was the US, thus it did very well during the '50's and into the early '60's. As Europe, Japan, and others got back on their feet companies that were getting feed up with endless union demands and government regulations had other places they could go.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

SeaLass wrote:

By 1945 the ONLY major economy that was still functional was the US, thus it did very well during the '50's and into the early '60's. As Europe, Japan, and others got back on their feet companies that were getting feed up with endless union demands and government regulations had other places they could go.

A big plus was Eisenhower , the last Republican Plan
To build ;
Highways , hospitals , libraries , airports , helping personal real estate , warning of the MIC threat .
The last Republican . Spent a lot of money .
But created even more.
Dwight D Eisenhower!!!
This also instilled domestic travel , vacations ,
state parks ,
Interesting destinations , Rte 66 !
What have todays republicans done for anyone not rich ?
Why does the working masses gravitate toward such a group of greedy toxic liars.

Milosia2 Loc: Cleveland Ohio

Carol Kelly wrote:

True and we’re falling into the pit of darkness without a struggle. Milosia is gaining something, though I have no idea what.

My point is always the same ,
If you think you are a Republican , you are being lied to .
What if everything the republicans have told you are lies ,
What if they were found to be the truth ?
Every lie they’ve told you .
Would you be shocked ?
Deny it all ?
Become angry ?
What would you do .?
Continue believing the liar in Chief ? Still spouting his his nonsensical deranged nonsense hoping you’ll send him more money keep him out of jail ?
At the expense of an entire country ?
Vote for the lies you’ve already accepted ?
Consider the alternative to be
DeSantis. ?
Really ?
Gave
Have you heard only good things about him ?
I haven’t heard any good things about him .

David L Loc: Central Wisconsin

Blade_Runner wrote:

"Communism begins where atheism begins."
Karl Marx

"My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism."
Karl Marx

"Keep people from their history, and they are easily controlled."
Karl Marx

"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care,
shall be in state institutions."
Karl Marx

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you.
When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."
Karl Marx

"A heavy or progressive or graduated income tax is necessary for the proper development of Communism."
Karl Mar

"The last capitalist we hang will be the one who sold us the rope."
Karl Marx

" In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence:
Abolition of private property."
Karl Marx

James Madison, Property

29 Mar. 1792 Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
and shall protect each of them against Invasion;
and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive
(when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

color=blue "Communism begins where atheism b... (show quote)

This is an outstanding post. Good to see that someone actually does real research rather than just play polly parrot and repeat talking points. It's just a rotten shame that the haters on OPP will not even read it.

One Patriot

Blade_Runner wrote:

"Communism begins where atheism begins."
Karl Marx

"My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism."
Karl Marx

"Keep people from their history, and they are easily controlled."
Karl Marx

"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care,
shall be in state institutions."
Karl Marx

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you.
When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."
Karl Marx

"A heavy or progressive or graduated income tax is necessary for the proper development of Communism."
Karl Mar

"The last capitalist we hang will be the one who sold us the rope."
Karl Marx

" In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence:
Abolition of private property."
Karl Marx

James Madison, Property

29 Mar. 1792 Papers 14:266--68

This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.

In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.

He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.

He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, tho' from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

According to this standard of merit, the praise of affording a just securing to property, should be sparingly bestowed on a government which, however scrupulously guarding the possessions of individuals, does not protect them in the enjoyment and communication of their opinions, in which they have an equal, and in the estimation of some, a more valuable property.

More sparingly should this praise be allowed to a government, where a man's religious rights are violated by penalties, or fettered by tests, or taxed by a hierarchy. Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle, or to withhold from it that debt of protection, for which the public faith is pledged, by the very nature and original conditions of the social pact.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. A magistrate issuing his warrants to a press gang, would be in his proper functions in Turkey or Indostan, under appellations proverbial of the most compleat despotism.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called. What must be the spirit of legislation where a manufacturer of linen cloth is forbidden to bury his own child in a linen shroud, in order to favour his neighbour who manufactures woolen cloth; where the manufacturer and wearer of woolen cloth are again forbidden the oeconomical use of buttons of that material, in favor of the manufacturer of buttons of other materials!

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species: where arbitrary taxes invade the domestic sanctuaries of the rich, and excessive taxes grind the faces of the poor; where the keenness and competitions of want are deemed an insufficient spur to labor, and taxes are again applied, by an unfeeling policy, as another spur; in violation of that sacred property, which Heaven, in decreeing man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, kindly reserved to him, in the small repose that could be spared from the supply of his necessities.

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
and shall protect each of them against Invasion;
and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive
(when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

color=blue "Communism begins where atheism b... (show quote)

Great post and a great read!

martsiva

Milosia2 wrote:

** For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to communism and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all.***

TruDat !!!

YES - it is true!! "There is no difference between socialism and communism except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end. Communism proposes to enslave men by force and socialism by vote. It is merely the difference between murde and suicide" Ayn Rand She was brought up in the Soviet Union so she knows what she was talking about! You tell me how taking from working people and giving part of their earnings to the 'community' for them to distribute at their discretion is not communism!!

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

David L wrote:

This is an outstanding post. Good to see that someone actually does real research rather than just play polly parrot and repeat talking points. It's just a rotten shame that the haters on OPP will not even read it.

I appreciate the compliment, David.

I figured the time had come to show the stark contrast between the philosophies of the god father of modern liberalism and that of the principal author of our Constitution.

It is not surprising that no liberal has responded to that post. Whether or not any of them actually read it, I can't say, but a response from a leftist hater would certainly be entertaining.