To: Westward and Ed as well as to all those that love freedom
From: Rog
WESTWARD:
<< Also, riskybiz, you say Americans greed is the result of their concern with
taking care of themselves and their family? Is that the story you're stickin
with? >>
ROG:
To repeat what I wrote yesterday to Ed (to no response, perhaps he is
planning his next attack) -- "We are a very wealthy people that have learned
to very easily produce amazing amounts of wealth due to our values of
allowing people to have the freedom and creativity to pursue their own
interests AS LONG AS THEY DON'T HURT OTHERS. Your solution is to ignore those
countries that have failed to discover these social patterns, and instead
blame the one that has? "Lets solve equality by taking down the successful."
Sorry, Ed, it has been tried and found wanting."
To clarify, I have a major disagreement with the leftist propaganda technique
of relabeling the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS as GREED. Pursuit of happiness
includes the freedom to engage in virtually any activity as long as:
1) you are willing to put in the effort, risk, initiative, etc to make it a
reality, and
2) you don't hurt others in the process
It includes the freedom to create art, to start a business, to get a job, to
hire another, to join the military, to volunteer, to go to school, to play
chess all day, to watch TV, to make millions and buy a Lexus and give the
rest to the United Way, to ______ (fill in blank). It also involves the
freedom to ask for terms on what price you offer your service or peddle your
wares. Of course, free enterprise does put a slight burden on the choice of
activities, as it limits most people's choices to those that add enough value
to others so that they will freely reimburse you for your choice. Free
enterprise, in general, requires people to add value to other people, at
least with a portion of their pursuits. It does so in a decentralized --
distributed control -- process that allows hundreds of millions of people and
social organizations to determine what is valued, and which nitche of the
market they would best fill.
I hope this clarifies my position, as well as my utter distaste for
feaux-intellectual arguments that "freedom" comes from enforcing centralized
Stalinist/Leninist/Maoist control of personal choices in order to apportion
rewards based upon the wishes of the STATE (as interpreted by the head-guy
with the gun that gets the MOST EQUAL share).
And yea, Westward, I am stickin' with this story..... how 'bout you, dude?
What is your story?
Rog
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