Is Conservatism a Natural State of Human Nature

Paul J.

Most everyone who has studied American history knows that America was built primarily by what was called barn builders. Entire communities got together to help out their neighbors. When someone’s barn burned down, the whole town would get together and chip in a board or a tool and some elbow grease to help build a new one.

America was built on the opposite of the Greed is Good Conservative mindset. But what about Human Nature? Is Greed over Community a natural state for man?

Think of a small community of cave men. If it was natural for the community members to take more than they contributed to the community, the community would die. This is true for any human community of any size. A small town will die if everyone takes a little more away from the town than they contribute. A country will crumble if people take even the slightest little bit more than they contribute.

However, a town, a nation, and a world will flourish if everyone puts in just a little more than they take.

So, a small clan of cave men would only survive if people put in more than they took back.

The only cavemen clans that survived were those who didn’t have conservative leaches sucking the vitality out of the society. Any greedy conservative would spell the denise of the clan and those defective personality traits would be cleaned from the gene pool.

Sure, in the short term, ruthless clans will be able to steal the wealth from the others, like America’s rich have stolen the nations wealth from the rest. But this condition never lasts. Every greedy empire falls. Why? Because greed and conservative policies don’t work in the real world.

The personality defect known as conservatism is not natural in mankind.

 

Expect More
by
David Schlecht

Americans have gotten in a destructive habit of expecting their government to be less and less capable. Every time we see our representatives do something even worse than the last, we just shrug our shoulders and say we’re not surprised.

Believe America’s founding fathers would have been surprised. And they would have been surprised enough to do something about it. When we say we’re not surprised, we don’t do anything about it and things just continue to get worse and worse.

Look around. You can see this to be true.

Start expecting the type of government we deserve and start deserving the government you want. Get involved. Call, write, show up.

But, most important of all, TURN OFF THE TEEVEE.

The corporate news in this country is owned by just a handful of people and their interests are not in line with America’s.

Expect your representatives to represent you and never ever take the side of big business over those of the people. Expect your supreme court to decide cases in the best interest of the people and never ever in the best interest of Citizens’ United.

And, when your government doesn’t do as you expect, get mad. Do something.

Obama Comes Out in Defense of Marriage Equality

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

Will this affect his chances of reelection? Why?

Types of Governments Versus Types of Economies
Matthew K.

Okay, let’s see how far we can get in illuminating the differences between Fascist, Socialist, Communistic, and Capitalistic types of governments and as types of economies.

Communistic Governments

This is the most important thing you’re going to read in this essay. Communism is not a form of government. You may want to stop and go back and read that sentence again. However, communistic countries have always devolved into oligarchies or dictatorships where the rich and powerful become oppressive and eventually ruthless dictators. But, a dictatorship is no more a form of communism as is a toaster.

Communistic Economy

Communism, as defined by the father of communism, is a society in which there is no private property. That is the one defining characteristic of Communism. In a small commune, communism works just fine, everyone knows everyone else, everyone is glad to do their fair share to make the community work, everyone shares in the profits and everyone works together to overcome hardships.

Communism is sometimes viewed as a natural evolution from Socialism and from Capitalism.

Communism in large scale has always failed because the power vacuum at the top attracts ruthless and brutal dictators.

Socialistic Governments

Just like with Communism, Socialism is not a form of government, it is a type of society in which people take care of one another and people share in the management of their capitalism.

Socialism as Economy

As stated, Socialism is a type of society where the purpose of society and capitalism is to benefit society.The workers play a vital role in the management of the companies and share more equitably in the profits.

There is plenty of confusion regarding Socialism. Part of the confusion is in the Soviet Union’s reference to Socialism in their name, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. But, the USSR was an oligarchy, much like America is becoming and this oligarchy was not interested in letting the people share in the management or proceeds of their businesses. The USSR was also nothing like a Republic. The USSR was more Communism than Socialist.

Unlike Communism, Socialism works hand in hand with a strong economy as well as a capitalistic economy. There is no conflict between these two. Look at today’s China for a good example of how Capitalism can coexist with other economic systems.

In Socialism, the workers can be actively involved in advancing a Capitalistic agenda, for the benefit of the workers and for society.

When you hear the word, Socialism, think of the word it is derived from, Society. It’s purpose is to allow society to be involved in commerce, and not just as slave labor.

Fascism as a Government

Unlike any of the other types of economies, Fascism is a type of government. It is a government in which the corporations control the government. The government is merged with the big businesses (and their wealthy owners) and the purpose of government becomes a tool to benefit the rich and the businesses and everything is taken from the people to make it happen.

Fascism as an Economy

As an economy, Fascism is a system in which the people have no control over the management of the businesses and have no share in the profits. Under this system, the government quickly starves the people, expecting then to work for lower and lower wages for the benefit of the rich. This always leads to revolution, often bloody and expensive.

And, this brings us to Capitalism.

Capitalism as a Form of Government

Capitalism, is not a form of government any more than the other three. However, Capitalism is a hungry beast that will devour a society if it goes unchecked. This is obvious in the USA, today. Capitalism is devouring the people and the economy and the government.

Unlike the risk of dictators in the other types of economies, there is no power vacuum that attracts dictators, there instead is a small group of rich and ambitious oligarchs who will try to take over control of the government. When they succeed, they change the laws to allow for fewer regulations on business, more tax breaks and welfare (subsidies) for the businesses, and less and less services for the people. They make it harder and harder and eventually impossible for the people to have any say in their own government.

Capitalism as a type of Economy

Capitalism is best described as a system where money makes more money. It’s where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The system works great when there are good strong regulations in place to stop the rich and powerful from influencing the government.

Capitalism works well with both Fascism (Capitalism out of control) and Socialism (well regulated Capitalism) but conflicts with the true tenants of Communism.

Conclusion

America has been deregulating our businesses like it’s going out style, ever since the 80s, and look where it’s gotten us. Businesses and their wealthy owners own most of our wealth now, they own most of our government, they want more control of our political process and want to take voting rights away from more people.

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What is Happening to America?

Matthew K.

No matter how much you hear on Fox news about how we need to give more tax breaks to the rich and how providing services to the poor is just Fascism, or is it Communism, or is it Socialism, Americans are waking up to the reality that we’re rushing headlong into being a country we don’t want to be and certainly one our forefathers never imagined we’d be embracing.

But with Socialism and Fascism and Communism being used as scare words to influence the weak minded, the words are losing their meanings. That’s a bad thing. If we don’t know what they mean, how can we know what aspects we need to avoid? Just avoiding them because it’s a word the media is using, isn’t a smart way to be.

The previous article about the differences between socialism, fascism, and communism is a great read. I only wish there was more room to do a full blown comparison. Maybe I’ll find some time to add my two cents. In fact, everyone reading these pages should be talking about this. How can we avoid Fascism if we don’t really know what it is? Why should we avoid Communism if we don’t really know what it means? Were our forefathers really Socialists?

We can only vote to make this country better when we understand these things. Read the previous posts and get a handle on the definitions and on the pros and cons of each. And more than anything, turn off the corporate news that is only trying to blur the difference between them and make them all sound like bad words, rather than failed or successful governments.

And, lastly, I can’t express enough how important it is to realize that there is a difference between a financial model of each of these and the model of government. In other words, what is socialism as a government? It is nothing. Socialism is a set of policies, not a form of governing the people. Dictatorships and Oligarchies (today’s America), and democracies are governments.