BrianShelledy.com

I’ve been on a bit of a block this week, but there is more comming.  Some of the things I’m looking at include a few page ideas for the Impulse section, as well as a new, updated post on an old article.

For a quick update on what’s going on:  I voted yesterday, casting for Ron Paul in the Republican Primary.  On the democrats’ side, Hillary won both Texas and Ohio, which has me worried.  I know I haven’t really talked about my political opinion on the site much, but some of the things that Hillary has planned for the future scare me, as they should scare you if you are a capitalist. 

A quote that went around the internet after the 2000 Presidential Election describing the cycle of democracy went something like this:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

“From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.  These nations have progressed through this sequence:

“From bondage to spiritual faith;
 from spiritual faith to great courage;
 from courage to liberty;
 from liberty to abundance;
 from abundance to selfishness;
 from selfishness to apathy;
 from apathy to dependence;
 from dependency back again into bondage.”

This is a largely unverified quote that was attributed in some places to Dr. Alexander Tytler, but if we look at it from an objective standpoint trying to apply this to the state of America, we can easily see some obvious ties to our history and to the current state of things. 

The fact of the matter is that Americans these days look to Government as a solution to our problems, when that is not the way that it should be.   In a capitalist society, entrepreneurial endevors will have greater effect and better results then government will.  Policies like socialized medicine and other socialist ideals are the enemy of democracy.  When the state has the power over life and death by the extension of health care, don’t you think it’s going a bit too far?  Since the passing of the 16th ammendment that gave congress the right to levy an income tax, we have been duped into approving more and more socialist principals.  Now, we have become dependant on these government programs.  Income tax, social security, public schools, welfare, subsidized housing, subsidized industry… all of these are socialist ideals. 

People often make big corporations out to be evil entities, and moreso the CEO’s that run them.  But aren’t they just people that have made it to the top of the American Dream?  Why should we punish people for being successful?  In 2005, 15% of people paid 71% of the taxes.  That is the 15% of Americans that make over $100,000.  People that make over $10 million paid over 8% of the taxes; they account for 0.015% of the population.  These less then 14 thousand people are responsible for over $78 billion in taxes.  How’s that for an incentive to succeed?

More to come.