As a Canadian entrepreneur I am not afraid of socialism like Americans. I was able to quit my job 40 years ago and start a business because I didn’t fear losing my healthcare. I could then hire employees because I didn’t have to pay for their healthcare. The modest safety nets we have in Canada has helped fuel small business in Canada. Americans had been fed a lot of nonsense about socialism by people who have a vested interest in opposing simple and modest public cooperation. Americans are brainwashed.
Just two comments here, apart from congratulating you on a very focused article.
One comment homes in on your "wolves" allusion, and is taken from the commentary to the DVD I have of "The Making of 'Out of Africa'", a 1985 movie about Africa:
"Denys [Finch Hatton] deeply admired the unique qualities of the Maasai and he tried to help them when the colonial government took away their spears and shields, robbing them not only of their ability to fight, and thus stop lions from raiding their herds, but also of their identity. The British plutocrats condemned because they could not comprehend a race that did not define itself by its economic utility."
The British took away the Maasai's spears so that the British themselves could be wolves in the Maasai's sheepfold. They took them in order to remove the Maasai's identity. But it is the last sentence that is most telling: the colonial overlords could not understand a race that would put compassion and humanity above economic extraction.
And the second comment relates to the assertion that funding reforms through taxation of the wealthy constitutes theft. I refer of course to your Constitution, the fifth amendment, I believe: "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
I firmly believe that every right portends an obligation. Therefore while it is right that the rich should not be dispossessed of their assets without due process (and I'm sure Mr Mamdani knows this), nor should any be possessed of property without said due process. If you can't lose it without due process, you can't gain it without due process. Because your gain is someone else's loss, whether you extract it under duress, or steal it, or find it or gouge it, or putatively contract for it using unfair terms, if you don't acquire property by due process, it's not yours to lose in the first place.
In a world where cheating has become the norm for commercial enterprises, where the antitrust legislation often lies in tatters by the wayside, where price gouging is rife and anticompetitive behaviour, theft of copyright material and abuse of data collection commonplace, let us first look to whether their property was in fact acquired according to due process of law before anyone accuses anyone else of depriving them of it without same.
The arguments of the rich citing "theft of property" ring hollow when taxes are applied to all classes. All homeowners pay property taxes, they simply pay more. If they should pay no tax, we shouldn't either.
As a Canadian entrepreneur I am not afraid of socialism like Americans. I was able to quit my job 40 years ago and start a business because I didn’t fear losing my healthcare. I could then hire employees because I didn’t have to pay for their healthcare. The modest safety nets we have in Canada has helped fuel small business in Canada. Americans had been fed a lot of nonsense about socialism by people who have a vested interest in opposing simple and modest public cooperation. Americans are brainwashed.
Just two comments here, apart from congratulating you on a very focused article.
One comment homes in on your "wolves" allusion, and is taken from the commentary to the DVD I have of "The Making of 'Out of Africa'", a 1985 movie about Africa:
"Denys [Finch Hatton] deeply admired the unique qualities of the Maasai and he tried to help them when the colonial government took away their spears and shields, robbing them not only of their ability to fight, and thus stop lions from raiding their herds, but also of their identity. The British plutocrats condemned because they could not comprehend a race that did not define itself by its economic utility."
The British took away the Maasai's spears so that the British themselves could be wolves in the Maasai's sheepfold. They took them in order to remove the Maasai's identity. But it is the last sentence that is most telling: the colonial overlords could not understand a race that would put compassion and humanity above economic extraction.
And the second comment relates to the assertion that funding reforms through taxation of the wealthy constitutes theft. I refer of course to your Constitution, the fifth amendment, I believe: "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."
I firmly believe that every right portends an obligation. Therefore while it is right that the rich should not be dispossessed of their assets without due process (and I'm sure Mr Mamdani knows this), nor should any be possessed of property without said due process. If you can't lose it without due process, you can't gain it without due process. Because your gain is someone else's loss, whether you extract it under duress, or steal it, or find it or gouge it, or putatively contract for it using unfair terms, if you don't acquire property by due process, it's not yours to lose in the first place.
In a world where cheating has become the norm for commercial enterprises, where the antitrust legislation often lies in tatters by the wayside, where price gouging is rife and anticompetitive behaviour, theft of copyright material and abuse of data collection commonplace, let us first look to whether their property was in fact acquired according to due process of law before anyone accuses anyone else of depriving them of it without same.
The arguments of the rich citing "theft of property" ring hollow when taxes are applied to all classes. All homeowners pay property taxes, they simply pay more. If they should pay no tax, we shouldn't either.