Posted on 07/30/2019 8:54:06 AM PDT by cowpoke
“A radical, socialist, far-left movement is growing across this country. And it has taken root as the new voice of the Democratic Party,” Daines said on the Senate floor Monday, taking aim at Democrats’ Green New Deal and “Medicare-for-All” proposals pushed by candidates on the presidential campaign trail.
The proposed resolution would make it the official position of the U.S. Senate that Marxism and socialism are “failed ideologies,” while praising capitalism as “the greatest engine for human advancement in the history of the world, bringing more people out of poverty and into prosperity than any economic model in the history of mankind.”
In his floor remarks introducing the proposal, Daines evoked the world-renowned economist Milton Friedman.
“It was renowned economist Milton Friedman who said, ‘One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results,’” Daines said. “Radical Democrats are advocating for disastrous policies that would wreck our economy under the guise of cleaning up the environment,” Daines asserted. The Green New Deal would indeed pose significant costs to Americans. According to a preliminary analysis of the legislation from the American Action Forum, a center-right D.C.-based think tank, the environmental components of the deal would cost $52,000 – $72,000 per household between 2020 and 2029 if enacted...MORE
INTERVIEWER: Marxists say that property is theft. Why, in your view, is private property so central to freedom?
MILTON FRIEDMAN: Because the only way in which you can be free to bring your knowledge to bear in your particular way is by controlling your property. If you don’t control your property, if somebody else controls it, they’re going to decide what to do with it, and you have no possibility of exercising influence on it. The interesting thing is that there’s a lot of knowledge in this society, but, as Friedrich Hayek emphasized so strongly, that knowledge is divided. I have some knowledge; you have some knowledge; he has some knowledge. How do we bring these scattered bits of knowledge back together? And how do we make it in the self-interest of individuals to use that knowledge efficiently? The key to that is private property, because if it belongs to me, you know, there’s an obvious fact. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.
I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of.
A better place to start would be Pope St. Pius X condemnations of Modernism(aka Progressivism, Socialism, Communism, etc.).
Let them be anethma.
Even Friedman missed the point. You work for money, translating your time and your knowledge into a medium of exchange that you then translate into property.
Your time and your knowledge are the only things that truly belong to you. They are what makes up your life. Anyone who can take your property or who lays claim to your property before you in effect owns your life.
Strange world we live in. Everyone knows Communism/Socialism do not work. It has been proven over and over again throughout history. When you eliminate the personal incentive and benefit nobody is willing to just do things for the common good.
The fact that there are people pushing Communism/Socialism shows how ridiculous and stupid the school system has become. And yet we are paying for this school system with our tax dollars.
As I go back and look at history I always think how wonderful it would be if the morons that implemented these systems would actually be held accountable for destroying their countries.
I think he’s just trying to tweek AOC for giggles.
Socialism or communism is a straw man that criminals hold up in your face while they steal your money. They’re criminals. They destroy everything that’s beautiful for the poor. And the poor just stay poor.
Well said.
“Your time and your knowledge are the only things that truly belong to you.”
Not sure on this one. Your time is dedicated to only survival until you can without dependency if that can ever happen as there is always a dependency on something. So we gain knowledge to get by, not to exceed as that won’t be allowed.
There is no owned property. Everything you maintain is just widgets that will still be there when you snuff out. So the only thing you actually have, is your faith in anything you wish it to be. But no one owns faith, they just borrow it.
rwood
A stupid stunt. He’s hoping that some dims will vote against the resolution so he can say “look over here, a socialist” Then, he thinks that the party faithful will stand up and applaud this move as a real and tangible action.
Is anyone really convinced by this sort of theatre? We need real results not silly stunts.
I think he’s trying to get re-elected and hide the fact that he is a Bush league Republican that has done nothing to stop the illegal alien inundation.
We really need to replace ALL of the Bush League Republicans.
Communism DOES work...for the insiders. The people promoting communism all assume that they would be among the privileged insiders.
Because Lord knows Congress has nothing better to vote on. </sarcasm>
You convert your time, energy, and skill into property. Anyone who takes that from you takes that portion of your life.
I don't disagree with your point that "we need real results". Keep hammering home that point, I agree.
But there's also a political battle going on. A vote like this does put the socialists, or at least the ones that admit that they are socialists, on the record, for the voting public to say.
That's a good thing.
I agree...I think it would at least put people on record. Personally, I’m actually not certain that the next election won’t turn us into Venezuela unless political figures start to call things by their name (Socialism, Communism or even Marxism) and fight against these policies - proposed by ignorant, America-hating twits who for some reason have the whole Democrat party terrified.
Very good point. I agree with you.
Unfortunately the vast majority become useful idiots and only a very few reap the benefits of Communism/Socialism.
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