Speaker | Time | Text |
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unidentified
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(upbeat music) | |
Monday was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. | ||
Day, and as is the case with almost everything lately, virtually everyone on social media seemed to parse out MLK's words for whatever narrative they're currently pushing in our modern times. | ||
I saw articles on how MLK was the first environmentalist, how he was an ardent feminist, a communist, a socialist, and much more. | ||
The one quote I tweeted of his is perhaps his most famous. | ||
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. | ||
I believe this quote to be as relevant now as it was in the early 1960s, but for a whole other set of reasons. | ||
In the 1960s, MLK was fighting for equality under the law and equality of opportunity, two things we should all absolutely believe in. | ||
Today, those who judge people by the color of their skin and not the content of their character are fighting not for equality, But for special treatment of some at the exclusion of others. | ||
This misguided principle, thinking you should treat someone differently because of their skin color, or thinking someone should believe what you think they should believe because of their skin color, or any other immutable characteristic, is the essence of prejudice, which means to prejudge. | ||
This is the complete reverse of what MLK stood for, and sadly, this way of thinking has infected the modern left almost completely. | ||
This is why, like myself, so many of you find yourselves on the outside of a political bubble that you were once safely part of. | ||
For this Direct Message, I don't want to focus on the flaws of identity politics. | ||
Instead, I want to focus on one of the other topics I just mentioned, socialism. | ||
And for the purposes of this message, I want to put aside whether MLK was a capitalist or a communist or a socialist or a hybrid of any of them. | ||
What I want to discuss is some of the reaction around the word socialism itself. | ||
The amount of people I see talking about socialism positively is actually staggering. | ||
A tweet I sent out saying socialism isn't cool even got me into a little exchange on Twitter with the official verified socialist party who explained to me that socialism has actually never been tried, which is why we don't know if it'll work yet. | ||
Perhaps they should tell that to the people of Venezuela right now who are fighting for food and basic services as they watch their socialist system collapse on top of them. | ||
The ideas of socialism, that the means of production, distribution and labor should be owned, controlled and regulated by the community as a whole, are the worst sort of collectivist ideas which exist. | ||
The very implication that the group knows what is good for the individual, that we exist to do things for the greater good, is totally antithetical to the purpose of being human It's your job to find value in your work, to strive for more than you have, to bring good to yourself and the people around you, and to live as a free person as you see fit. | ||
The very idea that you should set aside your individuality for the community as a whole, which virtually always turns into an intolerant hostile mob, is exactly why so many have died in socialist regimes. | ||
Despite the obvious failures of socialism, socialists have no problem using the freedoms of capitalism against itself. | ||
This is perhaps the most perverse part of the socialist worldview. | ||
Much like Islamism, socialism wants to use our freedoms against us until it attains complete power. | ||
For example, they use the tools of Twitter and Facebook, companies created through the ingenuity of individuals and the freedom of capitalism, to attack the very system that By the way, I'm all for them being able to do this even if I don't like what they're doing. | ||
That's the tricky part of freedom. | ||
It even applies to people and ideas you don't like. | ||
Just think for a moment if we had a socialist government in charge right now. | ||
How do you think it would be going for free expression and free speech? | ||
How tolerant would they be of all the people they label Nazis and bigots? | ||
Whatever you may think of Donald Trump and the evil capitalists, are they the ones coming for anyone's speech right now? | ||
Are reporters being put in jail? | ||
Actually, President Obama used the Espionage Act to put a record number of reporters in jail, and as far as I know, Trump, who dislikes the press, to put it mildly, hasn't put anyone in prison for the crime of journalism. | ||
Fortunately, I see a rising tide in America based on liberty, freedom, and individual choice. | ||
Note how those words themselves are somehow thought of as evil in the socialist lexicon. | ||
Liberty, freedom, and individual choice must all be sacrificed for the greater good. | ||
Though what they're not telling you is that the greater good is usually for the tiny minority in the elite protected class. | ||
Their ideas have never worked, and will never work, because a system built on stripping our humanity is in direct conflict with what it means to be human. | ||
I've said it before and I'll say it again, this perfect system which they wish to create can never be perfect because we humans, as flawed as we are, are part of it. | ||
Imperfect beings cannot create a perfect system, but what we can create is a system that always does its best to further the advancement of human freedom. | ||
For all its flaws, this is what capitalism is, which is why if you're watching this from a capitalist society, you should consider yourself one of the lucky ones. | ||
Of course, in America, politicians don't outright call themselves socialists, they say that they're democratic socialists. | ||
This is Bernie Sanders' mantra as he calls for a revolution of every kind, be it political, social, or even environmental, whatever that means. | ||
What Bernie forgets, or intentionally obfuscates, is that the democratic part of this of course will always be tossed away as socialism takes root. | ||
It's also why there's no doubt in my mind that eventually the social justice movement will turn on Bernie himself and I think there's already plenty of evidence of that. | ||
Democracy is the enemy of socialism and Bernie's trying to have it both ways. | ||
There's also a reason that the social justice movement has such a socialist strain within it. | ||
Both of these movements, based on frowning on achievement and accomplishment, and a resentment of those who break the mold, need people to be oppressed, or at least believe that they're oppressed, to survive. | ||
Creativity, free thought, and the pursuit of your own happiness is the antidote to both social justice and socialism. |