Don't Envy the Rich

Remember when, in 1991, there was a 10% luxury tax on yachts costing more than $100,000. The yachting industry 'sank', and thousands of boating industry workers lost their jobs.

I only saw a few minutes of the Democratic convention. It reminded me of an 'Old time', Southern Baptist, week long tent revival meeting. The shouting and clapping their hands is something to behold. They think the louder they yell the better their chances of their dreams of a socialist republic will come true.

They are selling envy, and making promises to take from those rich people who get up at 0400 to go to work, and give it to those who are sleeping in. The Democrat's speeches will have no new substances. They will have the same promises in clever phrases, but the substance will be the same bromides that tribal leaders have preached since Plato wrote his communistic "Republic".

The humanitarian socialist like to reference President Kennedy's inaugural speech as something new when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." This is the question and challenge tribal leaders have always demanded of their sheep; cooperation and submission to the State.

President Kennedy should have asked, "What SHOULD your country do for you? Instead he was asking the people to produce for the guardian class, and warrior class, mostly all of who were government employees. They are the mob enforcers, using guns and force to collect from the producers, and keeping a portion of the collection for themselves.

The central planners and controllers do not want to ask the question, "What SHOULD your country do for you." They believe there is nothing the "State" cannot do, and the State should do everything. Despite 10,000 years of one example after another of failed societies that practice central planning, each new human born has the genes that have desires and fears. They fear for their safety and comfort if someone has more. It indicates the one with the most is superior.

Yves Guyot wrote, Socialistic Fallacies (London: Cope and Fenwick, 1910) and gave several examples of failed central planned societies. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1166 Despite this record of failures, each new human wants what central planners promise, equality. Actually we all want to be superior, but since we cannot all be superior, since we all cannot win a Nobel Prize, we want what is the next safest thing, equality.

It seems like some people want to treat individual production as if it is community property, like the common grounds in my condo complex. All condo owners have a right to walk around our common lawns. Some people want to apply this to the production of others. Some people feel entitled to the production of others.

Envy is a deadly sin. It makes you want what others have. If you can't have it, you want to destroy it. You fear being less than others.

Charles Tolleson