I’m tired of the phrase, “Flip-flop”. You know, a politician could change his mind on an issue because he learned something new, and not simply to pander to the needed demographic. It’s possible, I bet. After all, if you’ve not changed your mind on an issue lately, it’s probably because you haven’t learned anything new lately. And no, NPR… By ‘learned’ I don’t mean “turned more Liberal.”

We hear it all the time, “Socialism doesn’t work because there isn’t incentive.” That’s what I learned in 7^th grade. We learned about the transition after the Russian revolution. We learned how farmers produced less and less because, well, it just didn’t matter. Specifically I remember my text book describing how Russian men often became alcoholics and drank Kerosene when they ran out of Vodka.

This isn’t a strong argument though. You can counter this easily by claiming the only motivation most people need is the motivation to do their job well – To each according to his need and from each according to his ability. After all, who thinks about their daily earnings day-to-day and adjusts their efforts accordingly? Who really takes a job motivated only by its wage? And who doesn’t enjoy using his or her talents to improve the world around them?

Or you can claim incentive can be regulated into the system by bureaucracy, and that such regulation would be far more fair and humane.

Here’s the real problem with Socialism. Socialism is a system of distributing wealth. The antithesis of socialism is often thought to be Capitalism. Capitalism is not a system though – it’s an idea – the idea that people should be free. But for the sake of comparison, let’s call it a system. And as a system, Capitalism is a system for CREATING wealth and then distributing it.

The fist difference you’ll notice is that Socialism only distributes wealth, but doesn’t create it. So one might assume there’s an additional mechanism often found functioning along side Socialism that creates the wealth to be distributed. You’d be right. It’s capitalism. Sometimes it’s the black market. Sometimes it’s only among the ruling class.

At beast, a pure Socialist non-capitalist state will have only the mechanisms of wealth creation that were created by capitalism before the state turned over to socialism – no growth in other words. But historically what always happens is, the wealth of the Socialist state shrinks dramatically after the transition, and lots of people starve to death and die.

Modern examples of functioning Socialist states, like China, are functioning because they open certain areas of their economy to Capitalism, and China continues to convert further and further away from the Socialist idea.

Capitalism is simply freedom. And when people are free to create and innovate – truly amazing things appear. Of course, I’m defining freedom as an idea of equality and laws, not anarchy.

Socialism is a system of distributing wealth – which at the same time replaces the thing that creates wealth. In other words, it slaughters the chicken and plans to eat eggs for the rest of the week.

The concept remains valid at incremental levels. For example, Obama’s policies of redistributing wealth are essentially socialist mechanisms. (For those sensitive to the word, call it what you want. I’m not calling Obama a socialist. I’m just pointing out that his policies function as socialist mechanisms.) Obama sees America as an unfair place and would use these socialist mechanisms to correct the unfairness. The problem is – such mechanisms replace some Capitalism (freedom) with some socialism, which results in less overall wealth to distribute. Many people ignore or don’t accept this fact though and weald government power as if we can slaughter some of our chickens and continue producing the same number of eggs from.

Slaughter = tax

Chicken = entrepreneur

Eggs = economic output

Professor Dove recently said to me:

“Who owns the heart and mind of our children?…  Everyone is telling them what to think and how to think.  Do you know what they are being told?  What are you telling them? “

And I responded:

I’m telling them that penises are poisonous and vaginas are haunted. It’s the only way – scare’m.
I hated that when I was a kid. Teen age boys have too much testosterone to be afraid of anything, or make rational decisions for that matter. And, from my perspective, fear was basically the only thing that ruled.

I remember a conversation that was being had where each person was stating the trauma that each of their boys endured while driving which made them suddenly start driving like they had a brain. “Such bullshit” I remember thinking. I drove better than any of them and had never had anything happen that was scary and didn’t make me want to take more chances.

Ah excess testosterone… Sure, I rubbed a few things and got the car stuck once honing my tactical driving skills, but hell – you have to learn one way or the other and if I ever need to drive in a war zone or as a wheel man I’ll have some background.

I think kids will only have their behavior affected by people they respect. Adolescents emanate their idols. The big problem is kids respect people for weird reasons, which means they have their behavior affected by weird people.

Here’s an interesting thing I was pondering this evening. Here’s how it started.

I was taking a little stroll over to Meijer. It was about 11:30pm, a bit early for the family of skunks I often see along the way late at night – but regardless my mind was primed to avoid skunks. Well, I walk under a lamp – head on a swivel – and catch my shadow coming along behind me. Of course, the rush of data that flowed didn’t say it was my shadow until about a half a second later.

The first ‘packet’ of data, the first 1/10 of a second, said this: Skunk following close. Inhale, brace for takeoff, must open distance to max skunk ass range.

This packet was quickly overridden by the next: To big to be a skunk. Likely a large black dog. To close to run. Shield with Meijer reusable bag.

Right away another package comes down: Big black dog moving at equal pace. Not displaying aggression. Relax all muscles. Must reciprocate.

And then: Big black dog still following in non-aggressive manor, possibly frightened it with initial metaphysical response. Remedy. Broadcast – Friend Friend, I am strong and kind, friend friend.

Then finally: Well fuck me sideways. Sorry about that adrenals. False alarm. Watch for skunks.

I just found it interesting how my mind worked. It was funny how I tried communicating with the “dog” subliminally. The fact that I told my muscles to instantly relax my muscles in order to calm the dog tells me a little about how dog’s perceive people. I’m of the conclusion that dogs seem to have a 6^th sense because they use their first five so well. That must be one way I convey dominance and kindness to dogs.

How will keeping everything in English make immigrants learn more than a few words? You already have to put icons on important signs – and some are only icons (crossings and so on). And if an advertisement in an area would be more effective in Spanish – who the hell is the government to say it has to be in English?

But everyone knows being dropped in a foreign city where no one speaks your language is the best way to learn theirs in a matter of months

Yeah right, for rich kids on vacation. Mexicans don’t come here for the weather and to spend money on culture. If they have a connection, usually family, they’ll move in for a job or to live with someone where their kids can get a better chance. A lot of adult immigrants aren’t even good with their own language – so straightening their tie and adjusting their class ring as they sit down at their home office to breeze through an English learning book isn’t an option. They usually get manual labor jobs that require little – or discourage – communication.

And, with the attitudes some present, I don’t blame Latinos for staying in their own communities and speaking Spanish. It would seem intimidating to try learning from a society that is angry at them for not already knowing English – so angry in fact that foreign language signs are illegal and their kid’s teachers aren’t allowed to use Spanish.

If you want to be able to communicate with immigrants, why don’t you learn Spanish? Or are you so convinced of this country’s superiority that you assume it includes foreigners learning English just for the privilege of a visit? If you’re living in border states, what the hell. Didn’t you think Spanish might be handy?

And seriously – are you seriously willing to hold kids back and force them to spend the whole day just focusing on learning English? Have you ever taken a foreign language class? Is that all you did – look really close at grammar? Probably not… You got some geography, some math, some science, some culture, some pop culture, some civics… So yeah – not allowing schools to use Spanish is asinine.

Cuántos = How many