When did people ever get the idea that it is wrong for someone to make a ton of money? The answer seems quite obvious to me: the person who is opposed either has little money in comparison, or has arbitrarily decided that he or she is more deserving of their money.
One of the most important and founding principles of our country is the right to private property. The wonderful thing about capitalism, is that it has an inherent system of checks and balances. Let me give an example I once heard:
A man owned a landscaping business in Texas. One of his rules was that he would never perform his services for a homosexual. OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!! Perhaps. As would be expected, there was in fact an outrage over this issue. Many wanted to sue him, put him in jail, take away his business license - you get the idea. Here is where capitalism enters the picture. There is absolutely no need for the government to stick its fat face into the situation, because supply and demand takes care of everything on its own.
A petition was started in order to convince customers to go elsewhere with their business from then on. This is perfectly within the limits of the law. I do not actually know what happened to the business after that; whether he changed his policy, went out of business, or just kept on going because he had enough other business is outside my scope of information.
Honestly, I think it is silly to deny business to someone because of sexual orientation. First of all, you are losing customers. Secondly, if he was coming from a religious perspective, he seems to be destroying his witness by not showing this person true love and compassion. Therefore, I see no benefit in doing what this man did. However, it is perfectly within his rights to act foolishly. As it is within the scope of the law, he is punished accordingly - he will make less money. An attempt to make some sort of law forcing a business to extend services to someone against his will is extraneous and a corruption of power. If the society as a whole believes what he is doing is wrong, he will be NATURALLY forced to either serve the individual or give up his business as he will no longer have customers.
Another example (this one from John Stossel's Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity): An individual bought an ATM machine and set it up on a tropical island. She charged her customers $4 to extract their money from this ATM. RIDICULOUS!!!! Right?
Let's analyze the situation. The ATM - and therefore the service - did not exist prior to the individual making it available. Now, she has given tourists much more convenient access to their money than they ever had before. She then charges $4 per transaction to supply this service which would otherwise be of no interest to her.
Guess what happened! Tourists were outraged by the ridiculous cost of the machine and actually convinced the government to step in and bring the price down. Hmmmm..... Can you think of what happened next? The individual began to lose money just by running the machine, and had to close it down altogether. Yippee! Victory for the little guy! Oh wait, now tourists no longer have that convenient access to their money. Oops.
Another example, and my personal favorite: Sports. I hear people complain about the prices of food at stadiums all the time. I have actually heard people call the price 'extortion' because you are not allowed to bring food into the stadium, and you MUST purchase their food. How ridiculous is that! If fans were better with their money and did not buy the food in the first place, prices would go down. No one is forced to buy stadium food (this goes for movie theaters as well). Supply and demand people!
The other thing is the price of tickets. I heard on a sports talk station someone complaining about the price of postseason baseball tickets. This person pointed out the difference between salaries for athletes as opposed to public school teachers. Their main complaint was that a poor teacher who truly likes baseball cannot go to a postseason game after enjoying them for the whole year. Awwwwwwww. Let me explain something to you, Mr. Complainer: Your salary is paid by people who have absolutely no choice in paying for it. Anyone who goes to a sporting event has made the choice to attend out of his or her own volition. Furthermore, if it were not for high salary Americans - like these athletes - who are forced to pay your salary, your beloved public school position would be defunct. No one forced you to become a teacher - you could have done something else.
Is this cold-hearted and uncompassionate? Most people on the left would say so. However, most people were given a public school education as well - no coincidence here. I went to public school from kindergarten through 12th grade, and all I ever heard from everyone was how underpaid teachers are - I even went along with it. Now that I am nine years removed from my systematic brainwashing, I am able to think for myself and have realized what propaganda this was.
If parents were given a choice as to which public school their children could attend, schools that did not produce would eventually fold up. Good teachers would actually be paid more because of their importance to the school. Bad teachers would be paid less and even fired - as they should be. And what do we call this? CAPITALISM! What a concept. Supply and demand boosts efficiency and quality. Stop complaining about your low salary teachers, and do something else. How about leaving the union which actually causes these aforementioned negative consequences; how about voting for politicians who will be in favor of individual choice instead of forcing the hand of parents.
Alas! I know this will never happen. Why? Because most public school teachers - and yes I do say 'most' - just want to be fat and happy. Too harsh? Maybe for the teachers who are not part of the 'most' group, but not for the others. Being fat and happy is all about having tenure and a union that will support you no matter how pathetic a 'teacher' you are. The sad thing is that there are many teachers who are actually quite good, but have been brainwashed into thinking that the union is good for them.
Now for the issue as to why unions want what they want. The union as a whole has no desire to have teachers who support thought and good education, except in the rare cases when it somwhow propogates their agenda for power and money. Their chief desire is to have power and control over the fragile little minds that are public school students (and teachers for that matter). More people believing in their 'economy' means more votes, means staying in power. If people were taught to think for themselves and therefore realized the evil that is the Teacher's Union, the Union's politicians would be voted out of office in the very next election.
Now liberals actually want preschool to become a necessary part of public education! What does this mean, but more pliable minds to be brainwashed earlier and more excuses for higher taxes from the "need for teachers, space and resources"? What do higher taxes mean except for more control? What does all this mean except worse education and dumber Americans?
The unfortunate thing is that so many Americans are voting for Socialism without even realizing it. Many politicians believe that it is the government's job to hold each citizen's hand from childbirth to the grave. This is elitism: the idea that only a few people have a clue as to how to run their own lives, and they must therefore run everyone else's as well. These ideas are masked with lies that describe Capitalism - though they would never use the term - as evil because it steps on the little guy. There probably are rare occasions when 'little guys' are stepped on. However, even 'little guys' have a much better chance in a society that forces you to fend for yourself than in a society that punishes you for producing.
All this entails one of the biggest occurances of irony I have ever encountered. Policitians' jobs are paid for by the very people they teach middle and lower income citizens to hate. The fact of the matter is, when individuals make gobs of money, it is good for the economy. They pay more taxes, create more jobs that would otherwise not exist, and buy high priced things that pay other Americans' incomes - the positive cycle continues from there. I have to ask then, Is it evil to make gobs of money, or to take from them and give to those who claim to deserve it?
I therefore plead with the citizens of the country in which I was born to think about the truth about Capitalism and what the real effects of a society based on Socialism would be.
One of the most important and founding principles of our country is the right to private property. The wonderful thing about capitalism, is that it has an inherent system of checks and balances. Let me give an example I once heard:
A man owned a landscaping business in Texas. One of his rules was that he would never perform his services for a homosexual. OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!! Perhaps. As would be expected, there was in fact an outrage over this issue. Many wanted to sue him, put him in jail, take away his business license - you get the idea. Here is where capitalism enters the picture. There is absolutely no need for the government to stick its fat face into the situation, because supply and demand takes care of everything on its own.
A petition was started in order to convince customers to go elsewhere with their business from then on. This is perfectly within the limits of the law. I do not actually know what happened to the business after that; whether he changed his policy, went out of business, or just kept on going because he had enough other business is outside my scope of information.
Honestly, I think it is silly to deny business to someone because of sexual orientation. First of all, you are losing customers. Secondly, if he was coming from a religious perspective, he seems to be destroying his witness by not showing this person true love and compassion. Therefore, I see no benefit in doing what this man did. However, it is perfectly within his rights to act foolishly. As it is within the scope of the law, he is punished accordingly - he will make less money. An attempt to make some sort of law forcing a business to extend services to someone against his will is extraneous and a corruption of power. If the society as a whole believes what he is doing is wrong, he will be NATURALLY forced to either serve the individual or give up his business as he will no longer have customers.
Another example (this one from John Stossel's Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity): An individual bought an ATM machine and set it up on a tropical island. She charged her customers $4 to extract their money from this ATM. RIDICULOUS!!!! Right?
Let's analyze the situation. The ATM - and therefore the service - did not exist prior to the individual making it available. Now, she has given tourists much more convenient access to their money than they ever had before. She then charges $4 per transaction to supply this service which would otherwise be of no interest to her.
Guess what happened! Tourists were outraged by the ridiculous cost of the machine and actually convinced the government to step in and bring the price down. Hmmmm..... Can you think of what happened next? The individual began to lose money just by running the machine, and had to close it down altogether. Yippee! Victory for the little guy! Oh wait, now tourists no longer have that convenient access to their money. Oops.
Another example, and my personal favorite: Sports. I hear people complain about the prices of food at stadiums all the time. I have actually heard people call the price 'extortion' because you are not allowed to bring food into the stadium, and you MUST purchase their food. How ridiculous is that! If fans were better with their money and did not buy the food in the first place, prices would go down. No one is forced to buy stadium food (this goes for movie theaters as well). Supply and demand people!
The other thing is the price of tickets. I heard on a sports talk station someone complaining about the price of postseason baseball tickets. This person pointed out the difference between salaries for athletes as opposed to public school teachers. Their main complaint was that a poor teacher who truly likes baseball cannot go to a postseason game after enjoying them for the whole year. Awwwwwwww. Let me explain something to you, Mr. Complainer: Your salary is paid by people who have absolutely no choice in paying for it. Anyone who goes to a sporting event has made the choice to attend out of his or her own volition. Furthermore, if it were not for high salary Americans - like these athletes - who are forced to pay your salary, your beloved public school position would be defunct. No one forced you to become a teacher - you could have done something else.
Is this cold-hearted and uncompassionate? Most people on the left would say so. However, most people were given a public school education as well - no coincidence here. I went to public school from kindergarten through 12th grade, and all I ever heard from everyone was how underpaid teachers are - I even went along with it. Now that I am nine years removed from my systematic brainwashing, I am able to think for myself and have realized what propaganda this was.
If parents were given a choice as to which public school their children could attend, schools that did not produce would eventually fold up. Good teachers would actually be paid more because of their importance to the school. Bad teachers would be paid less and even fired - as they should be. And what do we call this? CAPITALISM! What a concept. Supply and demand boosts efficiency and quality. Stop complaining about your low salary teachers, and do something else. How about leaving the union which actually causes these aforementioned negative consequences; how about voting for politicians who will be in favor of individual choice instead of forcing the hand of parents.
Alas! I know this will never happen. Why? Because most public school teachers - and yes I do say 'most' - just want to be fat and happy. Too harsh? Maybe for the teachers who are not part of the 'most' group, but not for the others. Being fat and happy is all about having tenure and a union that will support you no matter how pathetic a 'teacher' you are. The sad thing is that there are many teachers who are actually quite good, but have been brainwashed into thinking that the union is good for them.
Now for the issue as to why unions want what they want. The union as a whole has no desire to have teachers who support thought and good education, except in the rare cases when it somwhow propogates their agenda for power and money. Their chief desire is to have power and control over the fragile little minds that are public school students (and teachers for that matter). More people believing in their 'economy' means more votes, means staying in power. If people were taught to think for themselves and therefore realized the evil that is the Teacher's Union, the Union's politicians would be voted out of office in the very next election.
Now liberals actually want preschool to become a necessary part of public education! What does this mean, but more pliable minds to be brainwashed earlier and more excuses for higher taxes from the "need for teachers, space and resources"? What do higher taxes mean except for more control? What does all this mean except worse education and dumber Americans?
The unfortunate thing is that so many Americans are voting for Socialism without even realizing it. Many politicians believe that it is the government's job to hold each citizen's hand from childbirth to the grave. This is elitism: the idea that only a few people have a clue as to how to run their own lives, and they must therefore run everyone else's as well. These ideas are masked with lies that describe Capitalism - though they would never use the term - as evil because it steps on the little guy. There probably are rare occasions when 'little guys' are stepped on. However, even 'little guys' have a much better chance in a society that forces you to fend for yourself than in a society that punishes you for producing.
All this entails one of the biggest occurances of irony I have ever encountered. Policitians' jobs are paid for by the very people they teach middle and lower income citizens to hate. The fact of the matter is, when individuals make gobs of money, it is good for the economy. They pay more taxes, create more jobs that would otherwise not exist, and buy high priced things that pay other Americans' incomes - the positive cycle continues from there. I have to ask then, Is it evil to make gobs of money, or to take from them and give to those who claim to deserve it?
I therefore plead with the citizens of the country in which I was born to think about the truth about Capitalism and what the real effects of a society based on Socialism would be.
