Charlie's Blog

Reading this guys blog I often find myself wondering how this guy has managed to crawl into my head, sort through the all the garbage and bullshit, pulling out the good points in crystal clear logic. That's an act I can rarely accomplish. I have been explaining to people for a while now that to judge a governing/economic system all one has to do is to look at the standard of living or effects it creates for the population. For example has welfare managed to bring people up therefore reducing the number of dependents (adjusting for inflation) on the doll or has it created a class of people entirely dependent on government support, unable or unwilling to better themselves? Here are excerpts (my favorite parts) from on of Charlies rants:

Slavery and Leisure

Marxism, communism, and socialism and the like are lies. We know this from the empirical data we have gained from historical example. Communism has been inflicted on the countries of the USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. The result is that those countries suffered from material deprivation. They did not go on to better and glorious things. They either collapsed, adopted free market reforms, or continue to live by economic subsidy from the West. Other countries that adopt certain features of socialism face huge gaping holes in their budgets as we see social democracies like Greece, Portugal, and the like facing economic turmoil. Here in the USA, Medicare and Social Security face a very uncertain future. In short, the Marxist experiments show that Marxism is a failure.

Free market capitalism has shown the reverse. Today, poor people in the USA enjoy a standard of living that royalty did not enjoy a century ago. If capitalism is so detrimental to the working classes, why are the working classes so well off? Why are they driving gas guzzling Fords, listening to their country music, while yammering at their wives on their cellphones to gas up the 4-wheeler so they can go mudding? To argue that the working classes are worse off is absurd. It is so absurd that many Marxists have simply changed their argument in favor of the "environment." We need to save the planet. Christ in a shithouse.

...Then we have The Right To Be Lazy written by Paul Lafargue in 1883 which is a condemnation of capitalism for "forcing" workers into wage slavery. Those poor bastards. I bet things were so bad that they even considered quitting. Yet, they didn't. Why? This question never gets answered. The rest is one long diatribe about the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Typical Marxist horseshit. My favorite part is at the beginning:

A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization holds its sway. This delusion drags in its train the individual and social woes which for two centuries have tortured sad humanity. This delusion is the love of work. . .

You know the rest--sweatshops, child labor, robber barons, etc. Blah blah blah. I can say this because there are two things I know. The first is that these people were not slaves. They wanted to work, and they did. If life outside of the factories was so great, they would have pursued this. But they didn't. This brings us to the second thing. They did work. A LOT. And their lives were improved because no Marxist ever compares that life of work to the alternative--tilling the fields. Industry was an improvement over agriculture.

Unless someone puts a gun to your head, it isn't slavery. Sorry, folks. Some of you probably have cushy jobs and spend the bulk of your days reading Facebook and whining about your jobs and how bad you have it. But you choose to work there. You choose to work. People may counter that they have to work to live. Well, that is not the fault of the capitalist. That is the fault of a universe that doesn't give a damn about you and gives you the options to work or to return to inert matter. Capitalism is to be praised because poverty is the default setting for humanity. You need do nothing to be poor. If you want to be rich, somebody has to work. Anyone who says differently is looking to rob somebody.

And what about leisure? Why do we have to work so much? You don't. Part with your cellphones and your internet and whatever else you have, and you can enjoy a Brady Bunch standard of living for about half what you earn now. People work more because they wish to consume more or because they wish to save more. If you want to work less, there are plenty of employers who will oblige you. There are plenty of part time and temporary work positions out there. You literally can work as little as possible and still enjoy a high standard of living here in the USA even in this recession. But for some reason, there are laws that restrain me from working more. To work more, I have to find a second job or start a business. I really hate this.

For me, material abundance is the byproduct of working. The work itself is what produces happiness. The first caveman who decided to kill a second deer immediately after killing the first deer understood this. Since the activity had to have a purpose beyond the mere pleasure of doing this, he reasoned that he could trade the extra meat to someone who could make him a better outfit from the skin of the deer. You might laugh at this, but you do precisely this on your job when you don't immediately spend your paycheck but save it instead. You don't know how you will spend that money, but you keep working. Save enough money, and you realize that you aren't working anymore to fill your needs but for some other reason. Entrepreneurs understand this. Everyone else doesn't. To them, it is work to spend with a preference for not working. They will never fathom the passion of a guy like Steve Jobs.

But to each his own. I don't care how other people live. Just don't ask me to pay your bills for you. I'm also not going to envy the lazy whether they are rich or poor. This is because there is no happiness in idleness. But how can there be happiness in work especially dull repetitive work?

I can't identify with the people who hate their work. That is all laziness is--the hatred of work. They work out of obligation and not love. Because it is an obligation for them, they become slaves. What hellish life that must be. But this hell is a hell of the mind. They created it for themselves because they feel they have no choice and no freedom. But there is plenty of freedom. They want freedom without responsibility or consequences. There is no such thing.

The ultimate refuge for these slackers is in the parasite class. Like the shamans of old, they con their way into not having to do real work. They provide "leadership" which amounts to not taking responsibility for anything. They "govern" and "regulate." They keep things going so we can live. How is this any different from what the pagan priests did in accepting sacrificial offerings to keep the gods happy and from killing us all? It is one big con job. Anyone who wants such a job is automatically a piece of shit in my book.

I don't want to live any other way. I have to move, work, create, or do something. What else is there? Drinking Jim Beam? Watching Oprah? This brings us to what I always ask the Marxist--Compared to what? Work sucks compared to what? What else can you show me that is going to do so much for my life? What better drug is there? Why not just take a sleeping pill and just doze all day? Or why not take the whole bottle and sleep forever? I am happy working, so it must work. The question I must ask the idler is this. How does idleness bring happiness? How does doing nothing make you a happy person? I have never received an answer that didn't involve the doing of something even if it was just reading books. No one just sits there breathing. Even some Indian ascetic will spend time picking the lice out of his beard. Ultimately, they say "hobbies." A hobby is just work that you aren't paid to do. If you think working for money is dumb, then working for free is even dumber.

Go read Mark Twain on this. I read that shit in elementary school, and it changed my life. Work is found in the obligation. I don't feel obliged to work because I can always choose to stop living. I choose to live, so I choose to work. Because I chose it, I am not a slave. Because I am not a slave, I enjoy every bit of what I do.
 

To check out more more wisdom (or rants depending on one's faith) go visit: 

http://charliebroadway.blogspot.com/