Quote of the Day
Posted by Jonathan on March 28th, 2012 (All posts by Jonathan)
From an interview of Ion Mihai Pacepa, the former head of the Romanian intelligence service under Ceausescu, by Madeleine Simon:
14. Since coming to America, what most positively surprised you about the country, and what has most negatively surprised you?
[…]
What most negatively surprised me? A 2008 Rasmussen poll showing that only 53% of Americans preferred capitalism to socialism. There seems to be a new generation of American young people who have no longer been taught real history in school, who know little if anything about the destructive power of Marxism — a sinister plague that dispossessed a third of the world’s population and killed some 94 million people — and who believe that a socialist utopia would solve everything in the world.
March 28th, 2012 at 11:43 am
And he’s right ! I have three adult children, two of them lawyers, who don’t understand this distinction,
March 28th, 2012 at 11:53 am
The 53% number somehow neatly aligns with the reported 47% who pay no taxes at all.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
March 28th, 2012 at 12:48 pm
and may explain the (otherwise hard to believe) Iowa trade #s
March 28th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
There is a saying concerning family wealth building – “Coveralls to Coveralls in 3 generations”
The grandfather makes the money
The son keeps the business going but has a lavish lifestyle
The grandson has a lavish lifestyle
Meaning the tendency to forget things not experienced (ie, the difficulty in creating wealth) is complete by the 3rd generation.
So that is a factor – but then there were die hard leftists during the cold war (and earlier) who thought communism was great.
So maybe it is a factor of the 2.
March 28th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
The Chinese version is “First generation- coolie, second generation- merchant, third generation- rich man, fourth generation- coolie.
March 29th, 2012 at 1:03 am
The US has been too polite to its communists and everybody pretends that there is no blood dripping from their hands. There is a polite looking away that does not serve the country well.
March 29th, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Linked here: http://bobagard.blogspot.com/2012/03/which-do-you-prefer-capitalism-or.html
March 30th, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Chasing down the 94 million number I find there is also a Black Book of Capitalism with very similar numbers.