Socialists frequently advocate for the redistribution of wealth from others. However, individuals undertake economic risks primarily because of the potential rewards. When those rewards are diminished or removed through excessive taxation, regulation, or redistribution, the incentive to take risks disappears, along with the motivation to innovate and create value.
Argentina provides a compelling recent case study. After years of socialist policies that stifled growth, the country’s shift toward market-oriented reforms has produced outsized economic improvements, serving as a powerful lesson in the importance of preserving incentives for risk-taking and entrepreneurship.
Here is an exact quote:
“We know of nothing so divisive between the sheep and the goats as a faithful exposition of this doctrine. If a servant of God accepts some new charge, and he wishes to ascertain which of his people desire the pure milk of the Word, and which prefer the Devil’s substitutes, let him deliver a series of sermons on this subject, and it will quickly be the means of ‘taking forth the precious from the vile’ (Jeremiah 15:19).”
Communism through (my) ages:
1) When I was 15, a teacher told me "It isn't as bad as they say, and makes a lot of sense."
2) At about 19, college friends, "Socialism isn't communism."
3) At 20, on meeting my grandfather-in-law, "They are evil. We escaped in 1949."
4) At 30, "China is a wonderful developing Democracy"
5) At 35, I was sent to communist China on business. It was a crowded, smelly, dirty, factory of despair and hopelessness. This I saw with my own eyes.
6) At 36, "China doesn't count. Successful socialism is in northern Europe."
7) I moved to northern Europe when I was 40. It was much nicer than China, but also felt like I was living in the past. I had to wait 6 months for a hernia operation.
8) When I was about 45, the migrant crisis began. The socialist/globalist/pacifist allowed them entry into every country, regardless how many crimes they committed along the way. Just 20 minutes from my house, in Calais, I was shocked to see migrants jumping onto trucks, breaking open the doors, scattering the contents across the highway, then climbing in. They went through the Chunnel and got out in England.
9) At 52, the soft socialism around me had transformed into globalism. I was told I had to call people by their preferred pronouns, though it was a lie, and even if I didn't know what the preferences were. I quit.
10) I returned to the US, and am now 60. "Socialism" is no longer a dirty word here. People openly espouse the virtues of it. Politicians run as socialists and win.
Socialism has taken many forms, from the Bolshevism of Russia, to the CCP in China, the Nazis in Germany, Fascists in Italy, and the many forms of it found in Latin America. It is one of the two most destructive ideologies on earth. It is designed to deprive, despirit, and murder everything that comes in contact with it.
Socialism is a great lie at every level. It helps no one, not even those who benefit the most. This is because the cost is the imposition of one's will on everyone else, and that destroys the soul of the usurper and the life of the oppressed.
Socialism always fails on its own, but only after destroying almost everything in its train. It can also be conquered. Those are the options.
Solomon watched reality unfold around him and sought to gain wisdom from watching others and everyday scenarios from humans and creatures great and small. You can gain wisdom and not be a fool. You can gain knowledge with effort, yet intelligence perhaps is only God given. If you get to the smallest common denominator/axiom… all gifts in various measures come from God. Ask for greater intelligence and then pursue it anyway you find fruitful.
I don’t care that Gen Z doesn’t drink, drive, or date anymore.
I care that they’re the first generation raised without ever learning actual risk/reward.
Degenerate gambling apps and meme stocks aren’t character-building.
They’re just simulated risk with none of the real consequences that used to forge men.
When I was Muslim, I never asked who built the golden calf. I just knew it was a sin in the desert.
Then I read both accounts and one detail stopped me cold.
In the Bible, the man who builds the golden calf is AARON. Moses’ own brother. The first high priest. Exodus 32:4.
He gathers the gold, melts it, shapes the idol. And when Moses confronts him, he gives the weakest excuse in scripture: “I threw the gold in the fire and out came this calf.” As if it made itself.
Bro. The Bible just put the worst sin in the camp in the hands of the holiest man in the camp.
You would NEVER write that if you were protecting your prophets.
Now read the Quran. Surah 20. Aaron is cleared. Innocent. He tried to stop it. The blame goes to a mystery man called “al-Samiri.” The Samaritan. Surah 20:85.
You know what shook me? The Bible incriminates its own high priest.
The Quran writes him an alibi and invents a villain.
One reads like an honest record. The other like damage control.
And there’s a second problem with that villain. “The Samaritan.” But Samaritans didn’t exist in Moses’ time.
The city of Samaria wasn’t founded until about 500 years later, under King Omri. 1 Kings 16:24.
It’s like putting a Texan at the Last Supper.
Now, some Muslim scholars push back — they say “Samiri” means something else. I’ll be fair, that argument exists. But their own classical commentators read it as “the Samaritan” for centuries.
The defense only works by re-translating away from how the tradition always understood it.
I used to say the Bible was corrupted. But the Bible is honest enough to say the high priest built the idol.
Only a book honest about how bad we are could point me to a Savior real enough to fix it.
The Bible never flattered Aaron. It didn’t flatter me either. It just told me the truth, and handed me Jesus.
Saul's conversion in Acts 9 dismantles at least three commonly held evangelical beliefs:
1. Decisional regeneration - Saul did not pray the "sinner's prayer." Saul fell to the ground, and Christ sovereignly saved him. Saul was Christ's "chosen instrument."
2. Comfortable life - Referring to Saul, Christ said, "I will show him how much he must suffer for My name." Jesus wasn't exactly seeker-friendly.
3. God doesn't make anybody sick - Immediately upon saving him, Christ struck Saul with blindness for three days.
Put Acts 9 in your seeker-friendly, Word-Faith prosperity gospel pipe and smoke it. 😉
Becky Quick on the SpaceX IPO: "If you [had] bet against Elon Musk in the past, you could have lost your shirt, your pants, your shoes, and everything else along the way."
"This is something that Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have both told me individually. They might not buy the stock, but they would never bet against Elon Musk — because that is a pretty risky proposition to do so."
(h/t @WilfredFrost and @BeckyQuick)
You can’t even responsibly manage the trillions you get now! This is idiotic! You strip the motivation to take risks with capital and thus the socialist society that is dreamed about by the economically illiterate results in an another failed socialist country. Haven’t you seen Argentina and how capitalism repaired and is repairing that mess. I can’t believe these people get reelected. I know how, by people who don’t want to work hard but take handouts. The Democratic Party is has gone so extremely far left and it’s disgusting.
@SenWarren Taxing rewards for applying sound habits, discipline, passion, improving oneself, results in less innovation, risk taking, gdp growth. You know you’re on the wrong side when that side is “takers”.