What Socialists Don't Understand about the United States of America

The myth about America is that it's for everyone. This is entirely forgetting that one had to be pretty strange to get into a floating shack and brave an ocean -- all for the privilege of dying of disease or living with the most awful privations.

Going all the way back to the peoples who first walked here from Asia, America was settled by big risk-takers, big gamblers. Socialists who tell Americans, "You didn't build that" can't face up to the realization because they can't understand that some people don't consider safety and certainty their top priorities.

So the issue isn't whether one can go it alone -- the American who jumped from a plane without a parachute had a team helping him. The issue is that some people know that nobody can take a risk for you, and they live based on the knowledge. 

American society was made by such people. They created so much wealth that they could afford to carry a great many people who don't want to take risks. But to attempt to enslave such generosity by transforming this society into a socialist's idea of utopia is courting a revolution that will, of course, be won by the risk-takers.

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