Aerosmith – Livin’ On The Edge
An evening pause: Good music, but this video reveals a great deal about the future in how it portrays an adolescent view of the present. Even more important, the view is very typical of modern culture.
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Ferguson is a classic example of today’s “modern” American culture living on the edge. The residents there are clearly living in a culture of violence and crime, where they complain when the police provide law enforcement.
Violence is an old concept, but the liberals are under the impression that their policies will result in a more perfect, modern, non-violent, virtuous human being. As we can see, the policies of welfare, anti-authority, and equality (at a lowered level of equality, a level which can be achievable by all), is a failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwz_Z62e0s (8 minutes, Bill Whittle)
Rather than a virtuous people, Ferguson has the opposite: a people whose low level of “equality” makes them jealous of the successful and productive (the upper 1%, 5%, 10%, 50%) and makes them anti-authority to the point where they shoot police officers and call their strong-arm criminals “gentle” giants. The welfare state that they live in requires the recipients to remain in poverty in order to receive their “entitlements” of free money and free stuff.
The supposed “virtuous,” “perfectible” people of Ferguson are at least as flawed as the supposedly “greedy” successful, productive people. The “insufficiently virtuous” or “flawed” people, those who are productive, become “unequal” based upon their productivity – their success — but at least the productive have earned their prosperity. The unproductive “virtuous” cop-shooters of Ferguson are also “unequal” when compared to the productive, but that is because they *are* unproductive, so they remain “equally” poor — equal to each other. They are not jealous of each other, but they think nothing of strong-arm robbery against a productive shopkeeper, and the community rallies behind the criminal, not the producer.
Living in a world where they are given everything by a government who tells them that they are deserving and “entitled,” they easily convince themselves that they deserve even more than they are given and that it is OK to take from a productive shopkeeper, because the “benevolent” government isn’t handing out free stuff fast enough to suit their new-found greed. They convince themselves that it is OK to be violent against the possessions of the “greedy” rich, as seen in the video, especially in a protest, such as the Occupy movement, or a riot, such as Ferguson. Bad behavior becomes the new normal. The line between right and wrong blurs and disappears. I believe that this is what the song complains about.
The nature of America is to admit the imperfection of humanity and to use man’s flaws to the advantage of all. The flawed human nature of self-interest drives capitalists to produce goods and services that others will gladly pay for. It is in the free market capitalists’ self interest to produce more in order to live better. The prosperous can afford to choose altruism.
The virtuous human nature of altruism drives socialists to hand out free money and stuff to those in need — taking from the productive (forced altruism, which isn’t altruistic at all) — so, many people become unproductive and needy, just as happened to the early American Plymouth colony in 1620, resulting in poverty and scarcity. It is in the socialist’s self interest to take in order to live better. In a socialist society, taking is the way of life. The government takes from the productive, based upon their ability, and the people take what the government gives to them, based upon their need. No one earns what they have, so there is no perceived value in what they or others have.
What happened to the virtuosity and perfection of man under socialism? The imperfection of the “greedy” self-interest remains in humanity, and under socialism it is in people’s self interest to work less (live better than those working harder) and “need” more (live better than those who receive less).
Of course, in order to take from the productive and determine the peoples’ needs — who is deserving — a totalitarian tyranny must rule, as an uncaring iron fist is required to take what others have earned. The benefit for the tyrants, of course, is that they get to hold onto the excess that the needy didn’t receive but that the productive produced, so the tyrants live better than everyone else — having declared themselves to be deserving of the excess (remember Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her “private” Air Force plane?). Even the supposedly “benevolent” tyrant is greedy, rather than altruistic, satisfying his own imperfection of self-interest at the expense of everyone else.
Living on the edge? No, the people of Ferguson (and other American cities) slipped over the edge.
I have a good friend who is an accomplished music producer. He worked on an a very successful Aerosmith project about 15 years ago when they were quite popular. He too enjoyed their music, but said the band members were emotionally immature middle aged adolescents. There you go.