Maxwell Testa lives in Winthrop.
Graham Platner is a man rounding up a mob. Platner does not speak of American values; he opposes them. Just as the various bringers of destruction and persecution have throughout human history, he is rounding up the many against the few.
This is not about party lines, about left versus right, conservative versus liberal; such terms have become meaningless. This is about morality and the inviolate rights of individuals. Mr. Platner seeks a legalized mob, not just to target any minority, but the most successful one.
Platner claims that the success of businessmen is stolen, that the rich can only become rich by depriving their workers of what they rightfully deserve. This is true of a certain minority of individuals, but it is not American businessmen from whom we have all benefited enormously. It is that class of individuals who are destroying capitalism (i.e., freedom) by pillaging, looting and profiting off the American people: politicians.
Do not confuse cronyism and protectionism with capitalism. The government makes the proliferation of lobbying and dirty money possible.
Yes, Jeff Bezos is worth $251 billion (as of July 1), but has anyone ever asked what it costs to run and maintain a service that brings cheap products to every American’s door, or to pioneer cloud computing, or to bring man closer to reaching the stars? No. Have you stopped buying his products? Probably not. Why? Because Jeff Bezos has provided you with real value.
The “working class” would have nothing to produce without the intellectual effort of creators. There is no thought of how successful businesses operate, or why they got that way. There is only an appeal to animalistic emotionalism.
Americans are rightfully frustrated with the mediocre establishment status quo, but the alternatives no longer seek to bring us reason, freedom and markets, but rather appeal to humanity’s worst traits: tribalism, emotionalism and the mob mentality.
Americans, starved of meaningful political discourse, are now turning to Platner because he represents real change. But this is not a change toward freedom and prosperity, it is more of the same decrepit ideology that has wrought pestilence on this country, only more naked and extreme.
I wish I could rally my fellow Mainers around a candidate who I truly believed was beneficial for all of us, but such a person simply could not survive in our current culture. While there are no decent candidates anymore, Platner is certainly the most foul and dangerous Maine has to offer.
The Republicans, who long ago abandoned capitalism and who grovel before an indecent creature who does not come close to the stature of a U.S. president, are no better. Both parties seek to strip certain groups of their rights, they simply disagree on which group.
When the mob is finished with one group, who determines the next? Once the government has the power to violate individual rights, it is the whims of the strongest brute or the loudest demagogue that you will be at the mercy of.
Capitalism is the only moral social system because it is the only system where the mob cannot lynch you for having an opinion it does not like, for having a house it thinks is too big, for seeking medical treatment it deems too risky or for having more money (success) than it thinks you should.
It is time that Americans rediscover that capitalism is freedom, and that freedom demands the best of every individual.