‘Capitalist’ Billionaires Think Selling Rope Will Keep Them Safe

Keep things up, elites, and you won’t be able to buy your way out of what your arrogance is making inevitable. (Execution of Louis XVI / PD)

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Elon Musk says we need universal basic income because ‘in the future, physical work will be a choice’,” Business Insider reported Friday. “…Musk said that with the rise of robots, universal basic income will be necessary in the future.”

Both are emerging from the realm of speculation and fiction into reality. Musk’s company is working on a “friendly” humanoid robot, and governments at all levels, city, state, and federal, have been introducing “pilot universal basic income programs for targeted groups of residents.”

A central tenet of Marxism comes to mind:

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Oh, the world owes me a living“? That this cartoonish worldview is being seriously proposed by a billionaire is cognitively dissonant enough. But Musk is not alone.

“During his commencement speech at Harvard, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called for exploring a system of wealth distribution known as ‘universal basic income,’” Business Insider reported in 2017. “…Zuckerberg doubled down on his initial support of the concept in a post on Facebook.”

Later that year, CNBC revealed “What billionaires and business titans say about cash handouts,” featuring Musk, Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, and some lesser-known tech/Silicon Valley bigwigs.

Even Bill Gates is amenable to the idea – not yet, but soon. Perhaps he’s waiting for his “vaccination” initiative to work its “magic”…?

It’s fair to ask if altruism is the prime motivator for these guys. What about ego and narcissism, and an inflated sense of self-importance and their own “visionary leadership”? What about something more basic than that, like Taking Care of Number One? That and survival?

“’The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats,’ Seattle-based ‘One-Percenter’ Nick Hanauer wrote in an open letter on Politico to his ‘fellow zillionaires,’” I wrote in a 2014 article for Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. He’s evidently feeling more than a little guilty about his wealth, and thinks he can make everything better and keep the mob he fears his fellow Americans have become from devouring him by raising the minimum wage.

Shortly after that article posted, I noted a report in The Daily Mirror documenting:

“Panicked super rich buying boltholes with private airstrips to escape if poor rise up. Hedge fund managers are buying up remote ranches and land in places like New Zealand to flee to in event of widespread civil unrest. With growing inequality and riots such as those in London in 2011 and in Ferguson and other parts of the USA last year, many financial leaders fear they could become targets for public fury.”

Then last year we noted how angry mobs demanding “their share” of wealth converged on Michael Bloomberg’s $20M house in the Hamptons — with symbolic pitchforks.  And don’t forget the guillotine set up in front of Jeff Bezos’ house!

The super-rich, with their private security, are better positioned than most to gauge the resentment that’s building within a population the “progressive” social changes and policies they enable make inevitable. A French or Russian revolution scares the hell out of them, and they somehow believe it will make them safer if they throw scraps to a gathering mob of the increasingly emboldened.

That doesn’t work in nature. Think “Taliban.” Show weakness, indecision, hesitation, and fear, and your enemies circle in. And telling those enemies you think Marxism is the key is all the encouragement the minds behind the mobs need.

It calls to mind another quote, this one ostensibly by Lenin, and although authorship is uncertain, the assertion is proving prophetic:

“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

There will be no deals if those interested only in totalitarian control get the upper hand. Does anyone really believe there will be a qualifiable difference between full-blown Stalinists and “kinder, gentler” Democratic Socialists if they secure the power they obsess over?

That they’ve hidden their “solidarity songs” away from public view to keep from tipping their hand doesn’t mean they’ve repudiated them:

“Are you sleeping, Are you sleeping,
Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie,
And when the revolution comes,
We’ll kill you all with knives and guns,
Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie”

Isn’t it interesting that these billionaires, trying to make sure their precious hindquarters stay in one piece, bankroll citizen disarmament? They’re hostile to anyone being armed but government enforcers and their own private security details, and undermine what the Founders knew to be “necessary to the security of a free State.” At the same time they’re helping bring about what John Adams warned the Massachusett Militia against in 1798:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

What kind of character do they think doling out “universal income” bribes to the masses for doing nothing will build? And does anyone think those won’t be the same ones pelting tumbrel occupants and screaming for their heads?

Add one more factor: If they believe average Americans are made obsolete by their machines, how do the elites figure opening the floodgates for even more technologically challenged Third Worlders will help?

It’s not like the billionaires can or will carry the financial load themselves. There arent’ enough of them and besides, they’ll have armies of accountants and politicians bribed to keep the tax codes manipulable to where it’s those Americans still productive despite all the confiscatory laws and regulations who will be tapped to pay for the indolent. It’s no coincidence these are the same Americans the rope-selling “capitalists” demand be disarmed with all the “gun laws” they finance through political “contributions.”

Do they really think disarming productive Americans and redistributing their property to those that  “progressive” rule has rendered unemployable will save them in the end? If so, they’re whistling past the graveyard of history and forgetting the most crucial fact: It’s not the dead they need fear.

It is the monster of their own making. And hell follows with him.


About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

David Codrea

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OlTrailDog

I think one significant factor has not been entered into the equation. God. Come what may, He is still in control of it all.

Oh, I forgot to add, Very good article.

Last edited 2 years ago by OlTrailDog
Russn8r

Thus Spake ZaraSchartre!

USAFMSGT

I propose that Bloomberg be the first rich prick to dance on the end of a rope.

Monkey Mouse

He is spending Billions on gun control – he will be the first to go.

swmft

I vote for a broom stick up his ass ,ah la vlad impale him slow

Tionico

Ackshully, they who misuse their obscene wealth to disarm we peons would best be dealt with, when Lady Justice finally awakens, by the very means they wish to withhold from us. Yes, the old fashioned firing squad should be put to good use. No hood, facing the “music”, perhaps to consider the justice of their meeting their end by the very means which they sought so hard to deprive the rest of us. I rather doubt there will be much difficulty in finding participants. Let the meting out of justice be done by whoever is so motivated, making use of… Read more »

Cruiser

Go ahead, take our guns, public stoning will always be on the table.

Last edited 2 years ago by Cruiser
Montana454Casull

Very good article, I wonder if any elites will read it and get it ? I doubt it , as they live on thier own little delusional world where greed rules and the rest of us are just pee ons needing thier handouts .

OlTrailDog

Will they read it? Doubtful. Do they understand the concept? Yes, that is why the “boltholes”. Is it delusional? Possibly not, since the vast majority of people both in history and today live under similar totalitarian plutocracies.

Paul Valone

Well said, David. And the university leftists should equally consider that in any Marxist revolution, intellectuals go to the wall first.

JimmyS

Not before the unrest kills a significant chunk of average citizens.

KenW

“…intellectuals go to the wall first.”
Our elitist are so ignorant that they don’t even realize that, but history tells us otherwise.

Rowboat

By the time the SHTF your super rich oligarchs will be long gone to there foreign hidy holes.
The intellectual elites are a different matter.
They have forgotten the killing fields of Cambodia and the Cultural Revolution in Red China in the not too distant past.

gregs

doubtful that the rich in their hidy holes will be able to feed and defend themselves without armies of humans doing the work for them, surely, they won’t be doing it. automation isn’t at the point of doing that type of work for them, yet. you are correct about the intellectuals of the past, although they always think that won’t happen to them this time.

Rowboat

“Hidy holes” are just a euphemism for the spacious and well secured ,private islands and any number of sanctuary countries that would be more than happy to take them and their money in.
Everything has its price for those with enough to pay it. No need for robots when you can buy slave labor !

JSNMGC

No complaints posted from all the big-government “conservatives.”

Let’s fund this latest redistribution of wealth program by cutting the pensions and medical benefits of government employees. Any thoughts on that?

DonP

I wouldn’t put it at government employees as a whole…but you can start with the members of the members of the executive and legislative branches who screwed things up.

Tionico

BATF?

DonP

Sounds like a good place to go to next. I was not meaning to go after ALL of the members (or previous members) of the executive and legislative branches, just the ones who are not, and did not, do things that were in the best interest of the country an in keeping with the constitution. There are also, I’m sure, some members of the BATFE who are good and not trying to violate people’s rights… no matter how few that may be.

KenW

Dept. of
Education
Energy
Fauci
etc.

hippybiker

Nasty Nancy the user able Can’t Understand Normal Thinker should be first.

hippybiker

Sorry…Should read Miserable.

JSNMGC

There are only two ways of killing the idea: Make it funded soley through many of the people who are controlling politicians (multi-billionaires); or Make if funded by cutting the pensions and medical benefits of government employees (of whom we have far, far, far too many of). If it is funded the way everything else is funded (the top 10% of earners and debt), Democrats will be for it and statists who view themselves as “conservatives” will be for it. In other words, universal basic income is coming because the vast majority of people want the government to take from… Read more »

Miserable Wretch

Actually pretty good article.

JPM

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Both the left and the right are being screwed by the rich and Wall Street and their bought and paid for politicians in Washington and in the State and local governments. That fact could wind up uniting the population. It has always been in the government’s interest to maintain division along racial, political and even religious grounds, but we are coming to the to point where too many people are realizing who the real enemy is, and are coming to a place where they may finally be fed up enough to act.… Read more »

AC4263H

Great article! Just an aside. I am employed by a large state university, and many of us are NOT leftists or Marxists. Please don’t tar us all with the same brush. I am always surprised when one of my colleagues forwards me an article from AmmoLand, when I didn’t realize that they read it daily like me. There are plenty of those with different political views from mine here on campus, and they tend to make a lot of noise. But I have no doubt who they would run to if there was a emergency. There are those that talk,… Read more »

Cruiser

I try to fight in my own little way. Amazon, Netflix, Kohls, and others, no longer get any of my money. I know it’s not much, but think about it.
Realize, they need our money than we need their services.
Big tech and Corperations are not your friend, they don’t do anything
for your benefit. Greed is their god,

Last edited 2 years ago by Cruiser
gregs

i don’t understand where these rich idiots think all this money will come from. even if the government confiscates all their wealth it would only be able to function for several months at their rate of spending, much less give everyone a universal basic income. and if they do many more people would stop working creating a sharp decline in the tax base for the federal and state governments. didn’t we see this play out when the first settlers arrived here in what is now known as the usa? would that ubi, include housing, medical care, what about cable, booze,… Read more »

Mack

Also:

Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior — NOT the Federal Government.

Whoever worships the Government is our enemy.

Fear the Lord, not Man.

Simple.

Buster

When you say “our enemy”, you are speaking as one of God’s warriors – I applaude you. There is God’s army, and all others are enemy – there is no middle ground, and there are no innocents.

God has a plan for his enemy. God has the means and the will power to destroy his enemy. The battle has begun, and it will not be pretty. But then, war never is.

Mad Ray

The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

Lenin was wrong. These super-capitalists will hold a fundraiser to provide the rope to Marxist for no charge.

Wass

Universal income means subsidized idleness for a large plurality. If you want to see the result, just go to almost any Mideast or Latin American country and see all the grown men sitting, playing cards or backgammon and sipping coffee. Is this what these billionaires want? If so, screw’m!

Russn8r

How about a test run:

Float a law to “redistribute” all personal & trust wealth over $1B to Universal Income.

Translation: You first, Musk, Gates, Buffet, Lizard Boy, Bezos, Pinchbutt et al.

Let’s see if they sign on.

JimmyS

You miss the point. The money is fake. It is Monopoly money. By validating its worth, you continue to play into their hands. When this system collapses, they will create another in which they have even more power to get you to do what they want. You’ll keep on losing as long as you play. It is their casino.

KenW

“Mommy there’s no money in the Monopoly game”
“Yes sweetheart the government took it all”

Russn8r

No, you miss the pt w/speculation & coy allusion to solutions.

‘Liberal’ w/OPM. They won’t go for redistributing their wealth.

If your ‘solutions’ weren’t laughable, you’d state them.

Last edited 2 years ago by Russn8r
DonP

Universal income? We don’t need a universal income. We do need a method to help out people who genuinely need help for one reason or another, but not a universal income. Anyone who is physically and mentally capable of working should have a job. If any of those rich people want to advocate socialist policies, then they should be given a taste of socialist policies and take away a good chunk of their money and use it to help pay down the debt. And Congress should be required to have a balanced budget with the possible exception of during national… Read more »

Russn8r

Good grief. No we don’t need UnivIncome.

We had a way to help those who really need it: Charity. Help folks with your money, not everyone else’s. Doing it via Gvt is wrong; inevitably a Mike Charlie Foxtrot of fraud, abuse & Big Gvt tyranny.

Last edited 2 years ago by Russn8r
DonP

I think you need to rest my response to Scharf.

DonP

”So, you think the government can mandate the existence of jobs,…” Well, reading comprehension obviously isn’t your strong point. Where did I say anything that would imply that the government should mandate the existence of jobs? Yes, I said that anybody who is physically and mentally capable should have a job but I did not say anything about the government mandating those jobs. Look around, there are plenty of jobs available but not enough people who want to work. Why? Because the government is paying them not to work! When you read someone’s comments, try reading the entire comment and… Read more »

Mack

Here’s a thought:

Thou Shalt Not Covet.

Just stick to the Ten Commandments.

Simple.

Buster

And throw in some Golden Rule just for kicks 🙂

loveaduck

New careers will show up.

Beobear

New careers will show up but they will mostly be computer programming, robotics and other jobs that most people will not be capable of doing. What jobs that will be available will be highly specialized and highly sought after. It’s just not realistic to believe that enough new jobs will simply materialize to absorb the huge numbers of jobs lost due to advancements in technology. We are entering a new world where manual labor is rapidly being replaced with non human workers. It’s not going to happen overnight but it is happening and much faster than most people realize. Advancements… Read more »

JimmyS

Money is not a fixed entity. It is a construct of the elites. It is based on nothing but debt. They can keep doling it out until it is worthless, then create a new money. They are the ones calling the shots. It is their system and their rules. You will be subject to it as long as you keep validating it.

Russn8r

Nonsense.

Doug G.

“There will be no deals if those interested only in totalitarian control get the upper hand. Does anyone really believe there will be a qualifiable difference between full-blown Stalinists and “kinder, gentler” Democratic Socialists if they secure the power they obsess over?” If they get that power, there’ll be no “democratic” socialist, it will be pure communism because they will have done away with property rights, you know, to make the living wage thing workable. As is their history, they will screw things up and then offer the solutions and all you have to do is give up some (think… Read more »

Ram

The “sold rope” analogy is from Nikita Kruschev.

hippybiker

No, sir. Tha5 quote is attributed to V.I.Lenin.

Arny

No worries for the elites. They have already planned on keeping Everything.

Last edited 2 years ago by Arny
Beobear

If you listen to the entire conversation in which Elon Musk talks about “universal basic income” in context it makes sense. You have to actually put it in the context that it was meant, not how this article portrays it. Musk was talking about that there will come a time in the future when human workers will be displaced from their jobs because those jobs will be done by robots, computers, AI, etc. His point was that we can’t just replace everyone’s job and expect those workers to be able to survive. How does a guy support his family when… Read more »

Mikial

The picture you paint has been painted for decades by Sci Fi writers and is very possible as far as technology goes. But, my questions to you is . . . if there are no jobs for people in order to earn money and pay taxes, then, a) where will the money come from to pay everyone that ‘universal basic income,’ and b) who will be buying all these wonderful gadgets that do everything? Someone, somewhere has to make the money to pay for this stuff and to pay the Socialist taxes that would provide a universal basic income.

Doug G.

And it’s people like Musk who think such things won’t effect them, because they’re the “Elites”, above the rest. You know like Lori Lightfoot in Chicago or Nancy Pelosi at the hair salon. Don’t they live in a bubble as much as Elon, and fall for their own narratives, like Elon. I’m with you Mikial! His thoughts on what’s in the future are no better or worse than mine, and just a provable too! LOL.

Doug G.

And “they”, the thinkers, visionaries, academics, scientists, said we’d be using flying cars to commute to work by now too! LOL. So, are we supposed to just accept that labor will be outsourced to mechanical things? And that mechanical things will build all the other mechanical things? Musk’s premise may or may not come to be. That’s the beauty of such speculation, you can’t be proven wrong until it’s happened. As humans, and the most adaptable beings on the planet, don’t you think that we’d come to adapt to the “no worker” earth just like we will adapt to their… Read more »

Doug G.

Remember, it was Musk who moved to AZ when the things he supported started effecting him in CA. Just sayin’.

Buster

Elon Musk is a warrior on God’s team, and has prophet status wilth God.

God has many prophets, each with different purposes. One of Elon’s purposes on earth is to fund and develop AI. This is part of God’s plan.

Last edited 2 years ago by Buster
Russn8r

Bend over and…GO!

“Ooh! Ooh! Look at ME! Look at ME! Smell my Scharts!”
-JeanLloydSchartre