Posted on 03/19/2016 1:36:29 PM PDT by Kaslin
I received some push back from a number of readers regarding my last column on how to help millennials learn the truth of socialism. Some argue that surely Bernie Sanders has no intention to bring the Soviet or the Chinese communist style gulags, famine, and reeducation labor camps to the US.
But if you examine the history of the 20th century: when Stalin, Mao, Castro, Kim, Pol Pot and others came to power, none of them declared they would bring gulags, reeducation labor camps, famine to their countries and people either. They all won popular support of their people by promising them new nations where everyone enjoys equality and freedom. They all made similar declarations to this one:
· "We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
· We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small trades people, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
· We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
· The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.
· COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD!"
Sounds nice, doesn't it? Would you take a different view if I tell you the above was an excerpt from a 25-point plan, presented by Adolf Hitler on February 24th, 1920, at the National Socialist Party (commonly known as the Nazi) convention?
All socialists promised to save us and provide us with a better life. Only after they came to power, and despite the different cultural backgrounds they grew up with, they all resorted to using gulags and reeducation labor camps as effective means to suppress individual freedom. The very evil nature of socialism/communism[1] requires a government to abolish private property rights and individual freedom at all cost, so the government can have the sole ownership of all the means of production and is in charge of the distribution of resources. It's a system by design to make the state/government as powerful as it can be, while treat individuals as insignificant as they can be. Of course, soon after, socialists realized that the natural laws of economics was not something they could just bend to proletariat's will. Food shortages, long lines and famine were the natural consequences of their disastrous policies. Unfortunately, it fell on ordinary people to pay the ultimate price--their lives. But socialists considered their blood soaked hands clean as snow. Pol Pot famously said “I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.”
Bret Stephen of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote, "In the work of preserving civilization, nine-tenths of the job is to understand the past and stress its most obvious lessons." So it worth repeating again and again: socialism has never worked. If you still want to know whether there's a gentle and benevolent version of socialism. I ask you: is there a lighter shade of darkness? The answer to both questions is "no."
Socialism is communism sold by the glass.
Yes. It is a pre-paid cremation plan.
Low-information Senator Sanders once again distinguishes himself as an excellent example why the ill-conceived 17th Amendment should never have been ratified.
Sanders is evidently clueless that federal government has no constitutional authority to tax and spend for social spending program regardless of the good intentions of federal lawmakers. The feds can only tax and spend basically to perform their limited power duties listed in the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Only the states have the 10th Amendment-protected power to tax and spend for social spending programs, ultimately depending on what the legal majority voters of a given state want.
The bottom line is that misguided Senator Sanders should have never become involved with the federal government to implement his social spending ideas. He should have become a state lawmaker to do so.
No. I agree with David Horowitz’s motto: “Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out.”
He’s definitely correct
Yeah, but I hear you have to die... 
and then you have to share your 72 virgins--
http://cdn1-www.comingsoon.net/assets/uploads/2015/06/MurrayBar1.jpg
Not on any large scale. It would be impossible in the long term.
When socialism starts in a country, officially, it works for a short while, as does any other plan. When they run out of money to feed the habits of the open mouthed citizens, there are two choices. Double down on the Fantastic Experiment (and end up like North Korea or any other places where the people like in abject slavery), or give it up and allow human nature and freedom to reign. Period.
Can socialism work on a very small scale? Yes. It takes a tiny tiny group of extreme likemindeds who love and accept each other and agree to work for the common goal and take care of the weakest without expecting anything from them. Some families operate like this. But most families also live with a normal, human nature- allowing, meritocracy as well. So, really, socialism is a fully failed idea.
In 2016, with all the evidence on the table, socialism is merely a means to control a lot of people by a few who keep power and resources to themselves.
Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under 'communism' and 'fascism'. As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939, 'the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of unfreedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany.'No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common, was the liberal of the old type. While to the Nazi the communist and to the communist the Nazi, and to both the socialist, are potential recruits made of the right timber, they both know that there can be no compromise between them and those who really believe in individual freedom.
What is promised to us as the Road to Freedom is in fact the Highroad to Servitude. For it is not difficult to see what must be the consequences when democracy embarks upon a course of planning. The goal of the planning will be described by some such vague term as 'the general welfare'. There will be no real agreement as to the ends to be attained, and the effect of the people's agreeing that there must be central planning, without agreeing on the ends, will be rather as if a group of people were to commit themselves to take a journey together without agreeing where they want to go: with the result that they may all have to make a journey which most of them do not want at all. - F A Hayek,
The Road to Serfdom (Reader's Digest Condensed Version)
A major problem with socialism is that it creeps in like a contagion and wfter the society is ‘socialized’, it still is crying the mantra to tax the rich and redistribute the wealth. Socialists don’t identify with the socialism they have already established further eroding free markets.
Even after they have stolen that which wasn’t theirs, they aren’t satiated by their gains. They want more from a pot with less and less available and never acknowledge when they have received their spoils.
It’s an economy for criminals and thieves who are all liars and are never satiated with their unsustainable lusts.
If I could give you a ^5, I would.
Yes there is.
It’s called the church.
In order for socialism to succeed it has to continually take more from producers, impose more control over citizens and grow the power of the government in order to force compliance. As the enforcement of compliance increases the value of people decreases.
It is a death spiral for freedom because the government has no choice by to become more authoritarian in order to keep people in line. This is why Denmark and Sweden are moving back to more free market policies in order to save their economy.
The gulags only come after they kill about 20% of their own population first.
Yes, free enterprise capitalism.
No, and there can’t be. It is fiscally impossible for a government to support its citizens or to try to guarantee a minimum standard of living and still remain solvent. No matter how they may disguise that bankruptcy it will eventually manifest itself, with the resulting anarchy becoming a dictatorship, if history is any guide.
Only in the mind of a socialist.
Back in the day, a Civics teacher gave a homework assignment intended to teach - as the teacher smugly said the next day - that “society” meant nothing other than “government.” At the time, I did not accept the teacher’s notion, but I did not then know that the very start of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense puts paid to that idea:SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Socialists love to use euphemisms - “society” when they mean government,“liberal” or “progressive" when they mean socialist, and so on. Using “society” as a synonym for “government,” actually censors the use of the word ”society”in the true sense which is explicated by Thomas Paine.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .
I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.
And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make the pencil. And everything else.
The correct word for all the support which surrounds the total production of the pencil - or anything else - is society. Not government, note well, society. Exactly apropos of Thomas Paine’s point.
Great quote.
One of the most dangerous things about socialism today is how “intelligent” but uninformed (on history, for instance) people can agree (vote) for such central planning.
How can they know who will be the central planners? How can they trust anyone given that amount of power to use it in thief own best interests? What is the basis for this control? “The Common Good” should not be accepted as a satisfying goal.
Our Constitution is based on an immutable fact that our Creator made us free people. Period. But we need systems of justice and defense to protect our freedom. Our system is CLEARLY also corruptible but we have fair right to demand even through bloodshed that our government buckle under to us. How do you write that into Socialist planning? “If it should not work, please rise up against us?” Because we understand the liberty tree is sometimes watered with blood.
What do Bernie voters (especially the ones over 40 and there are plenty) say about that?
Sexual favors can be provided voluntarily. This is called seduction, and it is more or less gentle and benevolent but never involves force or threats. Wealth can be redistributed voluntarily to those in need. This is called "charity", and I participate in it extensively - as an individual and as a Christian - by choice.
Sexual favors can also be demanded involuntarily. This is called rape, and it is an act of pure evil that requires force or threats. Wealth can be redistributed involuntarily to those defined by those with political power to be "in need", but only through a disproportionate application of force or threats. This is called "socialism", and I would never voluntarily participate in that act of pure evil any more than I would participate in a rape.
Rape is an act of violence that takes from its victim, leaving both offender and victim worse than before. Socialism is morally the same - taking from those who produced with no justification beyond the power to take.
The first question to ask is: from where do the economic resources come that must be seized in order to make good on the political promises being made?
The second question to ask is: by what Constitutional authority does government have the power to seize assets from one citizen merely to give to another one?
The third question to ask is: has anyone tried to anticipate the cost to the economy of taking money from a productive citizen and giving it to a citizen who is not productive?
Socialism is the ideology that demands to make society better in ways that count when government forces every citizen to live at the expense of every other citizen. This clearly is not “sustainable”, despite the good wishes.
If we have any issues that some people literally cannot earn enough money to feed themselves or provide any housing, then there is a role for encouraging others to give them the funds to satisfy this need. We could have a tax credit for donations to qualified support charities. Nothing stops politicians from proposing a tax credit that exceeds 100% of the donation.
Indeed, such a tax credit could be adjusted upwards until this tax credit attracted enough donations. We could encourage competition between qualified support charities.
But you will note that this is NEVER proposed, because it would shift the power that high taxation and funding of “benefits” gives to politicians and bureaucrats. Well SHAME ON US for being suckered into giving more power to the power brokers at the expense of people with true needs and people who are creators of wealth in our economy.
We need to MINIMIZE the number of people who are dependent upon government and to MAXIMIZE the ability of people with talent and drive to create wealth! But instead we seem to be maximizing the power of the politician and bureaucrat at the expense of everyone.
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