Posted on 3/19/2016, 8:36:29 PM 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 built upon lies, coveting and theft. Socialism starts at its foundation by insulting and violating three of the Ten Commandments.
That society would be better under socialism is a lie. That it will be more prosperous is a lie, that there will not be nearly as much “income inequality” is a lie.
Socialism uses economic lies to attempt to change aspects of human nature that have nothing to do with money. To that end, it must tell lies, it must try to make these lies work and it must enforce lies.
One of the first list that socialists must put forth is how much an item costs. They advance this lie with every tool of government: subsidy, tax credits, regulator advantage, forced sales, price control, dictates and controlled markets. But in the the end no government on earth is so powerful that it can permanently hide when the economy consumes more resources than it produces.
This is the work of Hayek, and Mises: that economic truth cannot be hidden for long. An economy that consumes more than it produces is not sustainable. Such an economy makes up its losses by consuming its capital, both real and human. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed economically but it took almost 70 years to consume all available capital.
If socialism is so great, it would not need to lie about anything. Ask yourself why socialists need prisons, gulags and firing squads. It is to enforce their lies. And those lies are not just an attempt to keep thing working as they are falling apart. The lies permeate society. They are a cancer on the moral fiber of the nation. They destroy people from within.
“The permanent lie becomes the only safe form of existence, in the same way as betrayal. Every wag of the tongue can be overheard by someone, every facial expression observed by someone. Therefore every word, if it does not have to be a direct lie, is nonetheless obliged not to contradict the general, common lie. There exists a collection of ready-made phrases, of labels, a selection of ready-made lies.”
– Alexander Solzhenitsyn on the pervasiveness of lies in the socialist society
Václav Havel was a playwright, author, the first president of the Czech Republic (1993–2003) after the Czech–Slovak split.
He wrote a famous essay, The Power of the Powerless (the social and spiritual consequences of socialism)
“The principle involved here is that the center of power is identical with the center of truth.” Havel warns that socialist regimes create and enforce their own truth to maintain power. As time goes on, this truth diverges from factual truth and it increasingly forces those who support and depend upon the power of the regime to corrupt themselves to sustain the artificial truth.
In the end, people not only lie to each other, but they start to lie to themselves.
see:
http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=clanky&val=72_aj_clanky.html&typ=HTML
Much of the present advocacy of socialism is to rectify “income inequality”. But does that really matter?
Those who complain about “inequality” never mention how much Oprah or Mick Jagger earn or how little their stage help is paid. Nor do they complain that Matt McGloin, the quarterback for the Los Angeles Raiders has a $108 million contract while one of his team’s cheerleaders just sued the team over her pay of $5 per hour. It is hardly news that over 40 university presidents have pay packages that exceed $1 million, or that the heads of 11 charities in the US are paid over $1 million while their volunteers are asked to donate their time and money.
In June of 2014, we found out that Chelsea Clinton’s contract with NBC News paid her $26,724 for each minute she appeared on air. Her mother, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was paid $300,000 in February 2015 for a speech in Silicon Valley, on the theme of why the middle class is struggling.
Speaking of the Clintons, from 2013 to 2015, Hillary Clinton was paid a total of $2.935 million for giving 12 speeches to large financial institiutions. For example, she was paid $225,000 for a speech to Bank of America and $485,000 for a speech at Deutsche Bank.
So who exactly has the income that is proof of “inequality”? Times up: Apart from just railing against “the wealthy” as a nebulous group that included not a single liberal, they only complain about business leaders who earn a lot of money. Now why would that be?
In 2012 the CEO of Walmart made $20.7 million. People who complain about income inequality imply he is a paraiste and gets paid at the expense of his workers, some of whom do not make much money. But the CEO’s job is to make sure Walmart is economically sustainable so that as many people have jobs as possible. His pay amounts to about a half cent per hour, certainly less than those employees would pay in dues to a union.
In early 2016, CBS News reported:
“College presidents on average earn $377,261 annually, or more than twice the average pay for CEOs, who take home about $176,840 on average each year, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.”
In 2015, the annual salary of the Vice President & Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity of the University of Virginia’s was $328,900.
But let’s take a different tack: the fact that people like J.K. Rowling can earn so much indicates how powerful and valuable a good idea can be in the free marketplace. Never in human history has any private citizen been able to do what Rowling has done, or Oprah or Mick Jagger or a host of other people. Today, nothing stops anyone from developing a good story for publication, nor someone from writing good software, nor holding a concert that millions want to attend.
And when they do, they don’t make anyone poor by becoming wealthy.
When UCLA paid Hillary Clinton $300,000 for a speech in March of 2014, against whom was this unequal or unjust?
CNN reported in early December of 2014 that the net worth of rapper Sean Combs (aka Puff Daddy) is estimated to be $640 million, while pop star Madonna comes in at an estimated $800 million. Does anyone care how little either pay their staff or people who produce their music or work on their stage crews?
“Income inequality” joins Peak Oil and Global Warming as frauds of the left that are really aimed at advancing ideological agendas rather than advancing prosperity and liberty.
The answer to ‘inequality’ is not thinly veiled coveting of the wealth of prosperous people, but to encourage every person to rise to their highest potential as a human. The answer is also to realize to what extent governments and external social forces conspire to rob people of the prosperity they could have if they were fully free. Above all, we must never confuse our worth as human beings with money, which is the mistake made by many.
“Yes, it is called “the family”.”
Best answer to the question I have ever read.
Um, Professor...There is a thing called the 20th century. Or, for the newb's, just check out Venezuela.
Some monasteries have operated (successfully) on a, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” system. This works good where all the participants have voluntarily taken a vow of poverty, but even in such cases, the monasteries, as a collective, will generally barter or sell the fruits of their labors to those outside the system for that which they can’t provide for themselves.
Hayak’s “The Road to Serfdom” details how socialism inevitably leads to totalitarianism. Similarly, the economist Milton Friedman, in several of his works links economic freedom to individual liberty. Socialism by its very nature must suppress individual liberty, freedom of choice and economic freedom to achieve its goals.
Socialism is just some people who want to ride in the government limousines and live in the palaces getting other people to kill and die for them so they can ride in the government limousines and live in the palaces.
It’s called the church.
= = =
Depends on defn of ‘church’
Yes, for social churches.
No for The Church.
This is like asking if theire is a "Gentle and Benevolent" version of the guillotine.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
- Theodore Dalrymple
Wait a minute. There is no way that you can compare these two
“Benevolent”???
Sure there is!!! Just ask all the victims of Hitler (National Socialist), Lenin/Stalin/Trotsky/Mao/Pol Pot (International Socialist)... They’ll tell you how Benevolent it is.
Oh. Wait. We can’t ask them... they were murdered by it.
Never mind.
Yes, of course.
In a small or medium-sized nation where almost all members regard themselves as part of a single large extended family, with strong traditions of egalitarianism and altruism, socialism can work very well.
Bumping —I need this info - I know too many dumb ass Bernie supporters.....
Socialism works until the money runs out. Then it becomes communism.
A socially cohesive, homogenous smaller country that is relatively wealthy to begin with seemed to be able to pull off that sort of largesse, think Scandinavian countries prior to the influx of hostile immigrants. They were the exception, though.
The family and even a clan can and usually does run on more or less socialist principals.
Everybody knows everybody and they are bound by love, loyalty and blood. The elders (adults) are wiser then the younger (children) and do their best to make sure the decisions made are in the best interest of everybody.
That is why it sounds so attractive. People instinctively think back to how as children everybody worked together for the common good of the family and want to apply that to larger groups.
But once the clan grows too large you have reached the point where the unity splinters (with 150 being pretty much the upper limit) and the only way you can keep the group together is by force.
That is when things get very ugly.
And even in a family, it only works if you have parents willing to work to support the children who do not yet produce anything, and to discipline and raise the kids to be productive.
You also had Jesus and the Apostles effectively practicing a socialism. But even in a socialism with Jesus running it, you needed to only include people who were willing to work for the good of the group.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.