If I am elected President
I will abolish 55 mph speed limit
and shut down the Department of Education.
Posted on 08/03/2018 8:56:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s true that socialist Bernie Sanders is anything but a millennial. And it’s true that socialism was popular long before any millennials were born. But there’s no doubt that socialism is becoming increasingly popular among young people today. Why?
According to the Daily Caller, “Young people view socialism as more attractive than older people. Of people ages 18-29, 55 percent considered socialism favorably compared to other age groups, according to a 2016 Gallup poll. Only 37 percent of people between the ages 30 and 49 viewed socialism as positive. Twenty-seven percent of people between 50 and 64 years old thought of socialism positively.”
So, millennials, especially younger millennials, have a very favorable view of socialism. But do they – or most of us – even know what it is?
Prof. Jay Richards offers this helpful primer.
“Marx and his disciples claimed that ‘capitalism’ must give way to ‘socialism,’ where private property would be abolished and an all-powerful state would own everything on behalf of the people. That’s what Marx meant by the word socialism, and that’s the main dictionary definition.
“This was only supposed to be a stage, though, not the end of all our strivings. At some point, under socialism, people would lose their silly fondness for property, family, religion, and other evils. A ‘new socialist man’ would emerge and then the state would ‘wither away.’ Everyone would enjoy peace, prosperity, and the brotherhood of man. Marx and his acolytes called that final, stateless paradise ‘communism.’”
And how has that vision worked itself out in history?
Prof. Richards states: “Here’s the point: Those regimes led by mass murderers with their gulags, death camps, man-made famines and killing fields were socialist. That’s not slander. It’s what these countries called themselves. USSR stood for the ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.’
“You gotta break millions of eggs with socialism to make the communist omelet. Socialism, you might say, was the necessary evil to reach the bliss where no state would be necessary.”
Yet the lure of socialism continues, getting stronger in the last few years, especially among American youth. Why?
Here are three simple reasons.
1) Young people want “equality.” The word “equality” has become almost sacred to the younger generation, and in many ways, that’s a good thing. They want a level playing field. They want everyone treated fairly. They want to leave behind our discriminatory, racist past. All that is positive.
Unfortunately, there is often a passion for equality that is not based on realism (or function, as in all the talk about “marriage equality,” where sex differences are blurred).
The fact is that life is not always fair. There are winners and losers. And some people work harder than others, because of which they succeed more.
That success is well-deserved and should be appreciated. But all too often today, success through hard work is scorned.
Question: “Why should you have more than I do?”
Answer: “Because I worked hard for it.”
Response: “But that’s not fair.”
Socialism, then, is the fix!
2) Young people today have a deep sense of entitlement. Conservapedia.com defines the entitlement mentality as “a state of mind in which an individual comes to believe that privileges are instead rights, and that they are to be expected as a matter of course.”
I am owed a free lunch, and it’s got to be a good lunch too. The lunch of my choosing. I deserve it.
As explained by Dr. John Townsend in his book The Entitlement Cure, “Entitlement is the belief that I am exempt from responsibility and I am owed special treatment. Entitlement is: The man who thinks he is above all the rules. The woman who feels mistreated and needs others to make it up to her.”
This dangerous attitude is crippling a whole generation. As expressed by Kate S. Rourke in her article, “You Owe Me: Examining a Generation of Entitlement,” “Children in the most recent generation of adults born between 1982 and 1995, known as ‘Generation Y,’ were raised to believe that it is their right to have everything given to them more than any other previous generation.”
Socialism plays right into this mindset, especially the fuzzy, idealized, quite-unrealistic socialism being put forward today: “We all get our free lunch!”
Unfortunately, that can only happen when the government owns all the lunches. Do young people understand this?
3) Young socialists haven’t done the math. The obvious question is this: “If you’re getting a free lunch – no, if we’re all getting a free lunch – who’s paying for it?”
The immediate, thoughtless answer is: “The government!”
And that leads to the real question: “Who’s paying the government?”
The answer is as painful as it is obvious: “You are!”
As one news commentator suggested, there’s no reason to wait for the government to become socialist. Just start paying more taxes today and do your part. Right!
Do you remember the viral video clip where a young Florida woman, Peggy Joseph, was ecstatic after hearing candidate Barack Obama speak in 2008? She said, “I won’t have to worry about puttin’ gas in my car, I won’t have to worry about payin’ my mortgage.” Obama will take care of it!
Six years later, working as a nurse and the suburban mom of four kids, she was asked by filmmaker Joel Gilbert, “Did Obama pay for your mortgage and did he pay for your gas?”
She laughed and replied, “Absolutely not! Mortgage got worse and gas prices got higher … At that time we needed a change but a change for the better not the worse.”
When I asked my assistant Dylan, himself in his early 30s and a married father of four, why he thought so many young people were into socialism, he answered, “Perhaps because of being so absorbed with social media that they’re used to soundbite answers and haven’t thought it through.”
Or, as Jay Richards stated, “Too many of us are still clueless about socialism and communism. I blame biased media and fuzzy thinking.”
The bottom line is that most young proponents of socialism simply haven’t done the math. Had they done so, they’d start working the capitalist system a little harder. They would find it far more rewarding than socialism.
30 is the new 20.
Socialist millennials had parents who didn’t make them throw their participation trophies in the garbage.
Every American kid 18 to 24 should be required to spend one full year living in a socialist paradise. This dalliance with socialism would end. I did when I was 25 and that was a transformative lifelong eye-opener.
I can still see the cadres marching to their political rallies, banging on pots and pans, holding their Little Red Books high in the air, and chanting revolutionary slogans. If you didn’t join in, you were ostracized and told to get your head right. There was hell to pay if you didn’t think correctly.
This is where we seem to be headed.
1) Young people want “equality.”
What they want is something for nothing - they want to be treated as equals with those who have greater talents and/or who have worked harder. The world just doesn’t work that way - you can have a world that works, because of the merit and hard work of those doing things, or you can have some kind of uber-egalitarian world where people get something for nothing. The latter doesn’t work - those who are creative and hard-working will not create and work hard for those too lazy to do their own fair share - not for long. They should check out the Soviet Union, North Korea and Venezuela to see that this is true.
2) Young people today have a deep sense of entitlement.
See #1 - this is essentially the same thing, they want something for nothing...and if it means having the government TAKE that something - at gunpoint - from another who has worked for it, then they’re fine with that.
3) Young socialists haven’t done the math.
IOW, they are stupid.
So we have a bunch of spoiled brats who want EVERYTHING without working for it, even to the point of stealing it from those who HAVE worked for it, and on top of that incredible immaturity and immorality, they are dumb as a box of rocks.
The shame is that there are a LOT of millenials who are creative and hard-working, who don’t swallow the BS that socialism works, but they are tainted with the immaturity, immorality and stupidity of those who simply cannot or will not deal with reality, and are simply of a similar age. It is a burden for them to overcome, just like minorities who legitimately achieved things on their own are tainted with the stain of “affirmative action.” This is too bad...but the achievers in every generation have had to deal with this, and the millenial achievers will, ultimately, be better off for it.
He was not doing well economically at the time, and he said that since he was poor, everyone else should be poor also.
He has since climbed up, and has done better for himself, so he is no longer a socialist.
I think most socialists fit into this category--they have nothing, so everyone else should also have nothing. They are perfectly aware that socialism brings economic hard times to a society, but they don't care since they, personally, are experiencing economic hard times already.
Sounds like No.6’s village.
“Now, with cloud-based big data management software, running in real-time with artificial intelligence, centrally managing a large economy should be a piece of cake.”
I’m sure that you know this, but I had to point it out.
They live in a ‘fact free’ universe.
The rest of us know better because (being older and a lot smarter) we went to school when the teacher would bust your hump if you put a period upside down, in your sentence.
No one got a pass for anything and facts were EVERYTHING.
Danny Elfman nailed it....
Capitalism - Oingo Boingo
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don’t try to make me feel guilty
I’m so tired of hearing you cry
There’s nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask me I’ll say it’s just fine
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live nice
I’m so tired of hearing you whine
About the revolution
Bringin’ down the rich
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby!
If it ain’t one thing
Then it’s the other
Any cause that crosses your path
Your heart bleeds for anyone’s brother
I’ve got to tell you you’re a pain in the ass
You criticize with plenty of vigor
You rationalize everything that you do
With catchy phrases and heavy quotations
And everybody is crazy but you
You’re just a middle class, socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work
And you tell me that we’ve got to get back
To the struggling masses (whoever they are)
You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
What the hell do you know about suffering and pain . . .
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
They’ll love guns when they start shooting the “Kulaks”.
They're too lazy not to love something that promises the lazy so much more than they deserve...
And they're too ignorant to realize it always leads only to so much less for everybody - including the lazy.
Because they have no idea what socialism is? It’s kind of like the Che t-shirts. Hipness without content.
The recent “range battle” during the Obama administration somewhere in the west (a throwback to the old range wars over grazing rights) demonstrated that principle.
1. Because of pubic school teachers.
2. Because of PBS & NPR.
3. Because of fatherless homes with mommies on welfare.
This needs to be explained to every person under 40; 30 especially.
It is at that point they know they are lying to themselves or they are completely ignorant. Either way it is a danger of the highest order.
And, who do you think deals with Teachers Unions and gives them money, look back to the days of LBJ’s Great Society. This has been a vehicle for Liberal brainwashing for over 50 years. Three generations or more are brainwashed and out in the streets. Walking ignorant puppets of the RAT party, BLM, Antifa, Soros, et al.
The minnies (millennials) are inculcated through school that capitalism and racism are intertwined, that anyone who espouses the idea of becoming wealthy is merely taking resources away from someone else. This generation is also the one brought up with participation trophies and scoreless games, if they even participate in sports at all. They're coddled and handed most of everything want, vs. working for it, as past generations did. Add to that the instant-gratification environment of social media.
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