What's Wrong With a Little Socialism?

What’s Wrong With a Little Socialism?

I sat open mouthed yet speechless.  A group of young high school students opined with great authority the evils of capitalism, corporations and profit.  After all the occupy movement was driven by youth….funded, organized, and fueled by socialist and communist groups, but wholly  into by the youth of America, I suppose I should not have been surprised, but the resentment toward the idea of wealth creation, profit and the jobs that follow was stunning.

So I ask myself-why?  Why do our high school-young adults flock to the ideals of socialism?  Is it idealism?  Perhaps-on its face it does sound, well, fair I suppose.  The ideas as well as the promoters of the socialist utopia promise equality-fairness for all without the evil rich.  Spread the wealth and stick it to the greed driven corporations.  Health care for all, “a chicken in every pot” and “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”  Sounds like sunshine and lollipops, right?

Problem is, it just never seems to work.  Never has.  With most socialist systems there is a  devolution into communism and Nazism.  Hilter was elected on a socialist platform offering healthcare for all and a stable economy that eliminated the evil rich.  When democracy didn’t work fast enough, “occupy” Germany began and Goebbels and friends stirred the pot inciting riots and violence it the streets.  Stalin and Castro also came to power in elected positions on the heels of revolution, both ultimately eliminating competition and assuming total control in their countries.  Socialists don’t work and play well with others- it is ultimately rejected and must be maintained by force.  Ironically, this system of “fairness” has ended in dictatorship time and time again and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

Our modern economy based socialists today like to tout Europe as the great success story.  Classy. Non-violent. Tolerant.  Broke…riots in the street…brink of total economic collapse…austerity……failure.

You see, the problem with socialism is freedom.  There is none.  It relies upon government sanctioned theft to “level the playing field.”  Problem is-you can’t ever raise the bar.  You can’t improve.  There is no incentive to work harder.  Life becomes a variety of the same shades of grey and eventually you run out-of money, drive, and hope.  Government becomes your source of existence and the powerful become power hungry.  It replaces religion with tolerance, hope with subsistence, freedom with “fairness”, it vilifies morality, effort, hard work and self-reliance.  The freedom to make decisions no longer lies with you the individual, there is too much at stake to the “collective”, therefore what you eat, who and what you approve of, the car you drive and the light bulb you use are controlled.

The youth of today have never seen the flip side-they never saw the bodies of freedom seekers trying to escape from East Germany to the West.  They never experienced the “Iron Curtain” and the hopelessness of the nations under its iron thumb.  They have seen only the sanitized version of history.   Freedom, self-reliance, and capitalism launched the US into power. We have been for over 200 years the “beacon of hope”, the “city on a hill” that became the desire of freedom loving people worldwide.  They sneak across the border, they float in on makeshift rafts, set sail from across the ocean-they come here. They leave the failed promise of “fairness” and risk it all to come here…for freedom.

We are teetering on that hill with a decision to make…will we remain a freedom loving, capitalist nation or will we turn to a “softer, milder” form of socialism?  After all-it wouldn’t result in tyranny here!  We would simply be “spreading the wealth”, “sharing the love”-“trickling up”.  Ask yourself-are you living in the same country you were in 2008?  Since Barak Obama was elected he has side stepped the constitution and congress to appoint a litany of czars, ram through health care, seize control of auto companies, set up a green energy money laundering operation at Solyndra and friends, appoint non recess- recess appointments, trample on the 1^st amendment and religious freedom, have federal agents inspect lunch boxes, and repeatedly bemoan the separation of powers and constitution set up to limit the power he is already expanding.

Ronald Reagan’s words were never more apropos -“Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”  Once this path is chosen there will be no going back.