Socialism: Whatever The Majority Wants
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have amassed a huge following among millennials by propagating the myth that the only way to solve society’s problems is to seize wealth and property away from law-abiding citizens so that the federal government has significantly more power over all of our lives.
However, history has proven repeatedly that the collective ownership and management of property eventually leads to death, destruction, coercion, and tyranny. More than 167 million people have been killed, exiled, or imprisoned by socialist and communist regimes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. That’s comparable to more than 50,000 attacks as deadly as those that occurred on September 11, 2001.
In a recent interview with NPR, Sanders said he needs to “do a better job maybe in explaining what we mean by socialism … Obviously, my right-wing colleagues here want to paint that as authoritarianism and communism and Venezuela, and that’s nonsense. What I mean by democratic socialism is that I want a vibrant democracy.”
According to Sanders, socialism is nothing more than advocating for higher minimum wage, single-payer health care, and a “vibrant democracy” – whatever that means. Interestingly, all these policies are also classified as “liberal” in U.S. politics, leaving many to wonder whether Sanders thinks liberalism, progressivism, and socialism are all synonymous terms. If so, why bother touting the benefits of “socialism” at all?
Of course, this isn’t what “socialism” is, and Sanders knows it. Socialism is the widespread collective ownership and management of property. A socialist society might have single-payer health care, which is undoubtedly a socialist policy, but that’s not the only socialized industry in a socialist economy. In a truly socialist system, government controls most of the economy, in part to ensure that wealth is continuously redistributed.
Socialists are deeply concerned about “wealth gaps” between different classes. They want to create a society in which wealth is equitably redistributed so that everyone has what they need, but not necessarily what they want. They don’t care about private property rights, individual liberty, free enterprise, or, in many cases, even religious freedom.
Their primary concern is one thing, and one thing only: taking property and wealth away from the people who have earned it. They don’t support creating a truly free society, because they believe freedom leads to wealth gaps, and that can never be tolerated in socialism.
They think the “rights” of the collective – which continuously shift and inevitably become whatever the majority of people in society wants – trumps all individual rights.
In a free market, decisions are made by individuals, who voluntarily choose to exchange money, goods, and services with each other, as well as to create or support charities that help those who need assistance. In socialism, the answer is the majority of people in society determine the answers to all of these questions, and those who disagree are forced to go along with those choices, even if it violates their deeply held beliefs.
So, for example, in a single-payer nation, nuns are forced to pay for abortions and condoms, even though abortion and contraception are against their religious beliefs. In a socialized agricultural society, Hindus and members of PETA would be forced to pay for animals to get slaughtered, even though they think killing animals is immoral. In a society with socialized education, a majority of people might decide, for example, that women shouldn’t be educated, stifling the rights of girls.
In socialism, whatever the majority wants, the majority gets – even if that means hurting others in the process or stealing their property simply because most voters think they would benefit from having it.
This is exactly the sort of system Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders want. They might spend a lot of time talking about things like increasing the minimum wage, but what they’re really after is controlling our entire society.
That’s why Ocasio-Cortez proposed the “Green New Deal,” which would destroy countless thousands of businesses, including all of the fossil-fuel industry; impose “upgrades” for every building in the country; effectively eliminate the private health insurance market and put government in charge of the health care system; create a free college tuition program; provide a federal job to anyone who wants one and a basic income to people who are “unwilling” to work; end air travel; and add thousands of new federal regulations, among numerous other radical policies.
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are socialists, and socialism is, at best, well-intentioned tyranny. Don’t be a tyrant.
Read full article on Fox News
Justin Haskins is the executive editor and a research fellow at The Heartland Institute and the editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com. He’s the author of “Socialism Is Evil: The Moral Case Against Marx’s Radical Dream.” Follow him on Twitter @JustinTHaskins.
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I’d like to do my part to help with the GND? If tp is an issue I’d be more than willing to box up my “recycled” tp and send it to those concerned. AOC,Merkley,Inslee etc. Now for that 1969 car I’ll take a Plymouth roadrunner 440 4speed thank you very much.
A standing army is the best example of socialism there is, so hypocrites on the right who are keen to cry socialism when the left does it, are ever ready to justify (just-us of course) their form of mob rule.
And then there is the socialism called central banking, another favorite of those fake free marketers on the right.
“Who can deny but the president general will be a king to all intents and purposes, and one of the most dangerous kind too; a king elected to command a standing army? Thus our laws are to be administered by this tyrant; for the whole, or at least the most important part of the executive department is put in his hands.”
Philadelphiensis IX
February 06, 1788
“Plaintiff admitted that it, in combination with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, which are for all practical purposes, because of there interlocking activity and practices, and both being Banking Institutions Incorporated under the Laws of the United States, are in the Law to be treated as one and the same Bank, did create the entire 14,000.00 in money or credit upon its own books by bookkeeping entry. That this was the Consideration used to support the Note dated May 8, 1964 and the Mortgage of the same date. The money and credit first came into existence when they created it. Mr. Morgan admitted that no United States Law or Statute existed which gave him the right to do this. A lawful consideration must exist and be tendered to support the Note. See Anheuser-Bush Brewing co. V. Emma Mason, 44 Minn. 318. The Jury found there was no lawful consideration and I agree. Only God can create something of value out of nothing.”
STATE OF MINNESOTA
COUNTY OF SCOTT
First National Bank of Montgomery, Plaintiff
vs
Jerome Daly, Defendant.
December 9, 1968
Black Market Toilet Paper ! We’ve all seen the near mind boggling array of choices on display on the TP aisle – everything from the “Chic” and heavily advertised that we’re warned not to squeeze, to the cheap and strictly utilitarian. Why would there be such a plethora of brands for such a humble item ? Answer – The market ! And an intense competition between different makers. There’s a lot of money to be made in “Mountain Money” and in a free market, a healthy bottom line rules. Not so in a place where market imperatives have been eliminated, and buyers are left with a take it or leave it monopoly – that is,if the product is available at all. Some friends from Socialist/Communist Austria tell of this ridiculous situation – somehow, TP production had fallen through the cracks of the Govt controlled economy and the store shelves were empty. Helmut and Lila had to visit street vendors to buy – at high prices – this necessity,smuggled in from western Europe. Comical, you say ? perhaps, but a TP famine – resulting from incompetent and insulated Govt control – can be seen as a microcosm of a much larger malice. Mountebanks like Sanders and Cortez hold up shiny objects – near free health care..or heavily regulated wage scales..but fail to mention the not so attractive tradeoffs – that Govt supplied healthcare can only work if private sector healthcare is eliminated, or crippled by over regulation. That artificially supported wages – and the resulting rise in business costs – will squeeze out entrepreneurship. When govt regulations become overbearing, even a perceived market opportunity is not worth the candle. The result, for us, the consumer, is a dearth of choices..even to Black Market toilet paper ! But there’s more ! As we’ve seen so many times, the Liberal/Collectivist response to their failed crusades is to DOUBLE DOWN ! Rather than waking up to smell the coffee – that the result of their chimerical social engineering has become counterproductive – their response is an ever tighter and more oppressive control. Need I add that, in a free market, one in which we, the consumer set the bar, only the best products, at the best prices, will survive. In the socialist utopia, an ever more minute control of the society and their necessities, not to mention their individual rights, is the inevitable tradeoff. A joke from Soviet Russia…A Russian had finally earned enough Social Credits to buy a car ( That is, regardless of his having the wherewithal to buy a car, he needed a stamp of approval from a Govt bureaucrat)….OK..he plunks his money down at the Govt car dealership and seals the deal…BUT ! He’s told that it’ll be a seven year wait till his prized vehicle can be delivered. He’s given a specific date of delivery – August 14, 1969 – but immediately asks if the delivery will be in the morning, or afternoon ? Why do you ask ? says the bureaucrat..Well the plumber is coming in the morning !