Socialism?

Socialism is all the rage with many of my progressive friends but I don't get it. Why are so many people in our country looking to change one of the most prosperous countries in history to the type of government that has failed so big, so frequently, so horrendously and at the cost of so many lives?

We live in AMERICA people! America! Look around! No, not on social media or TikTok, but out in the real world! Yes, it is "woke" to say that America is bad and greedy and awful. You can easily be considered enlightened if you repeat the same evil message about our country. It is sad. 

Our country is amazing. Once you get outside the walls of our social media bubbles that we live in, you'll see how incredible our country is. You'll see why millions flock to our country, many risking their own lives to do so, just to live here. You'll also see that among those here who hate our country, there are zero of them leaving. Shut the TV and phone off then go to or speak with people from other countries. 

Recently, I spoke with a police officer who came to America several years ago from Cambodia. Though he had been here 2+ decades, he still became very emotional when talking about how incredible America is. He said people don't understand what it is like in other countries because they get all their information from social media. He said America is easily the greatest country in the world. 

I agree. In our awesome country, you are totally free to become whatever you want, obtain the job you want, live where you want and do what you want. For some reason, enlightened people hate this.

So what is wrong with socialism anyways? A little background here, socialism started out in practice just over 100 years ago and since this time, around 60% of the globe's people followed in their footsteps.

Nearly all of these countries backed off of this practice, just as they had done with monarchies, slavery, feudalism and other trash systems. Today, we have the benefit of hindsight and can look back at some interesting examples. We can look back at East and West Germany and today can see North and South Korea. We have countless countries around the world who have left socialism for more free market societies and then they blossom!

The Communist Manifesto is a pretty quick read and I recommend it. Karl Marx, the author of this book, lived in the horrible conditions of Russia in the 1800s. There were a few very rich people and the rest of the country was barely surviving in extreme poverty. Yes, I realize that most of America will say we are in the same situation today. We aren't. It is not even close. We are the most prosperous nation ever! Pretty much any form of government would have been better for those people back in Karl's time. Karl dreamed of a government where you weren't either a billionaire or starving. The rich could share and ease the suffering of a nation. That would obviously be way better than what they were living in. Could you imagine if Karl himself were living in America today? There is a 0% chance he would be pushing for socialism. From his perspective at that time, of course socialism looked great! 

It wasn't until years later when Lenin lead Russia to be the first socialist country in 1917. Scores of countries have followed their example. Nearly all have turned back.

With so many failing examples of socialism over the past century, why are we now sitting back and thinking - gee, we should start doing whatever they are doing in North Korea, that looks amazing! South Korea has it all wrong and they have way too many wealthy people. If only they could live like the people in North Korea where there is more equality, things would be amazing. If only the Berlin Wall had come down and all of Germany could have accepted to live like East Germany, man that would be amazing.

The funny thing is that people today claim that the countless examples of socialist oppression on the people failing miserably, is simply because they did it wrong. If we just did it right, the world would be far better. Governments (and corporations) have an endless supply of money and can give us free stuff. Sure around 100 million lives have been lost through socialism over the last century, but if we make a tweak here and there, we'll get all the free stuff we want! But what about the 100 mill...no! We get free stuff!

After socialism failing every time, we just want to give it a shot and see if we can do it better. We cling to Marx's vision and say - one more try and we'll get it right this time. 

Sure things didn't work out so great with Hitler, Mao, the Kim Jungs, Chavez and Castro, but we can take their system, upgrade a few features here and there and it will be bliss!

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

This seems to be the pinnacle of socialism that we are pursuing, no not regular socialism, "democratic socialism". That is the key to ending all poverty, racism and sadness to saving the earth. This type of socialism won't rob people of their freedom and leave millions to starve, this is where we all prosper!

Nationalizing healthcare, transportation, defense, energy, banks, car companies, education, energy, food, housing, technology, finance, farming and everything other part of our society is the dream. Once the government runs everything, then they can simply give us all of our dreams for free. We'll all have free housing, free food and can all attend socialist universities for free. We won't need to work in this bliss because the government will be providing for us. It will be magical.

This is funny because several industries like phone, space and technology are succeeding after leaving government control. Today we want the organization that pretty much everyone agrees that they are not successful at most of what they take on, to run everything in our lives. Actually, I can't think of any government service that people really feel is better run by the government then a private source. Ok, people do like libraries, fire and police departments, military and roads but we can't even agree on the reach of these basic services.  

My friends like to point out that the COVID-19 stimulus packages were proof that the government can provide for its people. We don't need to work, the government can just send us all a certain amount of money every week. They came out in force social media stating that the government can obviously print money to give to each of us to maintain our lifestyles, so why are we having to work!? If the US would just send everyone in the country a check every month, then all poverty, racism, climate change and sexism would be done away with and we would all be happily equal!

The government is trillions in debt and we want to hand all control over to them. 

Early Christians lived in communes helping each other, Norwegian countries somewhat copy these. Now we point to these countries and say hey, they have free community college and health care in those countries and they are happier than us. Our government should obviously send us all checks every month. Unlike, everyone helping each other now, the US just wants free stuff, which is why places like California are tanking hard. 

This seems to me like if we wanted to get rid of lung cancer, so we decide to make cigarettes and little different flavor and then force everyone to smoke. 

As long as those in power keep telling us that we are racist or misogynists or whatever the current hot word is if they don't follow them, then people follow like moths to the flame - I love socialism because I am not racist. Ugh. It appears that you can get people to do or believe pretty much anything if you tell them they are racist if they don't believe a certain way. 

We hear often that capitalism is bad and young adults often proclaim they are out there "smashing capitalism", though I'm not exactly sure how. Capitalism is bad because people are greedy, but we are going to demand that we take money from people who earned it and give it to the people who demand it. I'm not sure who is the greedy one in these situations. Actually, yes I do, it is the people trying to take money away from others! 

Several years ago, Hugo Chavez was democratically voted in and for a few moments was doing great. Many Americans demanded we follow Venezuela's example so that we could also enjoy the many benefits that democratic socialism was going to be bringing to Venezuela. That was until the effects of democratic socialism became apparent and their country was destroyed. Now Venezuela takes whatever properties and companies it wants. They rewrote the constitution and packed the supreme court by adding a bunch of new members. Venezuela went through a huge movement to get rid of guns. Guns only cause violence and kill people, turn them in! Then they disarmed the citizens by buying back the guns that they never owned. This beautiful country quickly became an example of an incredibly rapid decline of a country with so much potential. 

I believe Capitalism is the best way we have found for regular people to get what they want, not just a small group of bigoted politicians and their elite supporters. We buy and shop wherever we like. Customers are the boss. We can switch jobs, start a company, move to a new state, go on vacation, save up for a cool car or do whatever we want. We hear that Capitalism is bad because it allows some people to become more wealthy than others, so we let the poorer people know the more wealthy people are the reason for all their woes but all would be right with socialism. Just think for a moment of all the billionaires and millionaires you can name. How many of those were born uber wealthy? Probably close to zero of them! That is the beauty of our country! Someone like Elon Musk can move here from another country, be completely broke and grow to become the most wealthy person in the world. This happened in America!

As with any other American, after high school, I could have gone a number of directions but steered away from different jobs, like med school due to the amount of work. I knew that following that long path to becoming a doctor wasn't for me. I've seen countless others take that route, excel and enjoy the fruits of their labors which fruits are far greater than mine and that is great! They earned it! Any of us could have followed that same route and enjoyed those same benefits. 

Most people believe this, but re-educating the population is crucial for those wanting to install themselves over the greatest country in the world. All media, movies, Hollywood, stars, sports figures and education, especially at "higher" education levels preach the benefits of having a more socialist society. They want you to think freedom is a privilege and of course anything privileged is very evil. 

One month, my local library had a display on books discussing the benefits of getting rid of the second amendment. Another month the display was all about spirituality over religion and religions are bad, another it was about free speech ,4th amendment etc then pro socialism. It is all connected though. For socialism to work you need to get Jesus, guns, religion, and free speech out of people's lives. If the government and media want to be the people's sole source of information, as it is in many countries, especially the socialist, they need to be the only source of information. 

Success comes from a people who are free to work towards whatever dream they have, not the government mandating their lives. We can have it without their handouts. We don't need to wait for them to make us successful. 

Socialists say "Power to the People" and then take power away from the people. 

Winston Churchill said "for a nation to try and tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket trying to lift himself up by the handle". I love it. 

Let's pick the literal worst way to run a government in the history of the world. The one where nearly everyone is extremely poor while an extreme minority and extremely wealthy and control everything. It sounds ridiculous but as soon as someone says, hey you are racist if you don't believe this and then we are quick to support it?

I hope to learn from other's mistakes so I don't make my own. When I see huge groups of people in narcotics anonymous, I don't want to start smoking. When 99% of people who smoke say they wish they never started, well, I don't want to start. It might not be a bad idea to steer away from copying horrible failures of the past.

People in Cuba are marching in the street chanting Freedom and carrying American flags demanding freedom. In the meantime, our leaders want to be like CUBA? Cuba is shutting down internet and phone services, so people can't upload videos to show the world what is happening, well if that isn't like it is here, I don't know what it is!

Does America have her faults? Of course. Every country, state and person does. If you turn off the media and look at what our country has done to bring prosperity to people of every background, it is amazing. 

The media tells us the only way to have free speech is to censor all speech that contradicts their narrow way of seeing the world. X, Facebook and other social media platforms must not allow any message to come across that is contrary to one very narrow view of seeing the world. Free Speech is literally the first freaking amendment. Look for one case of censorship in the history of the world that had a good outcome. Pull up a list of all governments who censor speech and why they did it? Why does Mao, Stalin, Hitler want to censor speech?

Our founding fathers made the second amendment, the right to bear arms to protect us from a tyrannical government. Now the tyrannical government wants to take them. Seriously? We still have access to history as it happened, look back to when governments take people's guns. Turkey, Soviet Union, Germany, China, Guatemala, Uganda, Cambodia, Rwanda. 

Why are we looking for the very worst failed governments in the history of the world and trying to replicate that here? I don't care how often Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Jeff Zucker tell us we are racist for not following them, it is ridiculous. When the super wealthy tell us that we can only have equality and only be happy when we put them in charge of our socialist government, that makes me a little concerned. Ok, a lot concerned.

We need to be more free. We need to live more fully. We need to worship more freely. We need to live and love more abundantly. It isn't America that is the problem, it is not being American enough!