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Countering Socialist Fantasies
The Left is currently animated by five collectivist truths. First, the government can never spend enough on education. Second, there is no limit to the amount that can be spent on any individual’s health. Third, there is no greater duty than the protection of Mother Earth. Fourth, it is always about the children (that’s why they are left with the bill.) And finally, anything that is bad, if not caused by racism, sexism or homophobia, is the result of Global Climate Change. To serve these truths, the Left believes that we need the heavy hand of progressive government to step in, take control and make transformative changes. Current Democrat presidential hopefuls are, to varying degrees, running on these changes.
I’ve been trying to find an approachable, simple argument that can demonstrate, in a clear, straightforward way, the fallacy of these liberal-progressive fantasies. The historical, anti-socialist, anti-totalitarian arguments, the depredations of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Ortega, Chavez, Maduro, Jung-On, etc., are dismissed by the Left as irrelevant. The fact that the totalitarian governments of both NAZI Germany and fascist Italy were primarily based on socialist policy is considered peripheral. The fact that hundreds of millions of people worldwide were imprisoned, starved or executed by Marxist regimes in the last century is deemed unimportant. Yet these tragedies, all the result of despotic leftism, do not seem to rock the buoy-bell as a warning against adopting socialism.
There seems to be the fervent belief among current Democrats that Marxist political and economic influence cannot bring misery or decline to America; that we are somehow immune to its effects. We can have Democratic-Socialism, which is Socialism-lite. Adherents point to Scandinavia and in particular, Sweden, for evidence that Socialism-lite can be successful. This not really an apt comparison. Sweden is a small, highly homogenous country, not a vast, diverse republic of 50 sovereign states and 16 territories. It is roughly the size of California, much of it uninhabitable, with a population of 10 million, comparable to that of North Carolina. After flirting with collectivism in the late 20th century, Sweden has more recently instituted free market-based reforms making it one of the most market friendly countries in Western Europe. Its current GDP growth rate and corporate income tax rates are comparable to those in the US. Sweden is not America, but it is moving toward the American pro-market ideas of liberty and individual responsibility and away from socialist collectivism.
The lesson here is that Sweden attempted the Socialism-lite policy shift in the late 20th century. The experiment failed and Sweden reversed its course. The result has been a return to growth and prosperity. Pro-market, anti-collectivist reforms have proven again and again to be positive and transforming, among post-Soviet satellite countries, in Thatcher’s Great Britain, in Reagan’s America, in India, etc. But though this is compelling support for free-market economics, it is not compelling enough to sway those who currently embrace a Marxist shift in US politics.
So how does one dissuade supporters of the current neo-socialist movement, those persuaded to believe that free healthcare, free childcare, and free college, are realistic and achievable policy goals, and further, that the New Green Deal makes sense and that its goals are even remotely achievable? We are lectured that achievement of these things can, no must, be immediately prioritized for the collective good regardless of sacrifice.
Perhaps there is no convincing them, bribed as they are with other people’s money, but we must still tell the truth. Nothing is free. And the benefits of the New Green Deal, like the planet threatening effects of so-called Global Climate Change, are elusive and highly uncertain. The real truth is that liberty, individual freedom, and limited republican self-government, threatened by this proposed lurch toward authoritarian socialism, are and have always been our best hope for realistically resolving any compelling problems we face. To undermine liberty and freedom is to make us more vulnerable, not the alternative.
Our experiment in limited governance, liberty, and individual responsibility has helped us create the richest, most benevolent and most powerful country ever to exist on this earth. History has proven that collectivism always fails, even in small doses. To successfully address the big issues – poverty, environmental degradation, threats from abroad – we need to continue to be successful. And to be successful, we need to be free.
Published in General
I want the president’s health plan. It includes such niceties as a helicopter to follow you to all events, a surgeon on standby, spare blood your car, an all-access pass at the CDC should you need some test run,… Anything less is denying me access.
The simplest is, “These people are not smart enough to solve these problems. Do they have a track record of solving these problems? No, they do not. In fact, these people caused most of these problems.”
Secondly, “How come all of these ‘solutions’ all have so many opportunities for graft, corruption, fraud, bribery, mismanagement, and waste? It’s almost as if the stated cause doesn’t matter, knowwhatImsaying?”
Third, “You’re proposing a system with absolutely no checks and balances, no feedback to see if they’re actually addressing the problems, or not, or making it worse.”
Don’t let’m dismiss it. One needs to have to provide the exact mechanisms that would keep this from happening.
“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.”
— Benjamin Franklin
Great solid summary. There are even more vote eligible dumb kids now than in the past because we’ve turned our schools over to the left to run and most parents don’t parent. We’ve let radicals also take over our universities where kids can get good technical training, but have to want education. It’s not likely that we’ll avoid the decline that has beset every major civilization since it all began, but we must try. The solution isn’t in Washington. It’s in homes, towns, cities and smaller states and the issue is how to get power back where the people live and work.
My desire would be to ask a question, “Why do you think a government employee who has never met you, and has never lived where you live, can manage every detail of your life – what form your housing takes, how you get around, what products and services you buy (including medical services), what food you eat, what your entertainment options are, etc. – better than you can?”
My general response to anyone on Global Climate Change (OMG WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!) is along the lines of this: You really think we can force the climate to be average all the time? Average temperature, average rain and snow, average hurricanes and tornadoes, average forest fires and floods, on and on.
Because that’s what the argument is; climate can never be different, it has to be average all the time or the planet ends.
And their answer is: Bernie says we’ll get free health care, free college, free childcare, forgiveness of our college debt and an end to Global Climate Change. Corporations and the rich will pay for all this.
And our response should be (hats off to Margaret Thatcher): What happens when the corporations leave, the rich move their money elsewhere, or they both otherwise run out of money? Answer: Misery. It does not take long. For test cases, see Cuba, Venezuela
First, accept that you are dealing with illogical dopes that only care about emotions. Given that, you can attempt to make emotional arguments by showing how whatever they believe is what is actually racist/bigoted. You have to “think” like them.
This is incorrect. There is a limit and it depends on how old or young you are and how likely you are to be a tax-payer versus a support recipient. Remember: they want government controlled healthcare. In that case, there is rationing and much of it is based on age and gross generalizations, not quality of life.
I’ve seen a bumper sticker: End Unwanted Seismic Events
What you describe is the “practical” application of the Democrat ideal. As a practical matter, there are always limits, because the government must live within appropriated funds, that is a politically imposed limitation exercised in the political process. With deficits, public debt auctions and quantitative easing, no one knows just what the spending ceiling really is. But the sale is for free health care without limits. Details and practical concerns are never mentioned in the “selling” phase of socialism. It’s exactly like “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” the pitch used to sell Obamacare.
The Democrats won’t let these proactical limitations get in the way of the imposition of collectivism.
Further to the follow-on comment by @dougkimball immediately above, when advertising, socialists refuse to acknowledge limits to the largesse that government can supposedly bestow, so arguments based on the limits that reality imposes may not persuade the person who wants to believe in socialist fantasies.
To me, the major underlying premise of socialists who do not currently live under socialism is that: socialism means freedom; we just have to have the right people in charge, and we will have the right people in charge this time.
They call themselves democratic socialists. But they never stop to think about elections. They hate Donald Trump and think he is a fascist. What is to stop their Donald Trumpish nightmare fantasy candidate from winning an election after socialist? They know the answer. They would have to rig or eliminate elections. But they are not about to admit that. Yet.
Chris Matthews, late of MSNBC:
But flirting, or something.
Another sequence of questions I might try (I’m a lawyer; I like questions) is to try to get the person to see that “democratic socialism” is nothing more than mob rule or gang theft.
Where does democratic socialism kick in and become legitimate?
When do we cross the line between theft and “democratic socialism”? Will everyone agree on where that line is? If not, who gets to decide where the line is?
One effective argument is to make issues a matter of morality. As in, “It’s immoral for the government to take what people have earned for themselves under threat of force and give it to others who haven’t earned it.”
For the climate I’d point out that scientists have never been accurate in their predictions regarding climate. All of their predictions that can be tested have been wrong, including predictions of global atmospheric temperatures.
When the government owns and/or controls the means of production. In the case of Denmark the economy is mostly capitalist and they have high taxes and a big welfare program. It’s not really socialist.
If they want to go the way of Scandinavia they are talking about 60% taxes on ALL wage earners, including the lower middle class. Tell them that and they might think twice.
Paraphrasing from Sowell – Nobody would bet their entire paycheck on tomorrow’s weather forecast being 100% accurate, yet we are supposed to bet billions on climate change when the science is even less precise.
This has bugged me for years:
We all talk about Left/Center/Right ideologies as if it were linear with no other dimensions. I know there are gray areas when placing folks on that line. But if we agree that on the far Left is where you find the least freedom and most tyranny, the Center where you find something like good intentions with more freedom, less radical passion, but OK with big government, isn’t the far Right the place where you would find the most freedom, the blindest justice, the smallest government, the least tyranny? (If not, why not?) It doesn’t help our debate with those on the Left when we on the Right rarely, if ever, protest the placement of Fascism and white nationalism in our camp where they don’t belong! I cringe every time I hear those who we respect and look to to promote Conservatism in their online, YouTube, or talk-radio presence, using the the term Alt-Right without some sort of air quote in their tone or words, at least.