Idiot's Guide To Socialism

Socialism is not simply a more liberal version of ordinary American politics. It is, instead, its own animal, and a very feral, dangerous animal indeed.

"Individualism" would reflect the Founder's ideology, which sought to repose as much power as possible in individual citizens, with as little power as possible in the State, especially the federal state. The Founder's had emerged from a long traditional of monarchal and parliamentary statism, and they concluded that, whenever power is concentrated in the government, the individual suffers. And what of Statism? Well, there's already a name for that ideology, and it's a name that should now be firmly attached to Sen. Obama: Socialism.

Once you vest all power in the state, history demonstrates that the state, although technically composed of individuals, in fact takes on a life of its own, with the operating bureaucracy driving it to ever greater extremes of control. Soft socialism is better, but it certainly isn't the American ideal. Britain springs to mind as the perfect example of soft socialism. Britain's socialist medicine is a disaster, with practically daily stories about people being denied treatment or receiving minimal treatment. Invariably, the denials arise because the State's needs trump the individual's: Either the treatment is generally deemed too costly (and there are no market forces at work) or the patients are deemed unworthy of care, especially if they're old. British socialism has other problems, aside from the dead left behind in her hospital wards. As did Germany, Russia, and China (and as would Obama), socialist Britain took guns away (at least in London), with the evitable result that violent crime against innocent people skyrocketed. The British socialist bureaucracy also controls people's lives at a level currently incomprehensible to Americans, who can't appreciate a state that is constantly looking out for its own good. In Britain, government protects thieves right's against property owner's, has it's public utilities urge children to report their parents for "green" crimes; tries to criminalize people taking pictures of their own children in public places; destroys perfectly good food that does not meet obsessive compulsive bureaucratic standards; and increasingly stifles free speech.(Impressively, all of the preceding examples are from just the last six months in England.) Both history and current events demonstrate that the socialist reality is always bad for the individual, and this is true whether one is looking at the painfully brutal socialism of the Nazis or the Soviets or the Chinese, with its wholesale slaughters, or at the soft socialism of England, in which people's lives are ever more tightly circumscribed, and the state incrementally destroys

individual freedom. And that is why Obama's socialism matters. Regardless of Obama’s presumed good intentions, socialism always brings a society to a bad ending. I don’t want to believe that Americans who live in a free society that allows people to think what they will, do what they want, and succeed if they can, will willingly hand themselves over to the socialist ideology. They must therefore be reminded, again and again and again, that socialism isn’t just another political party; it’s the death knell to freedom. So remember, while McCain wants to change DC, Obama wants to change America into a Marxist police state of third world Africanized ohne kultur. We already have a socialist president—and his name is Bush. Bush’s latest scheme, as he explained in his Saturday radio address, is a November 15 “international summit,” including the United Nations Secretary-General, to “begin developing principles of reform for regulatory bodies and institutions related to our financial sectors.” This is bureaucratic doublespeak for what has been called “global governance.” Some may fear with good reason that world government and global taxes are on the way in and U.S. sovereignty is on the way out. Kept hidden from the American people is the fact that the U.N., under its new General Assembly President, Miguel D’Escoto, a sort of Jeremiah Wright on a global level, is working to take advantage of the continuing crisis. D’Escoto is the renegade Catholic Priest and former foreign minister of Communist Sandinista Nicaragua who advocates Marxist-oriented liberation theology and won the Lenin Peace Prize from the old Soviet Union. He is in a position to influence the conduct of Bush’s “international summit” and may even show up there. D’Escoto says that “there is growing recognition that the current financial turmoil cannot be solved through piecemeal responses at the national and regional level but requires coordinated global

efforts that should be led by the United Nations,” according to an Associated Press story. This means it has to be a U.N.-managed or supervised process, in order to loot the U.S. and benefit the rest of the world. Bush’s “international summit” fits perfectly into D’Escoto’s antiAmerican plans. Killing Free Enterprise Bush insists that the nations at this summit must “recommit to the fundamentals of long-term economic growth—free markets, free enterprise, and free trade.” He has got to be kidding. While mouthing platitudes about free enterprise, Bush has already authorized several socialist-style schemes, including a $700-billion “bailout” of Wall Street, nationalization of mortgage companies, massive subsidies to American International Group (AIG), and the federal government taking ownership stakes in big banks. The estimated cost is already $1.8 trillion—more than $17,000 per American household. It is important to note that none of this has stabilized the financial system, although that is what we were told by the Marxist media would happen. It is also newsworthy that Bush has escaped criticism from McCain and Palin for “spreading the wealth around.” Perhaps this is because McCain voted for this Bush brand of socialism. Of course, so did Obama. Four thousand supporters turned out for a rally with Senator Barack Obama in Durham, North Carolina, on Thursday. The Democratic presidential candidate said he would not take any questions, but he relented when a five-year-old black girl named Hadassah Jones broke into tears. She was there as a correspondent for brandnewz.com. According to the Associated Press story, Senator Obama gave the little girl a brief explanation of his plan for universal health insurance coverage and improved education. Then he explained his

view that the wealthy should pay the expenses of people who are not wealthy: "We've got to make sure that people who have more money help the people who have less money," Sen. Obama said. "If you had a whole pizza, and your friend had no pizza, would you give him a slice?" Senator Obama glossed right over the difference between a moral imperative to be kind to people and government force that throws people in jail if they refuse to pay up. When a presidential candidate says "We've got to make sure," that is the language of government force. Maybe the senator should have explained it to Hadassah this way: "If you had a whole pizza, and your friend had no pizza, should you be expelled from school if you refuse to give him a slice?" Or maybe he should have explained it this way: "If your mommy and daddy worked very hard at their jobs and went to school at night so they could make enough money to give you everything you need, should they have to give that money to all the parents who dropped out of school and wasted their time, and to all the parents who spent their money on things that your parents passed up so they could support you?" Or maybe he could have explained it this way: "If you build a lemonade stand and buy lemons and sugar and pitchers and cups and stand out in the hot sun all day selling lemonade, and at the end of the day you have fifteen dollars, whose money is that? Is the answer the same if it's only two dollars? What if it's fifty dollars?" This is not an argument over giving away a slice of pizza. This is an argument about the morality of collectivism. When Senator Obama,

and almost all other politicians, make their arguments for fairness and compassion, they are advocating not voluntary charitable giving, but government confiscation of some people's property for the benefit of other people, chosen by the government on the basis of need, or perhaps voting record. Do the fruits of your labor belong to you, or do they belong to the people who most need them? And if they belong to the people who most need them, are you a slave to the needs of people you don't know and can't control? Collectivism is not the opposite of capitalism. It's the opposite of freedom.