The dangers of socialism aren't confusing

When you hear a couple of young employees joking in the hallway about conservative's bogeyman of socialism, then one comments to the other, "Well, anything's gotta be better than what we have now," then you know there's a fundamental disconnect between understanding just how good they have it and misunderstanding what being socialist really means and its 100% record of failure throughout its relatively short history when compared against the entirety of human existence.

Ultimately, the contemporary argument for socialism boils down to: “next time will be different, because we say so.” After more than two dozen failed attempts, that is just not good enough.

This leftward lurch among young people attracted by the Democratic cool-free-stuff-that's-not-really-free-because-someone-else-pays-for-it base over the last few years is troublesome to say the least. But we need not sugarcoat socialism for impressionable millennials (or those old enough to know better, like my fellow co-workers). And in a recent article, Jen Kuznicki breaks through the typical rhetoric and boils it down with common clarity that demonstrates how socialism isn’t confusing at all...

...socialism isn’t confusing or hard to understand. Socialism is your lazy brother-in-law who always just needs a couple of bucks, maybe a loan that he’ll never pay back, always mooching off of you, asking what you’re having for Sunday dinner and couldn’t he and his new girlfriend come over?

Socialism is your neighbor who always borrows stuff and never returns it. Then when you go to his garage sale, you suddenly realize the hedge trimmer, cordless drill, and battery charger he is selling seem awfully familiar.

Socialism is the dumb jock who charms the bookish girl so she’ll do his homework for him. She’ll end up working three times as hard as she would otherwise, just for a wink and a hug. Socialism is how the lazy, dumb, and unimaginative get stuff they don’t deserve.

Socialism, put simply, exists by sucking wealth, hard work, and prosperity out of those who create it. What one person or group of people have created by hard work, socialism will suck dry through demands from those who never did, nor could, create.

This next section also hits home with those friends who say, "Well, I separate my political views from my religious beliefs"... huh? I don't care how crafty you are, humans literally cannot separate our private self from our public self and maintain a rational worldview. Or you may have other friends who profess to be 'Christian socialists'...say what? Yeah, that's a thing, albeit confusion on their part, as Dostoevsky (and Bastiat) has already sorted out that socialism rejects God the way Christians should reject socialism. The conflicting ideals on social justice and welfare between the faithful and the secular also factor into the discussion here...

Then there are the people who tell you that you wouldn’t be Christian if you didn’t loan out all your good tools to your neighbor. Turn the other cheek, they say, it’s the Lord’s way.

Socialism exists through guilt. Perhaps you knew your stupid, lazy brother-in-law was always no good, but your wife tells you to do the “right thing.”

And God forbid you mention the fact that you worked hard to get all those things and they hold monetary and personal value to you. For shame, they chide! Don’t you know the way of the Lord is to give and never expect anything in return? The Left calls upon muddled versions of biblical lessons in order to suck your wealth dry.

They claim that we are all in this society together and that you must give to those who are less fortunate than you. As if fortune is gained only through luck. As if fortune has nothing to do with hard work and perseverance.

They leave out charity and replace it with coercive force, but I'm getting ahead of myself. First we have to segue into and out of the classes formed and targeted, along with the forced compliance of injustices created...

Then they say “the rich” don’t deserve their money; they must give it to the socialist system. They empower the state to confiscate the fortune of a few, until the fortune of the few no longer keeps up with the sucking.

They whip up angry, jealous crowds to go after the rich, claiming they are for the middle. When the rich are sucked dry, there are inevitably more angry, jealous poor, and then they go after the middle.

Socialism is government spending, but first it’s forced taking. Socialists start taking by coaxing through guilt, then shame, then force. Socialism cannot exist in nature, because eventually you have to force people to comply with something so unjust.

It is unjust that you should be forced to turn over what you produce through the work of your mind and body to those who did nothing but befriend the authorities. As the noose of socialism tightens, the state grows stronger, and the individual is helpless under its grip.

...concluding with a clear summation that may be too theological for some, but covers the practicalities as well...

Our nation was built on the freedom of the human mind, body, and spirit. It is a glory to God that we are all created equal, yet with different individual talents that can only thrive if given the freedom they yearn for. Our work on earth is for the greater glory of God. We work to please Him and, in turn, help all of humanity.

No, socialism isn’t confusing. Socialism is touted by the cowardly, underhanded, and power-hungry, whose ultimate goal is to control the people.

That control definitely extends beyond the means of production. It affects your very livelihood. But if one wants to isolate that to an economic corridor, there are ample lessons there as well. Levin set up a great economic reality check last week, one that he's shared a number of times, addressing the ‘hysterical nonsense’ of democratic socialists...

Friday night on the radio, LevinTV host Mark Levin called out self-described “democratic socialists” on the Left and their “hysterical nonsense” with a lesson in how markets actually work.

“These are not smart people; they’re not experienced people. They’re not substantive people,” Levin said. “They’re demagogues.” He then delved into a lesson on why centrally controlled economies always control people.

In society and economics, “there aren’t simple answers” and “there aren’t experts who can control everything,” Levin explained. “And in the end, it all comes down to tyranny, because it’s a failure.”

“Who is smart enough and bright enough to know the trillions of decisions that are made at any given time?” Levin asked. “They can’t, so they have to control.”

To illustrate his point, Levin played a recorded reading of Leonard Read’s landmark 1958 essay on trade and economics, I, Pencil, which describes all the complex, voluntary economic mechanisms that go into making a simple pencil.

“This is what ought to be taught in our classrooms,” Levin concluded after playing the recording. “And it’s not. Ever. Except in very, very few institutions.”

Any way you parse it, socialism is not the answer to the cronyism (which is what folks are actually frustrated about) of a capitalist system or any other system of governance. Quite the contrary, when that cronyism continues to reside in a socialistic structure, the detriments are clearly recorded, and damnably so, throughout the destructive history of socialism. The sooner young Americans figure that out, the quicker we can unite as a People to take our country back from an out-of-control bureaucracy, instead of shoring it up with more dictates over our individual, God-given liberties.

And for my believer brethren toying with socialism (just sayin')...

Between these two beliefs—private property and socialism— there exists fundamental conflict. They represent contradictory views of sovereignty, man, law, society, and inheritance. They are fundamentally rival religious systems. Choosing one, you reject the other; service and honor to God, or servitude to fellow men. Either God commands and judges man, or man commands and judges man.