There's Just NO WAY to Defend Socialism..."Democratic," Nor Any Other Kind

Milton Friedman (L) and Paul Krugman (R) Dr. Friedman was a brilliant economist. Paul Krugman was the other guy

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The scorecards are IN on "The Market Economy vs Socialism" and...the Market Economy has won in a 1st Round knock out. Not only has Venezuela failed after abandoning the market, both Russia and China have experienced economic booms after abandoning Soviet Socialism and Maoism in favor of market economies.

Chile was a failed economy under Salvatore Allende's Socialist policies. It's economy became "The Jewel of South America," under Augusto Pinochet, advised by Milton Friedman.

Here in the U.S., all anyone needs do to compare the relative worth of Liberal vs Conservative policies is to compare thriving Texas and Florida to declining Leftist strongholds like NY & CA.

The reason NO ONE has been able to defend Leftist/Socialist policies is because they just don't work. There's nothing to defend on that score!

So WHY do some continue to advocate for Leftism/Socialism?

Bone ignorance, I guess.

As always, I welcome disagreement, BUT I've actually sought out examples of working Socialism. I've sought out people who'd defend Socialism, but to date, none have been able to do that.

Referring to the failed arguments of those like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman aren't helpful. They both lauded Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and look how that turned out.

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Trump's RIGHT in Inviting Socialists to LEAVE America...

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Ilhan Omar came from a failed state (Somalia). Rashida Tlaib's parents were Palestinian immigrants. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the "Democratic Socialists of America." ALL three are sock puppets of the odious Zach Exley, Kyle Kulinski and Cenk Uygur led "Justice Democrats."

Marxist Collectivism (Socialism, Communism, etc) has failed everywhere it's been tried.

Stalin's USSR was a veritable prison colony until the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia adopted a market-based economy. The SAME for Mao's China...it was an economic basket-case until it adopted a market-based economy. Cuba and Venezuela both imploded under Socialist governments.

Trump is RIGHT. Those who really wish to forge a Collectivist utopia, must start by leaving the U.S. He may have been inefficient with words, not even 'clumsy,' just inefficient. He could've expressed the SAME sentiments by merely saying, "America Will NEVER Be a Socialist Country. Those Unhappy Here Can Leave. THAT'S Freedom!"

Fixing Venezuela (it's beautiful this time of year) would be a great start. There are a few places around the globe where Marxism/Collectivism have taken root...HELP THEM!

Of course, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland are NOT among those places (you wouldn't like the cold anyway), since they all have market-based economies, but Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti (all of them tropical garden spots) have all embraced Marxist Collectivism.

To try and impose that here means a very bloody, costly war that few of you will survive.

The clearer, easier path is LEAVING the U.S. and helping places that have embraced Marxism make it work.

#Socialism, #SocialJusticeWarrior, #JusticeDemocrats, #MakeItWorkThere

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The Naivete of Modern Marxism...

Milton Friedman
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I came across THIS the other day and it's utter lack of thought intrigued me; 

"We need to bring trillionaires/billionaires to the guillotines because it is THEY who should be paying the panhandlers." (Marcy H.)
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Marcy, the wealthy don't create poverty, any more than fit people create obesity.

Most people don't understand economics, nor how systems work.

For instance, Jeff Bezos hasn't, "Taken too much wealth, depriving others of their fair share," in fact, Jeff Bezos HASN'T taken ANY wealth out of the system at all. In reality, he's created 50X, or more wealth than he himself is worth.

I say that, despite strongly disliking and vehemently disagreeing with Jeff Bezos Leftist political views, as mouthpieced by the Washington Post.

In truth, it's the panhandlers and healthy, "poor" people who, absent the ability to invent new products and start new businesses, don't throw themselves into WORK...in mines, or trucking, or any of the many other arduous tasks that constantly need new workers after using up the youth of the current crop, that are the "takers." They..."the poor," OWE.

They owe the machinery of industrialization their youth, their health their lives....we all do. It comes with being a willing participant in modern society.

I've long supported the "Binary Choice" Plan...WORK, or INSTITUTION (prison). Those unemployed, living in low employment areas, like NY, CA, NJ, etc would be assigned work, wherever they're needed. A poor person from New York might be assigned a job in a mine in rural Nevada. It'd be like getting drafted into Military Service, if you refuse, you're sent to prison, under such conditions, as to incentivize your taking the job you're assigned.

Freedom is a good thing, perhaps the greatest thing, but in the modern welfare state, it is too often abused.

What is needed, is a means to...incentivizing work and punishing sloth. A means to guiding people to the right and productive choice.
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The response from Marcy H was, "They do. You're brainwashed and suffer from Stockholm Syndrome at the very least. You're not alone, so there is company in this abject ignorance of how things work."
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Generally I DON'T suffer fools gladly, but today, with so many people having been miseducated, well, it's worth trying to reach out and light that candle to light the darkness.

So, I responded, "Innovators and entrepreneurs are the ONLY force that creates wealth.

"Government plays NO PART in wealth creation, NOR jobs creation. Government action is a wealth destroyer, or SPENDER.

"Appx. 18% of Americans work for local, state or federal government. They work in POSITIONS, not JOBS.

"A public school teacher, or Municipal salary is ENTIRELY a COST to taxpayers.

"A JOB, creates marketable goods and services. Private enterprise and the COMMERCE it generates creates all the JOBS in this country and tax revenues from those JOBS and enterprises fuel all our government spending, including the salaries, pensions and benefits for all those POSITIONS, as well as all other government spending.

"All of that is just basic economics.

"Western Marxists are generally extremely well off and out of touch with economic reality. They tend to be corpulent (that's fat) people, who tend to be lazy thinkers, as well.

"The GOOD NEWS is, it's never too late to get fit, mentally AND physically.

"Economics is a very accessible topic.

"One of the very best at imparting economic sense is the late, Milton Friedman. Here's Part 1 of his 10 Part Series "Free to Choose" (https://youtu.be/D3N2sNnGwa4)

"WARNING: Nazis, Marxists and other anti freedom types are often triggered by these ideas."
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Tribalism, Agrarianism and Socialism...

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The American Indians, like the Celts, Sub-Saharan Africans, Pacific Islanders and other tribal people made Socialism/Collectivism "work," the same way that the American South made its agrarian economy work...mostly via chattel slavery.

The American Indian tribes were constantly at war with each other. The Sioux were originally a coastal tribe that traded along the Potomac River. They were first chased north and West by the Iriquois, then chased from Minnesota by the Chippewa and Shoshoni. In the Plains, they warred with the Cheyenne, Black Foot and Crow.

If you look at those tribal structures, NONE of our modern day politicians would want anything like that system. Among American Indians, the Chief usually very quickly became the poorest man in the tribe, as others could come to him with needs and he'd have to supply, as best he could, a practice that usually left the Chief destitute, unless the tribe was constantly supplied with plunder.

The Industrial Revolution eradicated chattel slavery, but initially replaced it with an equivalent, "Company Towns," etc. where workers were effectively owned by the company they worked for.

Socialism is a failed economic system.

What's needed is a better, or a more improved social system, but humans are still too flawed for that.

Today, Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world...AND an ultra Leftist (owner of the Washington Post), HOWEVER, Amazon, like Walmart and some other corporations, pays workers so little, they qualify for Food Stamps and Section 8 Housing, etc., meaning WE, the taxpayers, pay a large part of their worker's tabs.

Socialism's Command Economy wouldn't help those workers, nor the beleagured taxpayers, BUT charging these companies for the social services tabs of their own workers....might.

Such policies WOULD NOT make those owners, nor any of us, "better people," but they'd remove some of the profit in acting badly.
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WHY Corporatism?

We haven’t had a “Free Market” here in the United States since 1913, with the introduction of the Federal Reserve System and the Progressive Income tax.

Since that time, America has only become increasingly Corporatist.

All that Corporatism is, is a partnership between business and government. In the past governments partnered with religion, so government laws and decrees carried the weight of “God’s commands.” THAT is the essence of all theocracies.

In the late 19^th Century, while America’s economy exploded with the “Gilded Age” of Capitalism, some European nations tried some initial forays into socialism. Public or governmental control over the means of production (business and industry) and the eradication of private property. NONE of those early European attempts brought anything close to the prosperity that America had and virtually all of them ultimately failed.

Undeterred, in the early part of the 20^th a number of other nations (most notably Russia, China, Germany, Thailand, etc.) experimented with socialism. In Italy Benito Mussolini, the former head of Italy’s Socialist Party was elected Prime Minister.

Both Germany and Italy saw, early on, that socialism and its government-run economy COULD NOT work and they quickly turned to Corporatism, partnering up with favored, or established businesses and industries managed via heavy regulation.

Both Italy and Germany, like FDR’s U.S. took on many massive “Public Works” projects to both increase employment and keep the economy humming.

ALL three of those nations (Germany, Italy and the USA) embarked upon similar “New Deals,” with the USA having abandoned the free market nearly 2 decades previously.

Today, most people in the West don’t even understand what socialism and capitalism are any more. Many in America call Sweden and other such European nations that have somewhat more generous welfare states, “socialist,” and call our own economy “capitalist.”

Neither is correct. Sweden is as Corporatist as is the United States. BOTH nations have relatively generous welfare states, both have relatively high tax rates and both have the private ownership of businesses and industries. Sweden has many private Corporations (Volvo, Ericcson, Astra Zeneca, etc.). Sweden is every bit as Corporatist as the United States. It merely has a somewhat more generous welfare system and higher tax rates.

Socialism exists in only a handful of nations today (Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Zimbabwe, to name a few). There are virtually no fully Free Market (Capitalist) countries in the world. Hong Kong has long been the freest economy in the world, but they recently took health care and made it a start-managed commodity, effectively making ALL healthcare providers government employees.

Nearly ALL the developed nations of the world today are Corporatist. In that sense, “We are ALL Corporatists now.”

In most Western nations, government is very definitely the Junior Partner in their various Corporatist partnerships.

All these poorly defined terms make understanding those who SEEM to disagree with us that much harder to understand. When well-meaning people call Corporatism in the U.S. “Capitalism” and the very SAME Corporatism in Sweden “Socialism,” there is no way to reach any understanding UNTIL both sides effectively define their terms more accurately.

In the U.S., for instance, BOTH Left and Right seem to be railing against the SAME thing without knowing it. The Left seems to focus on Corporate greed and malfeasance, under the mistaken impression that government can control the Corporate entities that OWN IT, while the Right seems to focus on the abuses of government, apparently unaware that that government is NOT controlled by the people, but by conglomerates of multi-national Corporations that dictate the policies they oppose.

The BIGGER problem is that we NEED Corporatism. While socialism has NEVER worked anywhere, true Free Market Capitalism is replete with booms and busts and extreme dislocations and uncertainties for both individuals, as well as businesses and industries. So, while much of what we rail against is the result of Corporatism, so are all the things we take for granted that make life easier and more comfortable.

Corporatism “works,” in effect, because it BOTH regulates the market and reins in governmental abuse. The problems with Corporatism are the problems inherent in ALL human systems...human nature.

Corporate entities have pushed a naïve and often misguided agenda, the primary focus being on what’s come to be called “Multiculturalism.” That is, Corporate entities find it difficult, expensive and time-consuming to have to target different markets across widely different cultures, so their solution has been, “Multiculturalism” – the blending of ALL the world’s cultures, races, etc. into one big, amorphous, beige all-consuming polyglot.

The problem is, that just as individuals differ widely so do various peoples, ethnicities, races, etc. and these differences are, in fact, important, even vital. They serve purposes that are overlooked and discounted by those who just seek to find a way to sell the most stuff to the most people.

But the tentacles of Corporatism have impacted all the policies, ALL the issues we seem to care the most about. Much of the environmentalist agenda has been Corporately directed and controlled. The idea being to restrict energy resources and effectively rationing energy via higher prices. To “BIG Energy” it’s a “Win-Win,” when in fact, it’s a HUGE “Win-Lose.” They “win” everyone else loses.

All prevailing evidence suggests that mankind’s contribution to climate change is far LESS significant than nature’s. That doesn’t suggest we should “do nothing,” but it certainly seems to suggest that we should look to defensive strategies (like higher sea walls, etc.) at least as much as we should look at more efficient forms of energy. Many “renewable” energy sources present their own problems; fuel cells give off massive amounts of water vapor, a major greenhouse gas, and batteries require a tremendous amount of existing (old fuel) energy to produce. Algae-based fuels seem to offer some real promise, but there’s seems to be no flawless system at this time.

Perhaps the BIGGEST failure of Corporatism to date has been its inability to defend itself, for it is Corporations that deliver us all the products we cherish, delivers those products seamlessly and efficiently and is largely responsible for modern 21^st Century life.

We the people are guilty of demanding products, goods and services from Corporations, then balking and complaining about those entities doing exactly what they’re designed to do – to increase markets, in order to increase profits and expand those businesses.

We have, in effect, created a monster we don’t know what to do with. We can’t kill it, without killing the creature-comforts culture we’ve come to embrace in the West, but we can also see that to Corporate entities, individuals are...troubling, at the least.

Still MORE Ahistorical Stupidity From the MSM...And My Response

Recently Lewis Diuguid (pictured left) wrote a commentary piece in the Kansas City Star and it has gotten some attention across the blogosphere. Unfortunately, it is riddled with factual inaccuracies and outright falsehoods and needs some critical context in order to be evaluated.

So, I'm happy to provide both Mr. Diuguid's article and my own critical context for your consideration;

Shame on McCain and Palin for Using an Old Code Word for Black

By Lewis Diuguid
Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
October 21, 2008-10-22 http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2493

The "socialist" label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.

Those freedom fighters included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the Civil Rights Movement; W.E.B. Du Bois, who in 1909 helped found the NAACP which is still the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization; Paul Robeson, a famous singer, actor and political activist who in the 1930s became involved in national and international movements for better labor relations, peace and racial justice; and A. Philip Randolph, who founded and was the longtime head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a leading advocate for civil rights for African Americans.

McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.

Shame on McCain and Palin.
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OK, and I'm trying very hard not to be overly harsh here, as that is occasionally a flaw of mine, but the article in question is quite simply, moronic. There is just no other word for it.

And I use the word “moronic,” because the article is not rooted in ANY factual context whatsoever. If Lewis Diuguid knew ANY history at all, he’d have known that (A) modern socialism (from the time of Marx - mid-19th Century) was a largely Jewish inspired and led political and economic movement and (B) African-Americans played little or no notable part in either the development or expansion of that failed system. Haven't blacks been blamed for enough bad stuff, from an out-of-control crime rate, to race and gender-based preferences to rap? Well, let me be clear on THIS, "I don't know about any of that other stuff, but blacks in America ARE NOT to blame for socialism!"

Mr. Diuguid shows his ignorance by using Paul Robeson as a notable example. Paul Robeson, who self-exiled himself and lived out a self-described miserable existence in what was then the USSR! You can easily look up Robseron's own accounts of his misery in the former-USSR.

If he’d used Hunter Pitts Odell, one of MLK’s advisors, who was also a member of the CPUSA, that would’ve been more accurate, but Robeson and King (despite King’s acquaintance with many “socialists”) are very poor examples.

M. L. King never advanced an agenda that was even as “socialistic” as, say, Hubert LBJ and Humphrey’s at the time.

In fact, African-Americans are even “Johnny-come-lately’s” to American Liberalism, only embracing it during the 1960s, in the midst of the Civil Rights movement that the larger American Left tacitly supported and after that, only continued its support for contemporary Liberalism out of naked self-interest in preserving race-based preferences (ironically enough, a very non-socialist idea) advanced by various anti-establishment Leftists.

Do you know some of the people who've truly advanced socialism and benefited most by it?

The likes of Armand Hammer, founder of Armand-Hammer Products and Occidental Petroleum and founder of the CPUSA (Communist Party USA).

Mr. Hammer had a veritable monopoly status in Stalin’s USSR, running the only state-sponsored factories in that country.

Socialism benefits the wealthiest among us by, in effect, “freezing the game in place,” thereby cementing their gains at the top.

You know who else was a Socialist?

Much opposed as I am to violating Godwin’s law, I’ll let his own words indict him; "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

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Adolf Hitler

(Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)

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Who else?

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How about Margret Sanger (founder of the American Birth Control League which eventually became Planned Parenthood), who said, "We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal.

“We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."

-- Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255

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I’m generally loathe to interfere with those who’d embrace their own destruction and that’s probably why I generally both despise and am disgusted by Liberals of any and every background with a roiling passion, but there are so many obvious, ahistorical references and conclusions in Mr. Diuguid’s piece, that they shouldn’t go unchallenged, nor should they be digested whole by the gullible without at least some critical context.


In short, it often pays to know what you’re embracing.

The Flaws of Socialism and Why I Believe the Obama Campaign is so Dangerous...

Let me admit this at the outset, I am a proud and very determined ideological bigot.

I don’t merely disagree with socialism/Liberalism/progressivism because it is wrong-headed, viciously misanthropic and doomed to failure (it is), but because I was literally born to revile it as “an ideology for losers,” as much as I was born to embrace LIBERTY - self-ownership/responsibility.

I’ve reviled Kuwait which actually has made a very rudimentary form of socialism work, in fact, Kuwait has done that far more effectively than any Western European or Asian nation ever has! Kuwait has been able to do that distributing the proceeds from its oil profits to its people.

Today, Venezuela is trying to mimic Kuwait’s model.

Kuwait shared the oil wealth with its people as far back as the 1960s. When America’s poverty line began at around $4000/year, Kuwaiti citizens had a guaranteed income of $11,000/year.

I revile Kuwait, because I firmly believe that socialism’s success ANYWHERE is a threat to economic freedom/LIBERTY everywhere.

Now, I LOVE the writings of the GREAT Henry George (Progress and Poverty, among other works), a devoutly Christian, 19th Century American social reformer, reviled by both socialists and capitalist alike. George based his views on the principle that ALL the resources of a nation belonged principally and primarily to the people, just as surely as does the air they breathe.

Henry George’s philosophy greatly influenced the great Russian novelist, Leo Tolstoy, who after penning Anna Karenina and War and Peace, devoted the rest of his literary life to writing religious and social tomes, such as The Kingdom of God is Within You, The Gospels in Brief (one of the most AWESOME books I’ve ever read and I’m not at all religious) and My Confession. Tolstoy’s later works echoed and amplified Henry George’s views and greatly influenced Mahatma Gandhi , who in turn greatly influenced Martin Luther King.

I like Henry George’s philosophy very much, it transcends socialism and looks to humanize Capitalism in a very logical, thoughtful way. While I don’t see many of George’s ideas as very practical, they are, unlike the deeply misanthropic and hateful ideas of Marx, rooted in an innate decency.

I LOVE Tolstoy’s later works and admire his vast talents.

What I don’t at all admire or even respect is the dimwitted philosophy called Marxism based on “FROM each according to his abilities and TO each according to his needs.”

It is one of the most feeble-minded philosophies ever constructed and one of the most unworkable.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy was far more coherent, far more radical and far more frightening in its scope and vision. Nietzsche advocated “natural selection” (“social Darwinism”) for the human species so that it might evolve toward a better, what he called Uberman or super-man. In that regard he derided charity as “the curse of Christ” because it undermined this natural selection/social Darwinism and encouraged and enabled the poor, the uncompetitive and the profligate to not only survive but to thrive and pass on their defective genes to future generations.

It is indeed tragic that a man as bereft of understanding and nuance as Adolph Hitler is credited with “trying to bring Nietzsche’s vision to life.”

Again, Hitler was as much a Nietzschean as he was a Christian, which is to say he was neither.

I say all that, not merely to rationalize or justify my ideological bigotry and my red-hot hatred for hardcore Leftists, but to give some background to that peculiar affection of mine.

That said, the people running Barack Obama’s campaign (no not Ayers, or Wright or any of those), the David Axelrod’s (the people actually engaged in the day-to-day running of that campaign), have an extreme Leftist agenda. They are supported by the extremely anti-capitalistic George Soros and other American anti-capitalists.

The MSM is largely corporately owned and corporately run.

Ironically enough, even though the command economy, that Karl Marx favored, DOESN’T and CANNOT work, the highly regulated economy CAN and DOES.

The highly regulated (Corporatist economy) can work because, although it stifles new start-ups, new ideas and new products, in the name of “economic stability” – protecting established enterprises, industries and jobs, because it is STILL market-based and privately run.

Armand Hammer, a major U.S. industrialist (founder of Occidental Petroleum and Armand Hammer Cleaning Products) managed to get a contract with the former USSR and held a virtual monopoly status in that command economy.

Armand Hammer formed the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and advocated for the command economy here in the U.S.

There’s NOTHING either altruistic or even uncommon about wealthy people like Armand Hammer embracing socialism and the command economy. It greatly benefits THEM, by, in effect, “freezing the free-for-all of capitalism and free enterprise in place, while they are on top.

It is for much the same reasons that most major corporations embrace the highly regulated or “Corporatist” economy of Japan, Western Europe and America, today. It benefits themselves AND it gives workers far more stability than they might otherwise have in a constantly changing, economically revolutionary free market system.
My objection to the Obama agenda is NOT that it’s an “Afro-centric one,” (it’s really NOT that), but it IS an extreme Leftist one!

Socialism is NOT a revolutionary ideology, it is one that seeks to enslave the poor and working people to the political class instead to the “clever class,” those who run industries and businesses. THAT is why the truly rich, the Kennedy’s, the Soros’, the Hammer’s all support either outright socialism OR a heavily regulated form of corporatism.

I support Liberty and the vicious free-for-all in which clever, scheming economic bullies, harness the power of ideological book-bright elitists and use them to make fortunes for themselves, while creating jobs for the rest of society.

Capitalism IS Liberty, Capitalism is FREEDOM.

To support socialism is to support political slavery.