Self-sufficiency and self-worth produce ultimate happiness and human liberty

By Bob Livingston

That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one might say,
"See this, it is new"?
Already it has existed for ages
Which were before us.
There is no remembrance of earlier things;
And also of the later things which will occur,
There will be for them no remembrance
Among those who will come later still. -- Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 (NASB)

The political left's enthusiastic embrasure of what is being touted as a new brand of socialism is hardly surprising to sober people.

For more than 100 years, Americans have been victimized by a state-sponsored socialist, altruistic, collectivist social and educational system. It has produced a popular mentality of diminishing the individual and independent thinker to a collectivist mind (mentality) which can be esoterically swayed, directed and channeled against his own best interest.

What does this mean? It means that a state of mind is developed and has been nurtured that freely gives oneself and one's production to the state. Each individual, in order to be considered a good citizen of the state, must contribute most of his means and be grateful for the services the state returns — whether they are necessary or useful or not.

Gradualism is the key to government power. Anything can be accomplished over a long period of time. Absolute tyranny can totally replace human liberty if done with a process of gradualism. It is sometimes described as two steps forward and one step backward. Time, however, works for the power brokers. Over a long enough time frame people accept their conditioning no matter what it is.

The political establishment has been hard at work sowing seeds of discontent and separating the masses into races and classes and social groups in a divide and conquer strategy while stealing their wealth through crony capitalism (fascism), progressive taxation, inflation and phony altruism. And over time each individual has come to depend more and more upon the state to provide his sustenance, succor and comfort in order to create in him a sense of equality with those which he has been convinced may have something he doesn't.

So now the harvest is ripe. Discontent with the system has reached a pitch, and many people — millennials (those born between 1982 and 2004) especially — are seeking something new. They embrace the promise of something for nothing inherent in democratic socialism based on their lifetime of indoctrination in public (non)education government re-education camps in which they've been pampered and taught a pseudo-history of state worship that glosses over the millions of deaths and massive human misery caused by democracy and socialism.

Senator Bernie Sanders made socialism popular and acceptable again as a political philosophy. He called his brand of socialism social democracy. Now the Democrats have a new and rising star named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They call her "the future" of the Democrat Party. She calls her brand of socialism democratic socialism, and she is the new darling of the Left.

But there is nothing new about it, whether you call it social democracy or democratic socialism. It's merely an effort at whitewashing a bloodstained wall.

The morality of socialism is easily summed up in a few words: envy and sacrifice based on a phony and coerced sense of altruism.

The socialist not only envies and wants a portion of the wealth of others; he desires to see the wealth of others lowered to the level of his own. The socialist wants to use a sense of altruism — couched in terms like "fairness," "equality" and  "fair share" — to coerce those who have into willingly giving a portion of their wealth to others. That failing, the socialist desires that the power and organized violence of the state be used to create a level of conformity and reduce everyone to the same level — even if it is the level of poverty and privation.

Socialism is also a philosophy of racism, weakness, ineptitude and collectivism in that it assumes one gained what he has by way of special privilege not afforded those who are of a different race or creed or social standing; and that one cannot obtain a thing or advance economically without the assistance of government or the collective.

Manipulating minorities — minorities being all those divided up by the establishment into various races, classes and social groups and pitted against one another — who are naturally drawn to socialism is a basic political strategy to justify government politics and plunder.

Samuel Goldman, an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University, describes democratic socialism as "achieving collective control of the economy."

Andrei Markovits, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, calls democratic socialism an attempt to create, "a property—free, socialist society."

So we see that democratic socialism is a disguised system of stealing the wealth and production of the producers of wealth with spurious laws under the legitimacy of the vote. Stealing or taking from producers and transferring it to nonproducers is very sophisticated and concealed class warfare.

Democratic socialism is anathema to human liberty and is a concealed form of slavery. Democracy equals socialism equals communism equals fascism. They are all totalitarian forms of collectivism demanding self-sacrifice and total allegiance to the state, and are all anathema to life and liberty and property.

However, it's naïve and wholly inaccurate to ascribe this philosophy only to Democrats. Almost all politicians, Democrat and Republican, embrace socialism in many forms.

Always remember: The government has nothing good or nice to give to you. The government is in the business of shrinking freedom (and wealth), not expanding it.

Any political system built upon self-sacrifice (and all are) is an illusion and can only maintain authority at your expense. Distorted reality is any ploy that seeks to persuade you to share what you have with nonproducers or to seek guidance from external authority. Politics is such an ingrained system that few realize that politics is a system of reliance on external authority that perpetuates itself on illusions and distortions.

Relying on the external authority feels safe because it is the status quo. It feels like freedom because we have endured mass brainwash telling us our slavery is freedom and democracy.

But freedom and happiness are only restored through self-reliance and acting on our own judgment. Self-sufficiency and self-worth produce ultimate happiness and human liberty.