By Bob Livingston
As Senator Bernie Sanders challenged the witch from Chappaqua for the Democrat nomination in 2015, some media outlets sought to get an explanation of social democracy or democratic socialism from him. His explanation fell short, according some political science professors.
"When you call your fire department or the police department, what do you think you're calling?" Sanders babbled to the crowd in one of his stump speeches. "These are socialist institutions."
"If he were to write this on an exam for me? That's an F," Andrei Markovits, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan, said.
Nor is the latest darling of the movement, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez any better at telling us what she believes beyond basic platitudes of "free stuff" for everyone.
When asked by "The View's" Meghan McCain whether the future of the Democrat Party is socialism, Ocasio-Cortez responded:
| First of all, there's a huge difference between socialism and Democratic socialism. Democratic socialism, and really what that boils down to me, is the basic belief that I believe that in a moral and wealthy America and a moral and modern America, no person should be too poor to live in this country. |
That vacuous response is all it took for the biddies in the audience to erupt in cheers and applause worthy a sport team's championship victory. And perhaps that's what it is, because there is no substance at all to what she said... it's all bread and circus.
No less than the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, called Ocasio-Cortez the "future of our party." And Sanders insists Democrats can't win 2018 midterms without him and a push for "universal health care, tuition-free public college, [and] a $15-an-hour minimum wage."
So what is democratic socialism? Samuel Goldman, an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University says it is "achieving collective control of the economy."
The previously-mentioned Professor Markovits said democratic socialism is an attempt to create, "a property–free, socialist society."
Making the rounds on social media is a meme that purports to explain it that seems to coincide with Goldman's and Markovits' description:
| A Democratic Socialist is not a Marxist Socialist or a Communist. A Democratic Socialist is one who seeks to restrain the self-destructive excess of capitalism and channel the Government's use of our tax money into creating opportunities for everyone. Democratic Socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically – to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. A Democratic Socialist does not want to destroy private corporations but does want to bring them under greater democratic control. The government could use regulations and tax incentives to encourage companies to act in the public interest and outlaw destructive activities such as exporting jobs to low-wage countries and polluting our environment. Most of all, socialists look to unions to make private business more accountable. |
Perhaps someone should send this meme to Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders. At least they wouldn't sound like blithering idiots when pressed to describe their belief system.
Now when we look closely we see that democratic socialism is nothing new after all. It's merely an old system with a new name. It's the addition of the code word "democratic" to the old system of collectivism – previously called national socialism (Nazism), communism and Marxism – in order to put lipstick on a pig.
But even this is not new. Hitler referred to his National Socialism as "the great democracy." Nazism or National Socialism was only a generic form of collectivism exactly as Italian Fascism, Russian Communism or American democracy.
What's that you say Bob? That's right, both socialism and democracy are anathema to human liberty. Democracy is an esoteric belief system that manipulates the people in such a way that all power flows to the state. As with pure dictatorships, power flows from the top down.
Democracy implies freedom in the public's mind while power and wealth is constantly channeled to the federal government. Human liberty is regressively crushed under the one simple word, "democracy."
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and their ilk see their fight as one between capitalism and something else, with their something else being a form of mob rule collectivism. They falsely believe – or at least claim to believe -- that America is a capitalist society. It's not, and hasn't been for 150-plus years.
Capitalism is a social system in which an individual's rights, including his rights to own property, are recognized and all property is privately owned. In a capitalistic society, governments acknowledge that individuals and companies can and should compete for their own economic gain, and the prices of goods and services are determined by the free market. The role of government in capitalistic societies is to ensure that markets function without interference and to protect individuals from fraud and/or the use of physical force by others.
What we have is crony capitalism or corporatism, which is a form of fascism. It's a marriage of business and government that involves government passing legislation and enabling federal alphabet soup regulatory agencies to create rules favorable to certain businesses and unfavorable to others. Congressweasels pass tax laws to encourage and discourage behaviors – exactly what democratic socialists are advocating.
Like all statists, democratic socialists want to grow government to solve a problem created by government, and to do so under cover of mob rule (the vote).
Socialism is a philosophy of envy. When one sees something another has and decides he wants it, rather than earn it on his own merits he wants the power of government to take it and either give it to him or redistribute it to the masses. Often the socialist doesn't want that something for himself as much as he doesn't want someone else to have it.
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 everyone if they 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 who are naturally drawn to socialism is a basic political strategy to justify government politics and plunder.
Who are minorities? They are, of course, the racial minorities. But there are a whole lot more than that. There are homosexual minorities, feminine minorities, so-called "civil rights" minorities, cultural minorities and all the minorities that make up the "diversity" of the nation.
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.
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.
Socialism is by no means limited to a political system. The definition of socialism under any masquerade is the pseudo-morality of groupism over the individual.
All political power is derived from this. This definition must be understood.
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