Bernie Sanders, the Most Useful Idiot

Bernie Sanders is, to put it gently, either terminally obtuse, mentally unbalanced, or dangerously dishonest.

That Sanders could’ve visited the Soviet Union during the Cold War and, with all of the evidence before him, come back extolling the country’s systems, programs, and infrastructure, reveals either stupidity on a galactic scale, certifiable delusion, or a willingness to perpetuate the greatest lie in modern history.

Sanders could’ve saved the time and expense of the trip had he instead talked to someone like Nikolai Kirsanow who, years before Sanders’s captivating trip to the Soviet Union, escaped from the NKVD. Unlike the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, he had absolutely no illusions about socialism and Communism. (Lenin: “The goal of socialism is communism.”) Scars and illusions are rarely compatible. Indeed, had Sanders talked to émigrés from any Soviet bloc country about “socialism,” most would’ve urgently warned, “Friend, do not go down this path. We’ve seen this movie before. It always begins with promises and hope. It never ends well.” Yet Sanders skips cheerfully down that path, seemingly oblivious to the repression, scarcity, misery, and death that his preferred system inevitably produces.

Some of Sanders’s millennial supporters, 70 percent of whom express willingness to vote for socialism, may be forgiven. A Gramscian educational establishment has misled and failed them horribly. So too, mainstream media. How else could they look favorably — or even indifferently — upon an ideology that churns out scores of millions of corpses? Besides, never discount the eternal appeal of “free” stuff.

Agreed. Two things people need to realize about socialism.

One, it inevitably leads to some form of fascism or authoritarian control. The sharing and fairness fairy tales told by those promoting socialism (in whatever form) sound great. But the reality is in any society there is a whole spectrum of motivation. Some people are quite content to sit around and be taken care of at some minimal level. Others are motivated to work hard, to better themselves, better their situation, provide for their kids, etc. The problem is the people towards the productive end of the spectrum generally don't want to share the fruits of their labors with those towards the lazy end of the spectrum. They start looking for ways to keep more of what they earn and produce. Then the "benevolent" socialist government must step in and help ensure "fairness" - which inevitably leads to fascist, authoritarian policies and measures. The net of it is, socialism may start off sounding good, with a groundswell of popular support...but eventually it must be enforced and imposed on an ever more unwilling and restive populace. In the end, the government must take control of virtually every aspect of society.

The second thing to realize is that there really are only two kinds of people promoting socialism. There are the naive masses who actually believe the sharing and fairness fairy tales. These people are ignorant of history, they believe the lies being told to them, and they are unable or unwilling to perform the simple thought experiment that would show them socialism is a failed idea. The other type of person who promotes socialism is fully aware of these real characteristics and shortcomings of socialism. Far from being repulsed by them, they want them. They see themselves as being part of the system. They want the government to have virtually unlimited power and control, because they see themselves as at the levers of some of that power at some level. These are the leftists who think they are the smartest people in the room, that they know best. They can't wait to impose their "brilliance" on the rest of us.

Oh, and to any leftist/lib lurkers out there reading this and telling themselves "that's not how it is" or "he's wrong, he just doesn't get it" or even "he's just too stupid to see it" - No. That is in fact exactly how it is, you are precisely the problem, and you're proving my point.

socialism . . . it inevitably leads to some form of fascism or authoritarian control, [and there are] only two kinds of people promoting socialism. There are the naive masses who actually believe the sharing and fairness fairy tales.

[And those who are] fully aware of these real characteristics and shortcomings of socialism. Far from being repulsed by them, they want them. They see themselves as being part of the system. They want the government to have virtually unlimited power and control, because they see themselves as at the levers of some of that power at some level.

Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under 'communism' and 'fascism'. As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939, 'the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of unfreedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany.’ No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common, was the liberal of the old type. While to the Nazi the communist and to the communist the Nazi, and to both the socialist, are potential recruits made of the right timber, they both know that there can be no compromise between them and those who really believe in individual freedom.
What is promised to us as the Road to Freedom is in fact the Highroad to Servitude. For it is not difficult to see what must be the consequences when democracy embarks upon a course of planning. The goal of the planning will be described by some such vague term as 'the general welfare'. There will be no real agreement as to the ends to be attained, and the effect of the people's agreeing that there must be central planning, without agreeing on the ends, will be rather as if a group of people were to commit themselves to take a journey together without agreeing where they want to go: with the result that they may all have to make a journey which most of them do not want at all. ____________— F A Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (May, 1945 Reader’s Digest Condensed Version)

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