Posted on 07/16/2019 1:49:54 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
When a dozen of conservatism’s best minds take on Socialism and expose it for the utopian fraud it is, attention must be paid.
In a brief foreword to a special issue of National Review, Editor-in-Chief Richard Lowry admitted that many conservatives thought socialism in America had been “vanquished” after the collapse of Soviet Communism 30 years ago. But as T. S. Eliot insisted, “There is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause.”
The experts examine socialism in its many guises, beginning with Charles Cooke’s blunt assessment that socialism is not and never can be “democratic.”
Cooke, the editor of NationalReview.com, writes that voters should not be fooled by the left’s attempt at rebranding.
“There is no sense in which socialism can be made compatible with democracy as it is understood in the West.” At worst, says Cooke, “socialism eats democracy, and is swiftly transmuted into tyranny.” At best, socialism “stamps out individual agency, places civil society into a straitjacket of uniform size, and turns representative government into a chimera.”
Cooke’s description of socialism as tyrannical was confirmed by Ugo Okere, a socialist candidate for the Chicago City Council, who explained that “democratic socialism, to me, is about democratic control of every single facet of our life.”
That would mean, presumably, rewriting the first words of the Constitution to something like, “We the people of the United States in order to form a more democratically controlled Union … ”
What has Okere’s “democratic control” produced in the socialist “paradise” of Venezuela?
Ricardo Hausmann, the former chief economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, has written that “Venezuela’s economic catastrophe dwarfs any in the history of the U.S., Western Europe or the rest of Latin America.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
PING!
Socialism is just Communism without the cool flags and symbols.
Perhaps the most thorough, well-founded and complete explanation of how the Framers of America's Constitution of the United States of America "constituted" a form of self-government which was--in the words of Benjamin Franklin, "A Republic. . . if you can keep it. . . . " can be found in John Quincy Adams's "Jubilee" Address, delivered, by invitation of the New York Historical Society, in New York City in April 1839. That Jubilee Address magnificently explained the reasons for the Framers' choice of republic over that of a democracy.
If you want to have handy for constitutionally-illiterate Progressives who may call this a "democracy," then you want to read that Address.
Today, in 2018, when confronted with a decision between individual freedom and slavery, otherwise known as liberty and tyranny, Americans who prefer freedom must be armed with ideas and principles which are "self-evident" and plain. Otherwise, they cannot fend off the onslaught of the "counterfeit ideas" of Progressive ideologues.
When America's Founders and Framers of their Constitution wanted to convince ordinary farmers and citizens of the merits of a written "People's" Constitution to limit the powers of those to whom they entrust the powers of government, they published and circulated 85 essays, known as THE FEDERALIST.
It's time for citizens, once again, to examine those strong and clear words of Madison Hamilton, and Jay. They are just as clear for today's audience as they were then. Circulate the following excerpts to your friends. Even the least politically savvy will "get" Madison's meaning, especially in light of the power grab now going on in Washington. After all, THE FEDERALIST was the Framers' authoritative explanation of their Constitution, and directed by the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia in 1825 to be used as the text for its law school in its studies of "the general principles of liberty and the rights of man," and said by Jefferson to "constitute 'the general opinion of those who framed, and of those who accepted the Constitution of the U.S., on questions as to its genuine meaning.'":
"The house of representatives... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the cords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788
"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788
"This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788
"The propensity of all single and numerous assemblies (is) to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788
"Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788
Note particularly the following words of wisdom from Federalist No. 63, and take heart. You are doing what you were meant to do when you speak out on intrusions on your liberty. According to Madison:
"As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?" - Federalist Papers, No. 63, 1788
Karl Marx is to ‘intellectual economist’ as Sumo wrestler is to horse jockey.
Hmmm...let’s see:
China
USSR
East Germany (but,curiously enough,not West Germany)
Cuba
Venezuela
North Korea (but,curiously enough,not South Korea)
San Francisco
LOL, reminds me of Austin Powers....
Basil Exposition: A lot’s happened since you’ve been frozen. The Cold War’s over!
Austin Powers: All right! Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh? Eh comrades? Eh?
Basil Exposition: Austin... we won.
Austin Powers: Oh, smashing, groovy, yay capitalism!
Karl Marx was either a ignorant fool or one bitter son of a bitch.
Great memory!
President Reagan was the President most responsible for the victory.
So many of our enemies in the Media wanted the "meld" with the Soviet Union.
One unspoken fundamental premise of socialism is the requirement for the destruction of the middle class. It is the primary threat to the ruling “elite”. The political “elite” then give that money to themselves and a few crumbs to the “poor”.
Yep, it’s communism in a business suit instead of a military uniform.
You’d think you could grab a nearby lady and kiss her like the sailor did in that famous V-J day photo taken on Times Square.
“Karl Marx was either a ignorant fool or one bitter son of a bitch.”
He was both.
Was that December 24, 1991, when the dissolution document was signed by Mikhail Gorbachev, or was that back in August 1991, when that coup attempt failed?
Both...and more.
As I understand it, Karl Marx was a layabout who didn’t do much work in the real world, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he came up with whack-a-doodle Marxism.
Correct. It eventually ends in feudalism, where the elites hold almost all of the money and all of the power. And the elites will purposefully destroy any person, class or institution that they perceive to be a potential threat to their power. After all, they think of themselves as morally and intellectually superior demi-gods who are in the process of creating a utopian “heaven-on-earth.”
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