That said, I believe their ideologies are the true concern. Billy is a minimalist socialist; Hillary is a true socialist; Obama is a hardcore socialist verging on communist. I would bet that in the back of Obama's mind he believes the Marx saying, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
The failure that is communism, and more recently socialism in Europe has been apparent for some time, not to mention historically. From American history, even the starving Pilgrims found their perfect collectivist commune didn't work and gave into capitalism.
Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. This change, [Governor William] Bradford wrote, had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior.
Here is my own personal experience with communism:
I was a rebellious teen in the 1960's. I watched the hippie movement grow and didn't want any part of it.
Reason: I watched others join communes. I watched as some would work hard to make their utopia grow. I also saw that others of the same commune didn't carry as much weight for their perfect world. Eventually, all those communes disintegrated. Why? Because of the human characteristic of wanting to be rewarded for efforts. I saw this at 17 years old and having a couple of brain cells it was obvious to a young punk teen the outcome. I went on to work various menial jobs until I joined the Navy.
I have seen nothing to change my mind after 62 years about socialism and/or communism. Those ideologies may work on feel good collegiate papers, but they don't work within the human mindset of self-accomplishment, self-worth, and yes, desire for advancement (greed to some).
Interesting about the early colony - I didn’t know that. Friends will like that.
I was very lucky in 7th grade. I had a social studies teacher. He was funny, but other than that unremarkable. 6 foot black hair big nose Jewish body builder, perfect V - twigs for calves, huuuuge up top. Mr. Levine. I remember only one thing he ever said, nothing else. We were studying other forms governments (he wasn’t especially pro American ... it just was what it was and we’d covered the boring memorization of how many in the Senate, House, Branches (evidently Rick Perry missed class that day)), and he introduced Communism, was explaining its founding in Marxism.
Here is what he said, and because of this, I never needed any experience with it, never questioned that it might work - I got it immediately.
He said “Marxism is the best form of government. ... ... ...
... ... ... On paper.” ... and then described the USSR.
Which naturally led to the Winston Churchill characterization - although he didn’t say it - that democracy (and here Winston meant representative, not pure tyranny of the majority) ... that democracy was the worst form of government on the face of the earth, except for all the others.
If we could only get across to the Utopians, that in life there will always be pain, there will always be unfairness, sometimes you’ll win unfairly, sometimes lose unfairly, mostly win fairly, mostly lose fairly. Oh and you might get hit by a car when your 2 1/2.
... and ... the pain utopians cause is just part of that pain.
But there is no state of man that will ever be fully acceptable. Once you get that, you can just get on with what works best - and that’s pretty good. Capitalism is a freaking mess. But its the least worst, and its only because mankind himself, his nature ... is a mess. It’s not a flaw in the theory. You can’t theorize away the fact that man, life, is a mess.
You can’t turn worm soup into an angel food cake. But if you’re worm soup, trying to act like an angel food cake, you only bring suffering on yourself and others.
Imagine a colony of worm soup trying to be a society of angel food cakes. You’d have to kill everyone for looking like and behaving like worm soup ... that is, for being what they already are ... you outlaw it and then everyone is an outlaw but they won’t quit so you impose a death penalty and so then you kill everyone. No more worm soup.
Which corresponds nicely with the record of mankind trying to improve his situation and his experience through mass murder.