Posted on 05/24/2002 8:35:45 AM PDT by Festa
This is part III in an series of articles I am writing attacking the democratic party and attempting to prove their inherent fallacies. This one is on socialism.
Socialism, the most radical and dangerous element of the Democrats
Part III
Few Americans realize that the liberal element Democratic Party adheres with the basic premises of Marxs communist Manifesto. Liberals/socialists believe in a heavy progressive income tax, abolition to all rights of inheritance, centralization of the banks, free education for all in public schools, public ownership of all means of production, etc. The main tool that the socialists/liberal democrats employ to achieve these goals is class warfare.
Like Marxists, the democrats view the debate as the little guy vs. the big guy. The Rich people are oppressing the poor. The religious are oppressing womens rights. This list goes on and on. However this type of thinking is completely wrong and uncalled for.
Thinking along these lines stems from one of the seven deadly sins: envy. Envy is when I am so angry at your success, so enamored that you have succeeded ahead of me, that I hate you for it. I want to tear you down. Even if the reason I want to do this is to help others, it does no good. One cannot tear down the rich to help the poor.
Why? How come we cant punish the rich for having more money than others? It all comes down to economics. Most goods we can think of are scarce. There is not an unlimited supply of food and housing in this world. Even if one wanted to build more houses they would need more wood. The more wood one cuts, the less there is for others. So how do we reconcile this?
Economists have long recognized that there are two forces at play in economics. First, there are demanders. Demanders demand goods such as televisions, houses, food, and clothing. Suppliers are those who provide these goods for the demanders. The overarching force that prevents these goods from disappearing is the price. Price equals everything out.
Think about it. When oil is scarce and hard to come by, it is expensive. When gas is $2.00 a gallon you may want to stay home instead of going out. What this does is decrease the quantity demanded of oil so that those who really need it get it. Why is gas more expensive during the summer? More people are on the road and there is less gas to go around.
Socialists (I will begin now to refer to modern liberals as socialists and drop the democrat/liberal labels) dont want to hear this. They do not understand that price is not necessarily a reflection of greed, but rather a reality check on just how little is available. If only there was another way? Socialists believe that there exists a setup where as the government can reconcile these differences in a more fair an equitable manner. They do not need the pricing system that capitalism requires to ration goods. Socialists can do it themselves. This is the fatal flaw that has caused millions upon millions of innocent lives during the 20th century.
Socialism, in all its forms, is unworkable. No matter how much the socialists try and retool their policies and change them, they are fatally flawed. Many socialists consider themselves social democrats in that they are pro-democracy. However, if they sat down and thought this out, they would realize that a democratic socialist is an oxymoron.
First, a socialist must gain power in order to achieve their ends. They themselves are not evil people. They simply want to help humanity. But they cannot gain legislative power without alliances. So they ally themselves with special interest groups in order to get elected. They also preach their beliefs to many lower class workers who do not understand what capitalism is and how it works. Since these special interest groups vote more than others, they increase the percentage of those who vote. Is this a reflection of democracy? Is the purchasing of special interest groups a reflection of a fair and democratic society? I think not
After they come into power, the special interest groups want what they paid for. Teachers unions, labor unions, businesses, etc. all want their slice of power and privilege. So before achieving their goals, they first must cater to the needs of the special interests. After this is done, precious money that they needed to fix their problems has been wasted on narrow special interests.
Then comes the part where they actually achieve their goals. They nationalize the industries, abolish property rights, and seize all the workers money. Now what? Many socialists who consider themselves democratic now begin to see the flaw in their ideology. Now that we have the power, what do we do with it? How do we ration these goods in a fair an equal way? They begin to squabble. Socialists now divide amongst themselves as to who needs what and how much one needs. Since the price system has been radically altered or abolished, it is impossible to solve this in a democratic way. Even if there were democratic debate and then compromise, one would be insane to think that the solution brought forth would be the solution needed to solve the problems.
What follows is simply natural. The socialists betray their principles and appoint a dictator or a powerful executive body to carry out the socialism. This is happened every time socialism has been tried. But this dictator betrays the cause. A good benevolent dictator becomes rare and almost impossible to find because no moral person wants the job. They realize that if one person is helped, one person is left behind. Since there is no more price structure, it is impossible to see who needs what. So the people who become the dictators are evil immoral people.
Socialism naturally leads to corrupt communism and fascism. Socialists unknowingly set up the apparatus upon which the evil people pervert. In Germany, fascism only came about because the socialists had previously set up a government on which this was possible. The same is true for Russia, Vietnam, North Korea, and China. Any socialist would tell you that they are completely against what happened in these countries. But what the fail to realize is that it is because of their beliefs that these systems even became a possibility.
This is the liberal element of the Democratic Party. It still dominates the inner core of the party. But (as many democrats are now saying), I am not a socialist; I believe that we can have capitalism and a big government at the same time! That will be attacked in Part IV.
Both parties advance the agenda of socialism.
Humans are far from perfect and without incentive to work we do not work at all or we do not work as hard as we could. There are some exceptions but they are so much few and between, so they did not make much difference. Socialism simply removes all incentives for productive work. So, poverty, hunger, constant search for scapegoats are inevitable attributes of socialism.
Every society has its own elite, so socialism does not remove the big guy - small guy confrontation. It actually makes this confrontation much worse, because (1)the way socialist elite is formed is way more unjust, (2) socialism produces too many big guys for a small guys to swallow, (3)socialism's big guys have no controls and have a tendency to behave badly (e.g. killing prols by millions).
Our society is far from perfect, however, it has the best match for the requirements of human nature.
This is why conservatism 1) means radicially different things in different country. A conservative in France (La Pen) is radically different in many ways from a conservative in the US 2) conservatism has no one ideology. We respect and adhere to many of the beliefs of the free market (not as often as I would like some times). But most of the time we do. We also adhere to the family structure, the institutions may they be religious, secular, or neither that make this country great.
Libertarians are purely freedom lovers. Many sects of libertarianism believe that people should be free to engage in their own actions so long as they do not impede on the actions of others. In other words, they should pay for the choices they make. To this is say, fine, right on brother! But I think they miss some major points
Libertarians are by far the most short tempered members of the right. More so than the christian coalition and the buchanan brigade. When a conservative says that he morally opposes drug use, out of wedlock marraige, etc (without even arguing that the state should intrude) they decry it as statist, collectivist, etc.
Fine, ok, I dont care. But as Friedrich Hayek, hardly an anarcho-capitalist libertarian, would say; the rule of law and the moral criticisms our society has MADE our society better.
Hayek realized that government law was one of only many ways in which society regulates itself. Morality can come from the criticism of society WITHOUT government intervention. It is precicely the "whatever floats your both" mentality that is driving this country further and further down the dark path towards socialism.
It is wrong to use drugs, it is wrong to have out of wedlock sex, it is wrong to have sex with a little boy or girl and sell it for profit on the internet. Whether or not the state is capable of outlawing or regulating this is another issue. But they are wrong. To say they are wrong does not mean you are a socialist. Merely, you recognize right from wrong.
If we stop criticizing people (uh hmmmm clinton) who do these things, we only lower the standards of our citizens and reduce them to the level of animals. You can be a classical liberal and still believe this.
What do you think?
I bring this up in debates on homosexuality all the time. I am well aware, as the libertarians note, that having the state outlaw homosexuality, gay marraige, and the likes may be dangerous and impringe on certain freedoms. No debate there. But to then turn around and chastize me for holding a differing opinion on the morality of these matters is nothing but bigotry.
I know gay people and I am friendly and compassionate towards all of them. I simply disagree and believe that what they do is wrong. But that doesnt mean I hate them, I want to destroy them. I simply have a disagreement on it. The same with smoking. I know full well the government cannot outlaw smoking. Its a dumb idea. But I dont agree with smoking, I speak out against it. Yet, I seem to find a way to make friends with (and uh hm date!) people who smoke.
Society regulates many aspects of human behavior by speaking out against and preventing society from doing certain things. That is why no one walks around the street naked, barfs in the middle of the road...etc. Society, according to Hayek, is perfectly capable of imposing its OWN rules on society. Many times they are right, some times they are wrong...but alas, I will stop here as this is the topic of a future essay.
It is the libertarians hatred of people who do not agree with them prevents them from seriousely gaining representation in government. Libertarians and conservatives agree on ALOT, even if they do not want to admit it.
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