In this series, we’ve seen economic evils planned for America by the designers and implementers of a socialist society. In their plans we lose the right to own a home, a car, or anything nice. With socialism we must rely on the government for our daily food, our clothes, and everything else.
We’ve also seen how socialism breaks up our family-based society. Everyone, child and adult alike, must look only to the state for their identity, education, and affiliation. Socialists actively strike down the ideas and institutions that support families and parenting.
Last of all, we’ve seen how a socialist society accepts no dissent, especially from the religious. Christian or not, you will be broken.
But for now we’re still free from socialist domination. We can act now to prevent these disasters from occurring. Learn how to protect our communities, families, and ourselves from the designs of these politicians and activists.
Socialism in review
Let’s recall the definition of socialism being used in this series. According to one dictionary, socialism is:
- a theory or system of social organization in which the means of production and distribution of goods are owned and controlled collectively or by the government.
- (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.[1]
As detailed in the first article of this series, this definition has these implications.
- Individuals may not own any productive property.
- The government is the de-facto owner of practically everything.
- The intent is to transform human character.
Socialism amounts to a religion, a political theory, and an economic theory, all rolled into one.
Your freedom: defend it now, before you lose it
We’ve seen some of what socialists intend to do to us:
- Society reduced to pauperism.
- Everyone on the government dole for food, clothing, housing.
- Family life broken, and the government directly interacting with children.
- Destruction of religious life, and religious rights.
- Creating a uncompassionate, sullen, ignorant generation.
The columnist Stella Morabito aptly sums this up this dismal condition.
So it goes: Socialism, when left to its own devices, irresistibly moves towards authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
As with all bait-and-switch scams, socialism promises you the world. That’s the only way it can get any traction before it delivers you to a virtual prison. It forces compliance and dependency in every aspect of life—housing, employment, medicine, mobility, education, even your creativity.
Oh, sure lots of clueless Che T-shirt-wearing kids will talk real savvy about it while they’re free. But once it’s got them for real, it will permeate their daily life both in body and mind. In this very respect, slavery is a very fitting description of socialism. All of socialism’s promises— equality, social justice, blah, blah, blah—amount to nothing but bait.
If you don’t believe me, ask yourself this: What could be more oppressive than living under a system run by a tiny clique of power-mongers who exert control over you through a morbidly obese machinery of bureaucrats? What could be more claustrophobic than having some apparatchik from that bloated bureaucracy telling you where you may live, what you are allowed to study, where you can travel, what you can express in art or writing, whether you may receive medicine for your illness, what you may eat, what you can say, and even to whom you may speak?[2]
The bright spot here is that the socialists aren’t now in control. Not yet. There is still opportunity to set things right. Samuel Adams, from 1771, spoke encouragement to a different conflict. Yet, his words are timely today.
The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.
We have receiv’d them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas’d them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.
It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath’d to us from the former, for the sake of the latter.[3]
— Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance.
Let us remember that “if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.” It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.
What is this defense we must take up? To preserve the republic, because a fully-developed socialism replaces our republic with a dictatorship. It’s true – ask anyone who lived through the years of Soviet Russia. And how do you, Mr. & Mrs. Average, accomplish such a feat? If we each do a few simple tasks, socialism has no place to run, and no way to keep a foothold in America.
First: Stop asking the government to give you something for free. Ronald Reagan said:
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.[4]
Government services are never free. Taxpayers pay a lot for them, usually more than if they were done by private contractors. And as for the “free” part, when government becomes the purveyor you pay plenty.
- You lose freedom of choice. When the government gets involved it muscles private providers out of the business. Obamacare, with its “you can keep your doctor” is a prominent example.[5]
- You get a planned social change. Government policies always favor the political and philosophical plans of its promoters. For example, Obamacare is intentionally a first step to a government single-payer health plan. You know, the rationed health care system that England and Canada are cursed with.[6]
You spent your childhood looking to grow up and start your own household, your own family. Are you to now accept socialism and become a child again, this time to an uncompassionate government father? No, plan on supporting yourself, and supporting your family. The “free” government services just plain cost too much.
Second: Learn to recognize the socialist lie. Learning all about socialism is a tedious task. Their writers are long-winded, and they repeat each other. Fortunately, you don’t need to immerse yourself in their sins. At a minimum, just remember this easy phrase: there is no such thing as a free lunch. This is key to discerning all sorts of socialist enticements. Let’s try it out.
- Everyone is entitled to health care.[7] At some point, everyone needs health care services. And it is true that many people sometimes need care they can’t pay for, at least not right away. But inability to pay can be handled, and was handled, through built-in charity and existing health care insurance programs. Yet the government insists that they can provide all health care, to everyone, at no cost to you.
Looking at this from the “no free lunch” viewpoint, when the government gets involved private parties must bow out. Health care gets more expensive, and yet less available. And without the spur of competition, and profits, health care research also dries up. The end result is rationed, low quality, medical care, with very few medical advances.
- Free college education.[8] If a young person could attend college for free then they could get into life without having a shadow of tuition debt hanging over them. This is supposed to be a good thing for society.
Let’s apply the “no free lunch” test to this. If the students don’t have to pay, then why should they pay attention to coursework? We’d get a lot of youth celebrating a taxpayer-funded Spring Break celebration for four years. Public colleges would get fat on guaranteed money. Private colleges would suffer from government-funded competition. And we’d still be sending our youth to guaranteed indoctrination. Finally, college diplomas will be as common as participation trophies, and be worth as much.
- Guaranteed minimum income.[9] If someone knew that they’d have a certain minimum income per year, no matter what they did, then their lives would have stability. Paid for by the taxpayers, of course.
The “no free lunch” analysis says that this is merely a giant welfare program, an expansion of the dole. People will be paid even more and need do nothing to get it. It is also the starting point for implementing a “guaranteed maximum income,” otherwise known as “to each according to his needs.”[10]
- Socialism means plenty for all.[11] The cry is “let’s put the socialists in charge and show those capitalists how production is really done!” The “no free lunch” test notes that this claim is strictly advertising, never proven. We’re asked to accept “a pig in a poke,” promises of never-realized government efficiency, while surrendering our property and our liberty. This is a very high cost for obtaining a few “free” goods.
Once you “learn the lingo,” you hear phrases like “community organizing,” “responsible corporations,”[12] and “social justice” and become alert to activists nearby, even if they happen to be wearing three-piece suits.
Third: Discover those politicians or activists that would take away your freedom, and shun them. Many politicians, like Senator Bernie Sanders, are openly socialist. Others hide their socialism, or are unaware their support for it, but still are willing to support an expanded government at the right opportunity. The problem is to discover these bad guys before they get into high-level positions.
It is important to identify these bad guys early. Once they’re in power, they attract aides who think like them, or worse, and install bureaucrats that share their goals. They get to begin implementing their socialist ways before you become aware of their real politics.
- Get personal. Research their social media, their degrees, their school yearbooks, their friends. If they boast of their Marxist creds, or “like” socialist celebrities and organizations, then you know their thinking and what they’ll favor in the future.
- Get in their faces. Haunt their town halls and campaign meetings. Repeat their words back to them, that the attendees learn the candidate’s true leanings. Make the other attendees feel uncomfortable to be associated with the candidate and his, or her, views. Why shouldn’t they be shamed for promoting our eventual enslaving? Who knows? Maybe they’re unaware of what socialism really means, and are willing to change.
The fight you’re in – the socialists have always been fighting it, generally unopposed – is known for a long time. Yet they win only when we don’t defend ourselves. Margaret Thatcher, who led Great Britain out of a great deal of socialist bondage, has this to say about liberty.
“Perhaps I can summarise it best by saying this—Nations that have pursued equality, like the Iron Curtain countries, I think have finished up with neither equality, nor liberty. Nations, which like us, in the past have pursued liberty, as a fundamental objective, extending it to all, have finished up with liberty, human dignity, and far fewer inequalities than other people.”
“[L]iberty is fundamental. Liberty, human dignity, a higher standard of living is fundamental. And, steadily, I think, people are beginning to realise that you don’t have those things unless you have a pretty large private enterprise sector. Any Iron Curtain country has neither liberty, nor a very high standard of living. The two things go, economic and political freedom, go together. I’ve been right in the forefront of saying that, here, in the States, and it’s very interesting to me now, to see a number of articles from people who are taking up the same theme. They are disturbed that Socialism is reducing liberty and freedom for ordinary people, and that’s really what matters.”[13]
Article previously published in 2019 at Illinois Family Institute
Endnotes
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socialism (n.d.), Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, 2010, https://www.thefreedictionary.com/socialism ↑
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Morabito, Stella, A Vote for Socialism Is A Vote For State Run Slavery, The Federalist, October 29, 2018, http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/29/vote-socialism-vote-state-run-slavery/ ↑
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Straub, Steve, Samuel Adams, The Liberties of Our Country Are Worth Defending, The Federalist Papers, July 3, 2012, https://thefederalistpapers.org/founders/samuel-adams/samuel-adams-the-liberties-of-our-country-are-worth-defending ↑
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Reagan, Ronald, quote found online at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ronald_reagan_128358 ↑
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Bier, Jeryl, Obamacare Website No Longer Addresses ‘You Can Keep Your Doctor’, Weekly Standard, August 24, 2016, https://www.weeklystandard.com/jeryl-bier/obamacare-website-no-longer-addresses-you-can-keep-your-doctor ↑
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Malcolm, Candace, The Pitfalls of Single-Payer Health Care: Canada’s Cautionary Tale, National Review, April 13, 2017, https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/04/canada-single-payer-health-care-system-failures-cautionary-tale/ ↑
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Sanders, Senator Bernie, Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege, Huffington Post, July 9, 2009, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/health-care-is-a-right-no_b_212770.html ↑
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Norton, Vince, Why Free College is a Bad Idea, Norton|Norris Inc., March 16, 2018, https://nortonnorris.com/free-college-bad-idea/ ↑
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-income/california-city-fights-poverty-with-guaranteed-income-idUSKCN1J015D?mod=article_inline ↑
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Marx, Karl, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Chapter 1, 1875 ↑
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Pankhurst, Sylvia, Socialism, Workers’ Dreadnought, July 28, 1923, found online at https://www.marxists.org/archive/pankhurst-sylvia/1923/socialism.htm ↑
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Teivainen, Teivo, Milton Friedman’s Argument about Socialist Implications of Corporate Social Responsibility, March 9, 2013, https://teivo.net/2013/03/09/friedman/ ↑
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Thatcher, Margaret, TV Interview for Thames TV This Week, Margaret Thatcher Foundation, February 5, 1976, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102953 ↑