Soap Box

With the prominence and support Bernie Sanders achieved in the last presidential election cycle, and the fascination of so many of the young voters find in him and other socialist political hopefuls, the possibility of a socialist administration at some time in the future cannot be ignored.

As one who was around for the onslaught and the demise of the Cold War, and has seen every socialistic experiment that has been attempted for the last three quarters of a century fail miserably, leaving behind the residue of ruined economies and nations totally out of step and poorly prepared to reenter the world of commerce and progress, I despise socialism and all its implications and applications.

One has only to take a look at Venezuela, socialism’s latest victim, to see the disastrous results, a starving population and a country that should be thriving, in tatters.

When the Iron Curtain fell and Western businesses rushed to be among the first to take advantage of the new acceptance of capitalism McDonald’s set up shop in some of the former Iron Curtain countries and there was a mad dash by the populace to get the - by their standards - well-paying western type jobs.

Then the problems began.

Due to the work ethics, they had developed under the socialist system, where the amount of work you do or your production achievements neither punishes nor rewards you in the “one size fits all” atmosphere of the socialist workplace where the basic attitude is, I’ll make the same whether I work hard or sluff off.

The upshot was about a 300% turnover in the early days when the new workers would work a while and then sit down and read the newspaper or engage in some other non-productive activity and were basically stunned to learn that they would have to deliver a full day’s work for a full day's pay.

But such are the fruits of socialism, when incentives are taken away, ambition means next to nothing and your world becomes a gray hopeless place, where every aspect of your life is controlled by an all-powerful, central government, an endless treadmill of knee-deep bureaucratic mud, where your healthcare, your kid’s quality and degree of education, in fact, every aspect of your private and public life is decided by a bean counter sitting in an office somewhere with two rubber stamps, one for approved and one for rejected.

And you have no recourse, no appeal and, eventually, no rights.

The reason being, it is impossible to live under true socialism without a totalitarian government which eventually becomes so top heavy with agencies for the administration of this and bureaucracies for the enforcement of that, that it becomes so expensive to maintain that after the taxes are finally raised as high as they can possibly be and society is deprived of everything they can be deprived of, it collapses under its own weight.

Look at the Soviet Union that got so far down that they couldn’t even pay their military and look at the Peoples Republic of China, who, although still repressive governments, had to adopt some capitalistic measures to right their economic boats.

I fear that the young people of today are looking at the pie in the sky of Bernie Sanders promises of free everything and not at the ramifications of such a reality.

The word “free” when applied to government is an oxymoron because the government doesn’t have anything “free” to give to anybody, they can only obtain resources by taking it from the people and businesses who earn it, and when the burden becomes too heavy on the businesses they simply move out of the country and manufacture their goods offshore.

When the burden becomes too heavy on the affluent taxpayers they simply stop investing and the economy slows down, producing less taxes, necessitating raising the taxes on the dwindling number of taxpayers left to foot the bill.

And socialism creates its own voting base, by maintaining an unsustainable entitlement society who always votes for he who promises the most.

Socialism is a recipe for the worst kind of political disaster, a one-way street to third world status, capable of reducing a great nation into an also-ran in brief fashion.

Run from it, America.

It's poison.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

— Charlie Daniels

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