NEWS & COMMENTARY Do you know socialism when you see it?



We heard one of the current crop of candidates say the other day that what he wants to do when he gets to Raleigh is to "create jobs." As he explained, the way he believes this should be done is to provide incentives for industry to re-locate from where they now are to his district, which he (rightly) assesses to be more in need of jobs than where those jobs are now located. He would confiscate funds from productive businesses and give that money to his "select" businesses he would entice to his district. Remember, he would do this with your money. Pure re-distribution of wealth and government control of private resources. In other words, unadulterated socialism.



This should be of no surprise to us. We have a city council and county commission that has been socializing our local economy for years, though they have not been very good at it, thank you Lord. The County Commission is an avowed socialistic hegemony of incompetents who really believe they know better how to use your money than you know how to use it. For example, rather than respect your right to use your tithes you decide to give to charitable causes they think they should force you to give them the money and they think they know which charities should and should not get your money. If you want a piece of the action all you have to do is form a "non-profit" organization and set about doing good. Of course, you will have to do some wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, but it doesn't take much. Just convince a couple of commissioners you can deliver a couple of hundred votes on election day and you set to go. You'll never even have to account for what you did with the money they "gave" you. Pure socialism.



The clue to the hegemony of these socialist politicians is that they see nothing morally or ethically wrong with taking money, by force of law, from productive citizens and giving it to their select cronies and dupes. They have lost sight of the fundamental tenet in a democratic republic that taxes should be spent only for the "general welfare" in that any appropriation should be for everyone, not just a select few. For example, it is the principle that government should not build a private road for the benefit of one, or a few, property owners but rather only for everyone to use. That is the essence of "public not private benefit."



So "socialism" is not something in far-away places. It exists right here in Beaufort County. And the reason it does, and grows faster than you family's income, is simply because We The People allow them to get away with it while we are out making a living and trying to have enough to pay our taxes after we pay the bills.



As we sat and listened to the politician explain his solution to the very real need of an economically depressed region, we concluded that he illustrates another reason socialism is taking over our nation many people do not know nor understand what it is when they see it. It is like a thief in the night. It does not break in, it sneaks in and usually as a result of us opening the door for him only to steal from us while our back is turned.



It's time we all learned what socialism is and how to identify it when we see it and teach it to our children and grandchildren, because it certainly is not being taught truthfully in our schools, colleges and universities.



A good place to start is by reading this piece by George Will: What might a socialist American government do?



This, one of the pleasures of being a conservative, is not for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28. She recently won the Democratic nomination -- effectively, election -- in a Bronx and Queens congressional district, running as a "democratic socialist." In response to her, progressives and conservatives are experiencing different excitements.



The left relishes the socialist label as a rejection of squishy centrism -- a naughty, daring rejection of timidity: Aux barricades, citoyens! The right enjoys a tingle of delicious fear: We old you that the alternative to us is the dark night of socialism.



At the risk of spoiling the fun -- the left's anticipation of the sunny uplands of social justice; the right's frisson of foreboding -- consider two questions: What is socialism? And what might a socialist American government do?



In its 19th-century infancy, socialist theory was at least admirable in its clarity: It meant state ownership of the means of production (including arable land), distribution and exchange. Until, of course, the state "withers away" (Friedrich Engels' phrase), when a classless, and hence harmonious, society can dispense with government.



After World War II, Britain's Labour Party diluted socialist doctrine to mean state ownership of the economy's "commanding heights" (Lenin's phrase from 1922) -- heavy industry (e.g., steel), mining, railroads, telecommunications, etc. Since then, in Britain and elsewhere, further dilution has produced socialism as comprehensive economic regulation by the administrative state (obviating the need for nationalization of economic sectors) and government energetically redistributing wealth. So, if America had a socialist government today, what would it be like?



Socialism favors the thorough permeation of economic life by "social" (aka political) considerations, so it embraces protectionism -- government telling consumers what they can buy, in what quantities and at what prices. (A socialist American government might even set quotas and prices for foreign washing machines.)



Socialism favors maximizing government's role supplementing, even largely supplanting, the market -- voluntary private transactions -- in the allocation of wealth by implementing redistributionist programs. (Today America's sky is dark with dollars flying hither and yon at government's direction: Transfer payments distribute 14 percent of GDP, two-thirds of the federal budget, up from a little more than one-quarter in 1960. In the half-century 1963-2013, transfer payments were the fastest-growing category of personal income. By 2010, American governments were transferring $2.2 trillion in government money, goods and services.)



Socialism favors vigorous government interventions in the allocation of capital, directing it to uses that far-sighted government knows, and the slow-witted market does not realize, constitute the wave of the future. So, an American socialist government might tell, say, Carrier Corp. and Harley-Davidson that the government knows better than they do where they should invest shareholders' assets.



Socialism requires -- actually, socialism is -- industrial policy, whereby government picks winners and losers in conformity with the government's vision of how the future ought to be rationally planned. What could go wrong? (Imagine, weirdly, a president practicing compassionate socialism by ordering his energy secretary to prop up yesterday's coal industry against the market menace of fracking -- cheap oil and natural gas.)



Socialism, which fancies itself applied social science, requires a bureaucracy of largely autonomous experts unconstrained by a marginalized -- ideally, a paralyzed -- Congress. So, an American socialist government would rule less by laws than by regulations written in administrative agencies staffed by experts insulated from meddling by elected legislators. (Utah Sen. Mike Lee's office displays two piles of paper. One, a few inches high, contains the laws Congress passed in a recent year. The other, about 8 feet tall, contains regulations churned out that year by the administrative state's agencies.)



Socialism favors vast scope for ad hoc executive actions unbound by constraining laws that stifle executive nimbleness and creativity. (Imagine an aggrieved president telling, say, Harley-Davidson: "I've" -- first-person singular pronoun -- "done so much for you.")



Today's American socialists say that our government has become the handmaiden of rapacious factions and entrenched elites, and that there should be much more government. They are half-right. To be fair, they also say that after America gets "on the right side of history" (an updated version of after "the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"), government will be truly disinterested, manipulated by no rent-seeking factions, serving only justice. That is, government will be altogether different than it is, or ever has been. Seriously.



We heard one of the current crop of candidates say the other day that what he wants to do when he gets to Raleigh is to "create jobs." As he explained, the way he believes this should be done is to provide incentives for industry to re-locate from where they now are to his district, which he (rightly) assesses to be more in need of jobs than where those jobs are now located. He would confiscate funds from productive businesses and give that money to his "select" businesses he would entice to his district. Remember, he would do this with your money. Pure re-distribution of wealth and government control of private resources. In other words, unadulterated socialism.This should be of no surprise to us. We have a city council and county commission that has been socializing our local economy for years, though they have not been very good at it, thank you Lord. The County Commission is an avowed socialistic hegemony of incompetents who really believe they know better how to use your money than you know how to use it. For example, rather than respect your right to use your tithes you decide to give to charitable causes they think they should force you to give them the money and they think they know which charities should and should not get your money. If you want a piece of the action all you have to do is form a "non-profit" organization and set about doing good. Of course, you will have to do some wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, but it doesn't take much. Just convince a couple of commissioners you can deliver a couple of hundred votes on election day and you set to go. You'll never even have to account for what you did with the money they "gave" you. Pure socialism.The clue to the hegemony of these socialist politicians is that they see nothing morally or ethically wrong with taking money, by force of law, from productive citizens and giving it to their select cronies and dupes. They have lost sight of the fundamental tenet in a democratic republic that taxes should be spent only for the "general welfare" in that any appropriation should be for everyone, not just a select few. For example, it is the principle that government should not build a private road for the benefit of one, or a few, property owners but rather only for everyone to use. That is the essence of "public not private benefit."So "socialism" is not something in far-away places. It exists right here in Beaufort County. And the reason it does, and grows faster than you family's income, is simply because We The People allow them to get away with it while we are out making a living and trying to have enough to pay our taxes after we pay the bills.As we sat and listened to the politician explain his solution to the very real need of an economically depressed region, we concluded that he illustrates another reason socialism is taking over our nation many people do not know nor understand what it is when they see it. It is like a thief in the night. It does not break in, it sneaks in and usually as a result of us opening the door for him only to steal from us while our back is turned.It's time we all learned what socialism is and how to identify it when we see it and teach it to our children and grandchildren, because it certainly is not being taught truthfully in our schools, colleges and universities.A good place to start is by reading this piece by George Will: Click here to go to the original source.

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