Socialism really is a bad idea

As I noted last week, whenever a critic of Democrat policies uses the term "socialism," Democrats bristle. But if a policy or measure gives ownership of some business or industry to the government, (e.g., General Motors), socialism being defined as government ownership of the means of production, then it is entirely fair to call it socialistic. Not that this offends or renders defensive everyone on the left. Despite the fact that Democrats last year defended "spread the wealth" schemes - - without acknowledging their socialist pedigree - - last spring liberal columnist Evan Thomas of Newsweek devoted a cover article to proving that socialism is not such a bad thing even as he conceded that that is what the Obama Administration stands for.

Liberals know that Americans are not supportive of socialism in spite of their interventionist policy changes over the last 76 years, beginning with the New Deal, which brought massive government controls, intervention and regulation with the National Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Social Security Act; supplemented by the Great Society’s War on Poverty, Medicare and Medicaid.

The liberal strategy largely has been to advance in increments, their big innovations depending upon massive electoral victories in 1932 and 1964. They have been quite successful in getting the camel’s nose under the tent for years, without acknowledging the ultimate goal of their legislation.

One wishes that the American people as a whole could discern more readily that socialism by degrees is still socialism, even if we must be grateful to the American Constitution for making it difficult for American liberals to go as far as European social democrats.

The question must be posed: what’s wrong with socialism? Isn’t it right that the people have protection against wealthy corporations that have unlimited power to hire and fire thousands of people and earn unconscionable profits at the expense of the public? If the foregoing were an accurate description of the American marketplace, I might support socialism too. But it is not.

In the past I have written about the uncoerced trading relationship that exists between businessmen and their customers, and indeed their employees. Unlike the peasants of old in Europe, or millions of unfortunate people in unfree countries around the world today, no one in America  is forced to work for anyone in business or to fork over money to them. Despite government intervention that has distorted the marketplace, there is more "upward mobility" among Americans than any other people in the world.

Much of what rightly offends Americans is actually a product of government intervention. Why did three companies dominate the automobile business for so many years? The oligopoly of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford was necessary to pay the inflated wages and benefits of their employees who had the advantage of being represented by a powerful union that could negotiate contracts for the entire industry, thanks to the National Labor Relations Act of 1937. The Obama Administration is attempting to perpetuate that advantage through its majority control of GM.

Why do utility companies enjoy local or regional monopolies and have their rates set by a government agency? Where’s the competition in that? Why were there so few broadcasting networks which were (and are) practically mirror images of each other? Government regulation of these industries has restricted competition.

The real driving force of socialism is hatred of the marketplace which, governed by the profit motive, is alleged to be nothing more than greed. Members of Congress who enabled the reckless lending of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, thereby causing an unprecedented credit crisis, believe that such government-sponsored entities (GSEs) are morally superior to private corporations. That is why they are trying to take advantage of the recession, ignoring GSEs’ miserable performance.

The truth is, major government programs, such as social security, medicare, medicaid, stimulus packages and so on either do not pay for themselves or are facing bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Democrats think it is better for their cronies in GSEs to pull down huge salaries than for corporate executives to do so.

Socialism assumes that the amount of goods and services available is always limited, overlooking America’s incredible increase in individual wealth. The object of socialism is to establish "equity," but actually punishes people for being successful and rewards the unsuccessful. Every government program depends on taxing those who have earned their wealth in the marketplace and redistributing it to others, especially the well connected in politics and government. The key element is coercion, which betrays the lack of charity by that very fact.

Waak owes us an apology

Now that the vandalism at Colorado Dem headquarters is known to come from one of her own, albeit not "a good Democrat" as she lamely puts it, party chairman Pat Waak owes an apology to Republicans, independents, and everyone else opposed to the government medical takeover -- whom she slurred yesterday in reflexively blaming the attack on "an effort on the other side to stir up hate." No awards for bulldog-tough journalism will go to Jessica Fender of the Denver Post for writing today that Waak "tempered her statement" from Tuesday after the perp's political ties came to light. Waak 2.0, claiming that "what I've been saying is there is a lot of rhetoric out there from both sides of the spectrum," isn't a tempering, it's a brazen reversal. Too bad the Post news pages let Chairman Pat get away with it, abetted by Mike Littwin's jokey dismissal of the whole thing in the opinion columns.

It reminds me of the pass given President Obama by most of the media when he claimed his appraisal of Cambridge cop James Crowley was never less than stellar, a couple of days after telling the nation Crowley had "acted stupidly." Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry -- unless you are Obama on a world tour, apologizing for 200 years of American greatness.

The media have their story line, which in the case of this faux attack on Dem HQ was dangerous militia tendencies among all those unready to socialize one-sixth of the US economy in a few summer weeks, and even when facts get in the way, they don't readily respond.

The preset story line was illustrated by Solomon Banda's AP story on Tuesday, eagerly connecting the dots from smashed windows in Denver to Obama opponents "carrying guns" in Arizona and New Hampshire, hecklers of a congressman making "veiled threats" in Ohio, and health care protesters across the country creating "angry outbursts."

But now that bike bandit Maurice Schwenkler is in custody and unmasked (literally) for the non-good Democrat that he is, maybe Banda, Littwin, and Fender will help me corner Pat Waak and shame her into the apology rightfully owed.

Democrats socialistic? Of course they are

The greatest single weapon in the Democratic Party’s arsenal has been its ability to confuse the voters. Even though it has practically defined itself since the 1930s as the party of Big Government, with high taxes and spending, massive regulation and intervention, and continual encroachment on private property, its leaders and spokesmen have vehemently denied that their policies amount to socialism. But why? Is socialism such a bad thing? Maybe not if you advocate socialistic policies, but maybe so if calling something by its right name will antagonize the voters and lose their support. That’s been the predicament of the Democrats as they consistently seek to solve real or imaginary problems with government programs and income redistribution, rather than abiding by the Constitution’s protections for free trade and commerce.

There’s no point in trying to pin the socialistic tail on the Democratic donkey when the donkey disowns it. Better to define our terms and decide the question based on the relevant principles and salient facts, rather than accusations or denials.

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines socialism as follows: 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state 

Governmental ownership of production and distribution of goods rather than private property, then, is the essence of socialism. This contrasts with the limited government and largely unfettered trade and commerce by individuals and corporations that have distinguished the United States of America.

How then do we understand the Obama Administration’s takeover of banks and other financial institutions, automobile companies and the current proposal to take over the health insurance industry? Plainly, these are all socialistic measures, not just because Republicans say so but because they are examples of what socialism is.

In Europe, where nationalized health care has long been in effect, along with nationalized heavy industry and mining, socialism is more "advanced" than in the United States. When President Obama says that he wants to "transform" America, following the European model is what he has in mind.

Socialists here and in Europe are not enemies of government by the people, or at least they have no intention of replacing it with any sort of dictatorship. During the many decades that they have promoted socialism, they have been at great pains to distinguish themselves from Marxists, who have advocated violent overthrow of so-called "bourgeois" (middle class) democracies and replacement by the "dictatorship of the proletariat."

The difference has turned on very different evaluations of modern democratic government. The Marxists believe that western democracies are a sham, allegedly dominated by the evil capitalists who manipulate the people by money and influence. These corporate chieftains will not, Marxists say, willingly give up their rule, so the only way to change things is through violent revolution.

Marxists have as much scorn for democratic socialists as they do capitalists for their supposedly naive belief that peaceful change is possible, if not their covert cooperation with the enemies of the people. But the democratic socialists believe that, through persuasion and effective politics, the majority can be brought around to socialism without violent revolution, and they now have several decades of success here and in other Western countries to prove it.

However, in spite of two great waves of socialism in America via the New Deal (NRA, AAA, social security) and the Great Society (war on poverty, medicare, racial quotas), and the wave now being stirred up by the Obama Administration, a majority of Americans still prefer limited government and free trade and commerce. If there is one overriding reason for this, I would maintain it is their firm belief that they retain the capacity to govern themselves.

That is why, according to recent public opinion polls, a.majority now views unfavorably the President they elected last fall. They have been shown by their harsh, bitter experience with the first few months of the new administration that the Democrats are not the political party of the little guy but of Big Government.

This emerging majority for a restoration of fundamental American principles of government may or may not be put off by Democratic denials of the party’s commitment to socialism, but they know that party stands for policies that threaten their health care, their contracts and their private property. Truly, socialism is the right name for those policies.

Wheels coming off Obama Express

(Nantucket) If the recession wasn’t enough, the summer’s unprecedented bad weather has added to this island's woes. Also experiencing very heavy weather these days is the Democratic Party and it looks like getting worse for them before it gets better. The roots of Democratic disarray lie in one very great success and one huge strategic mistake. Oddly the same man bears a principal responsibility for both.

Inside the Beltway there is wide consensus that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a really smart guy and that more than any one person he is the principal architect of Democratic Party strategy. While still an Illinois Congressman he gained great acclaim as the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Emanuel shrewdly grasped that if Democrats were to capture control of Congress they couldn’t run liberals everywhere. Accordingly he recruited an excellent cadre of moderately conservative candidates to run in Republican leaning districts and got George Soros and others to insure that they were very well funded.

The result-aided greatly by an unpopular war and a stumbling economy- was that in 2006 and 2008 dozens of “safe” Republican seats fell to the Democrats who gained control of Congress for the first time in twelve years.

Of this group of newly minted Democratic congressmen- currently numbering 52- many (22) but not most were from the South. California and Pennsylvania had the largest representation. Collectively they are known as the now famous “Blue Dogs”.

Once elected it was assumed that the presumptively grateful Blue Dogs could easily be transformed into Lap Dogs for Nancy Pelosi. On routine votes this proved true but on high visibility votes- issues their home folks really cared about-complications arose.

The first big test was the “Stimulus” vote. Not too subtly threatened by party “whips” most (40) Blue Dogs toed the line and the bill passed comfortably. However as the ineffectiveness of the Stimulus became more evident those 40 had a lot of trouble back home explaining their vote for a 1300 page pork laden bill they hadn’t even read.

The second big test was the infamous “Cap and Trade(Tax)” bill where most Blue Dogs were among the 44 Democrats who defied the party’s left-wing leadership and voted No. Though the bill passed by a razor thin 7 vote margin it was such a mess- riddled with exceptions, exemptions, payoffs, and obfuscations- that the Senate refused to even take it up, thus leaving over 200 Democrats to answer for an unpopular vote that the “Global Warming” ideologues Pelosi and Obama never should have demanded.

All of this set the stage for a full scale Blue Dog revolt in response to the Pelosi/ Obama insistence on passing health care “reform” before the August recess. Having had their arms twisted on the Stimulus, then broken on the tax raising/economy killing Cap and Trade votes, the Blue dogs –most of them elected by very narrow margins- saw their approval numbers back home falling even faster than Obama’s.

Thus faced with the prospect of electoral extinction, the Blue Dogs en masse effectively “crossed the aisle” to join Republicans and bring health care reform (a.k.a. Government seizure of one sixth of the U.S. economy) to a screeching halt.

So, in a supreme irony this historic break-up of the Democratic House majority was triggered by the very same individuals who made that majority possible.

All this happened because Emanuel made a huge strategic mistake in acting on his famous aphorism that “a crisis is too good a thing to waste”. Believing that they could hype and exploit fears about the economic crisis (“Another Great Depression!) and the soaring early popularity of Obama in a way that would allow swiftly ramming through the most radical and expensive legislative agenda in history without people or even Congressmen understanding that they had given birth to a Socialist America, Emanuel and his fellow Democrats audaciously gambled that a strategy of stealth, speed, and deception could in less than a year deliver our country into that “Brave New World” that generations of liberals have yearned for.

Their great gamble has been lost. The American people have won. Perilous days yet remain ahead, but now a new kind of “Hope and Change” comes into view. Let Freedom Ring!

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post.

Constitution will survive Dems’ assaults

Last fall I shared in the disappointment of 47 percent of the voters who did not cast their ballots for Barack Obama and feared his stated intention of "transforming" America into a socialist regime. With Democrats in firm control of both houses of Congress, this seemed a likely as well as a fearful prospect. But things are looking up. This week Obama Administration officials indicated that they may abandon the so-called "public option" feature of their health care insurance proposal because of widespread and intense public opposition. This demonstrates that public opinion still counts for a great deal in our republican form of government and, indeed, is capable of doing some "transforming" of its own - - in this case, thwarting socialized health care.

Without forgetting for a moment that Obama and his fellow Democrats still control all three elective branches of the federal government, we know now that, although they can fool some of the people all of the time and even all the people some of the time, they evidently cannot fool all the people all of the time.

It is critical that we understand the explanation for this serious blow to the Obama Administration’s plans for the nation. Many Americans of both parties, and independents, and even some who have had no previous involvement in politics, were outraged that the terms and conditions of nationalized health care were so severe.

This reaction was not because of alleged "lies" by Republicans and "special interests" (doctors, hospitals, drug and insurance companies) that the government would in due course come to dominate the field and that the unprecedented costs would be covered with higher taxes and rationing, doubtless at the expense of those deemed unworthy of "extraordinary" care. That’s all true.

Way back when, we were admonished to be concerned about approximately 40 million people who lacked health insurance, but that was soon overwhelmed by the hard Democrat push for universal coverage to replace the allegedly capricious decision making of the "evil" health insurance firms.

Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, millions of Americans have health plans they are satisfied with. Whatever complaints they may have, they look far less favorably upon a one-size-fits-all system which, if Canada and the United Kingdom are instructive, will force people to wait for months for appointments while unsocialized dogs and cats can get theirs with veterinarians far sooner!

This is a time to be grateful for our free commerce which enables health care providers and consumers to agree to plans and payments which are mutually beneficial. Those plans are valuable properties - - private properties - - which belong to individuals and are not subject to confiscation by the government for the sake of "spreading the wealth around."

Thus, private property, the foundation of our free and profitable trade and commerce, has both taken care of the health of millions and enabled them to "speak truth to power." Americans are not mere ciphers in a soulless administrative state but self governing persons.

This is precisely what the founders of modern republican government intended with equal rights under law and immense opportunities for energetic and capable citizens to rise above mediocrity and follow their dreams.

Those same people are free to vote for representatives of their own choosing, knowing that they have the power to vote out of office any miscreants who would take away their right to govern themselves.

It is not surprising that so many people taking part in politics for possibly the first time in their lives should exhibit less polished arts of speaking and writing than those who have practiced them for many years. I remember vividly my own entry during my college years, impatient for change and wanting to be heard. Since then I have seen others go through the same sort of initiation. Experience is a great teacher and the latest entrants will learn the lessons of moderation that others have before them.

Part of that political education consists in taking the long view of things. All victories are temporary, until the next challenge comes along. However appealing the idea of term limits is, our nation needs a continual supply of citizens not only participating actively in politics but seeking public office if they have virtues to contribute to the public good.

One hopes that current as well as future political leaders will appreciate the advantages of the present fortuitous circumstances and bring more and more public-spirited people into legislative and executive campaigns and governing so that we can continue to keep the socialist wolf at bay.