We’ve heard the expression (attributed to Margaret Thatcher) that eventually, socialists always run out of other people’s money.
What we don’t consider is what happens when socialists run out of things to socialize.
This appears to be the dilemma in which Hillary Clinton finds herself. She and her husband are the ultimate career politicians. They have become millionaires from acquiring power, then buying favors from businesses who feel compelled to be in the good graces of government, and then acquiring more power.
Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s main challenger so far, is the real deal. He’s an outright socialist, who says it’s now time to take it all the way — essentially, to simply nationalize everything, once and for all, since it all belongs to the people, anyway.
Since Hillary Clinton is the one with the far more realistic chance of actually becoming President, she has to consider: What next?
Government is now involved with virtually every major sector of the economy. It has the main say, if not the final say, in what health care patients may have and in what way doctors may provide it; in what the interest rate for private lenders will be; what the rules of the “marketplace” will be in buying a home, pursuing an education (primary, secondary or college), or buying an automobile.
Virtually no area of daily life goes untouched by government. OSHA, the FDA, the FCC, the FEC, the IRS, Fannie Mae, the NSA, the FAA, the EPA, the NRC, and countless others; they’re all involved. When things are unjust or inefficient, the private sector always gets the blame; whenever anything functions well, the government takes (and usually gets) all the credit. It’s the most lopsided, inaccurate and distorted racket in all of human history.
Granted, there is always more to regulate and nationalize or socialize. But in principle, we’re already there.
Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton on Monday took a giant step toward letting Democratic voters know she’s representing the progressive agenda, calling for tax increases and more regulation on Wall Street — while making a play for a liberal base that has been gravitating toward Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I know as much as anybody, the role Wall Street should play for main street,” said Clinton, who vowed, if elected, to “rein in excessive risks” and appoint regulators to “prosecute firms and individuals” who break the law. [foxnews.com 7/13/15]
Haven’t we had eight years of a progressive/democratic socialist administration who has received everything it wants? If so, then why are progressive leftists running for president — Clinton, Sanders — feeling the need to complain? What will it take to make these socialist and progressive-types happy?
It tells you something about progressivism and socialism. It’s the politics of complaining, and has to be — by its very nature.
There’s always something wrong. Whether it’s racism, homophobia, or some people having “too much” money compared to others, there’s always something else for a micromanaging, hyper-controlling if not all-powerful government to do.
Only a population as unthinking or mentally compliant as America seems to have become would let this glaring contradiction go without comment. Hillary Clinton gets away with it, as do Sanders, Obama and all the others who claim moral superiority by spearheading the progressive and socialist state.
It’s easy to see why progressive-socialist economies always collapse either into one-party dictatorships or “two-party” systems where each party merely takes turns at managing and expanding the redistributionist welfare state. If they faced real and principled opposition, defined as opposition who would stand for a decisive rollback, reversal and repeal of the socialist controls and subsidies, they wouldn’t know what to do.
All they can do is keep complaining, because complaining is what keeps them in business. Republicans (at least the leadership) are their willing straw men, people who claim to be in opposition yet who rarely stand in their way, and never, ever propose defunding or rolling anything back.
Granted, Hillary Clinton complains on a champagne and first class flight/presidential suite budget, while Bernie Sanders does so in the equivalent of steerage. But complaining is their game, and it’s all they will ever have.
In our personal lives, we’d see negative complainers for what they are. We’d show little respect for them, and we would not fall for their attempts to make rationalizations and excuses for all their failures. For some reason, when it comes to politics, we allow the negative, excuse-making complainers to carry the day and hold most of the power, most of the time. Why is this?
My theory: Politics is a branch of philosophy, closely connected to (and directly derived from) ethics. The dominant ethical code of our society, whether you come from the secular humanist progressive side of things, or the more traditional and religious side, is self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is what nearly everyone at least claims to be the ultimate moral standard of goodness and righteousness. Not producing, creating, thinking, innovating. While most people consider those things virtues, they don’t hold those things as the ultimate virtue; instead, they insist, “giving back” or “giving up” is what makes a person good.
Since it’s impossible and (I would argue) irrational to live a life of consistent and complete self-sacrifice, the resulting emotional alternative for most people is … a sense of guilt. This is where power-hungry politicians come on the scene. These politicians are morally cashing in on the false belief most of us hold that we are our brother’s keepers, and that any material or personal satisfaction we manage to find in life, we must feel guilty for, because there is always somebody worse off.
Without that faulty thinking in most of our subconscious minds and emotions (or conscious minds, in some cases), it would not be possible for Bernie Sanders to start his little and temporary socialist revolution, and it would not be possible for Hillary Clinton to become a multi-millionaire, power-grubbing mini-tyrant. They prey on what’s weak in too many of us, but more than that — what’s wrong with our thinking.
Hillary Clinton may seem tired, intellectually threadbare and nothing as innovative as people once perceived her husband, back when he first ran for office. But it’s important to understand: This is what socialism actually is. It’s old, it’s tired, it does not produce anything new. It tears down, it hinders, it hampers and in the extreme and ultimate case, it destroys.
Socialism did not give us iPhones, high speed computers, state of the art medicine, electricity, running water or anything at all valuable to human life; it’s always (and only) innovative, risk-taking individuals who deliver the goods. And those are the people that socialists like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are constantly ignoring or even outright bashing. Their system of socialism impairs and drives such innovation underground.
That’s why totally socialist societies always end in economic collapse and emotional despair. Capitalism and economic freedom permit such innovators to think, create and produce — yes, at a profit, and there should be no shame in that. Profiteers who make their living pleasing customers in the marketplace raise the standard of living for all. What do angry, whiny and complaining parasites like Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders ever contribute, beyond anger, envy and hatred of what’s actually good?
Complaining is not idealism. It’s not economic vitality. It’s not innovative, it’s not exciting, it’s certainly not “progressive” and it’s not anything new.
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