The Democratic Party seems to be moving further and further in the direction of endorsing government provided everything.

Leading Democrats now support platforms that include: universal healthcare, free colleges, cancellation of all student debt (over $1 trillion), universal job guarantees with paid child care, housing as a right, and on and on. And, they – to include Democrats in the House and Senate – are calling for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as they’re angry at ICE for enforcing laws passed, well, by the House and Senate. Instead, they want open borders in the US, as in, everyone can come and go as they wish.

Call it what you will, this platform turns the nation into a de facto socialist state.

I mentioned this to some associates a short while ago and their response was “so what?” After all, we already have huge government programs, but they aren’t complete. Why not just expand them some more, include everyone and everything, and get on with it? Cancel some debts; expand the number of people covered in each program, etc. It’s just a few more trillion. In the grand scheme of things, what’s the difference? And it will mean that some folks who need health care, or housing or a job will finally be taken care of.

There are several “so whats” here. The most important is that it doesn’t work.

In fact, considering this Democratic Party platform, the planks they left out are:

Bigger government, more power in the hands of Washington, more taxes, larger deficits – and poorer government services.

And in the end it would leave the US economy far weaker, and able to do far less for its people than it’s now doing.

Then why have some rank and file Democrats come down on the side of socialism? Why are senior members, candidates and elected officials, joining them? Partly, we have a generation that’s the product of education system which allowed many millenials to reach adulthood with a less than adequate grasp of history, civics, or economics. They’ve been allowed to believe that just because something sounds good in a lecture hall, because it appears to work on a blackboard, that it’s a “good” idea, even when history and current events – of which many are ignorant – demonstrate otherwise.

Consider some recent history:

The USSR didn’t “magically” fall apart, it fell apart because its political-economic system was incapable of sustaining itself.

Ditto the Warsaw Pact.

Venezuela, with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, a potentially robust agricultural and maritime industry and a smart, vibrant population, is suffering through 40,000% (yes, 40 thousand percent) inflation; as of last week a cup of coffee cost several million bolivars.

This isn’t “bad luck,” this is the result of multiple government programs to institute centralized government controls and the full spectrum of socialist programs across Venezuela. Now, Venezuela’s cupboards are bare, 90% of the population lives in poverty and the average adult has lost 25 pounds in the last year. One projection says unemployment will reach 30% by year’s end.

That’s socialism at work.

That’s really what these new Democratic party candidates are promoting; this is repackaged socialism for an uninformed electorate. Perhaps some of them believe that these programs will work. Somehow.
They’re wrong.
In theend, there are really three kinds of socialists: those who are simply using socialism as a tool, a sales pitch, to get elected and grasp power; those who see socialism as a means to get a free lunch at someone else’s expense; and finally, those who honestly think, despite all the sad proofs to the contrary, that socialism will work; that this vast population will happily work hard for others, pay into government coffers a larger and larger share of their earnings, will sacrifice their time and labor, and the well-being of their own families, for strangers, all managed by government “experts.”
In fact, if elected, only those hungry for power will benefit from socialism; that’s the real lesson of history.
Tennessee Williams’ horribly tragic Blanche Dubois seemed to sum up the delusion when she offered that: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
Of course, that didn’t work out too well for Blanche.
Which leaves us with this one thought: it’s time for rank and file democrats to take back their party. Begin this fall by voting against the socialists among you, before they destroy your party and your nation.

Copyright 2018 Arrias
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