Even NPR Basically Admits: Socialism Doesn’t Mean Equality; It Means Worthless Promises for the Poor and Privileges for the Ruling Elite

Socialism = enforced inequality.

After more than a decade of socialist rule under Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelans are starving to death.  NPR reports that they also can’t afford cars:

. . . buying a new car is out of the question for most Venezuelans.

. . . Protests against Maduro’s government have left almost 30 people dead in recent weeks as the economic situation there continues to worsen. Inflation has surged, making even basic goods too expensive for many workers. . . .

Why Not Try Freedom?

FDR Repudiated the Welfare State: ‘a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit’

I had no idea that FDR had ever said anything like this.  He sounds like Mark Steyn himself, who first persuaded me that forced redistribution is not only bad for the “makers”, but also for the “takers”—that is, the welfare state is not only bad economics, but more importantly, it also tends to infantilize its recipients; it is corrosive of the very human spirit.

Don’t take my word for it; read FDR’s words for yourself.  Here they are, in context:

‘You Didn’t Get There on Your Own’

In the course of reflecting on President Obama’s speech at the convention last week, Yuval Levin reflects on the modern American left more generally:

. . . he persisted in the dominant trope of this convention—and, it seems, of contemporary progressive thought: the jump from the sheer fact of human interdependence to a defense of every federal program in precisely its current form. It’s the liberal welfare state or the law of the jungle, and no other alternative is imaginable. This mental gesture—which simultaneously offers an excuse for ignoring the imminent collapse of the liberal welfare state and for ignoring what conservatives are actually saying and offering—really deserves to be thought through. It is a fascinating indicator of the contemporary Left’s intellectual exhaustion.

Julia

Everyone is talking about this “slideshow” put out by Barackobama.com last week.  It depicts the life of Julia (“who has no face”), a hypothetical woman who is dependent on the government at every stage of life, thanks to the policies of President Obama.  Except that’s presented as a good thing.  The slideshow is a cornucopia of half-truths, question begging, and born-yesterday utopianism.

As an antidote, the Heritage Foundation offers an alternative slideshow explaining why conservative reforms would be better, and exposing the hollowness of some of Barackobama’s arguments.  It doesn’t address everything, either—and I’d prefer much less government than either of them considers an option right now—but it’s an improvement.

But They Leave a Bad Taste in Your Mouth

Mark Steyn, as usual, is must-read material:

Commissar Sebelius isn’t the only one interested in “striking the appropriate balance” between individual liberty and state compulsion. Everyone talks like that these days. For Canada’s Chief Censor, Jennifer Lynch, freedom of expression is just one menu item in the great all-you-can-eat salad bar of rights, so don’t be surprised if we’re occasionally out of stock. Instead, why not try one of our tasty nutritious rights du jour?

Why the Welfare State Seems like a Good Idea; Trump; Roosevelt; Gingrich

Robert Tracinski explains a structural problem with (and leading to) Obamacare, and the welfare state generally:

. . . when the government bestows its largess, we tend [to] see only the benefits coming down from above: there are press releases and newspaper articles and a lady writes an op-ed in the LA Times. What we don’t see is where that money came from and who it came from, and what else we might have done with that money.  

What’s Wrong with the Welfare State

Eternity Matters discusses (with illustrations) why the welfare state is bad, not just in any particular execution of the idea, but intrinsically.  It’s short; read it—if not to believe and understand the world better, then at least to understand conservatives’ point of view a little bit better.

Can We?

[picapp align=”right” wrap=”true” link=”term=franklin&iid=214246″ src=”http://view.picapp.com/pictures.photo/image/214246/hundred-dollar-bill/hundred-dollar-bill.jpg?size=500&imageId=214246″ width=”234″ height=”156″ /]

The story of America in the twentieth century was the story of the growth of government.  It has accelerated and decelerated, and even retreated at times, but taken together, it looks almost inexorable—it grows and grows, slowly choking out freedom and economic activity. 

Case Closed

As someone who has more than once wondered what is true and whether (and with how much certainty) it is even possible to know, I was interested to learn that three factual claims I had heard Mark Steyn and other commentators make in the past have now been confirmed by longtime liberal bastion The New York Times and more-or-less liberal “newsmagazine” Time:

1 —

Makes a Most Careful Count

(Summary for if you don’t have time to read this whole post:  I am angry but you should still fill out your Census form.)

You may have heard the recent ads on the radio or elsewhere trying to persuade you to fill out the 2010 Census form.  The one I heard most often said something like (coudn’t find a transcript online, going from memory here), “Imagine that our town has a hundred children.  We need about five teachers to teach them and two school buses to pick them up for school.  But what if our town grows and now we have hundreds of children?  Without the Census, we wouldn’t know how much we’ve grown.