America and Socialism
The following is from JACOBIN, 7-31-2019 On Party Politics and Liberalism. Titled: Why Nancy Pelosi Hates the Squad.
After the conflict over DHS funding boiled over, Pelosi tried to diffuse the matter by comparing the disagreement to a family spat. She told the press, “in a family you have your differences but you’re still a family . . . I don’t think we have that many differences.” But this sunny spin on the conflict misses what lies at its root.
A significantly smaller group of Democrats is led by “the Squad” (Ocasio-Cortez [D-NY], Ayanna Pressley [D-MA], Ilhan Omar [D-MN], and Rashida Tlaib [D-MI]), who won their congressional races by contrasting themselves to the plodding centrism of the Party’s leadership. These are mostly younger and new elected officials who reject the forty-year strategy of the Democratic Party to prioritize business development and growth through tax cuts and demonizing poor and working-class people. Instead, a small number of these new politicians believe the future of the party is retooling the use of government through the pursuit of a big spending agenda organized around the social provision of health care, education, housing, and green jobs.
Why do four freshmen congressional leaders continually make the news? I have no idea. They push Socialism. The countries that have a socialist party serving as the governing party are: Armenia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Iceland, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Serbia and Venezuela. I do not think our country would change places with any of those countries.
We need to ask ourselves; do we want our government owning everything as a collective? Imagine if our government ran the Walmart stores. If they did, we would probably be another 20 trillion dollars in debt. Can you think of one thing our government does well? I am sure there are many, but it is hard to come up with them off the top of your head. On the other hand, when you think of private enterprise it is not hard to come up with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Epic, and many other privately-owned companies who employ tens of thousands. Could our government do as well? I think it unlikely.
The Democrats and Republicans would be in a constant fight. The Democrats would want everyone to have a raise and work shorter hours. Do we want everyone getting the same salary regardless of how much they work? That is what our welfare system is now. I am simplifying socialism and some of the socialistic countries such as the Scandinavian countries seem to have worked the economics out well.
From the Startup comes the following: One of the most glaring issues for misrepresenting Socialist policies is that it ignores the benefits we gain from them, not just individually, but collectively as a society. Many people may not realize this, but things such as the police, fire departments, the military, public schools, the post office, etc. are all Socialist policies by default. All of these respective institutions are funded by taxes collected from the population. These taxes are then redistributed to the benefit of all by funding these institutions that have a very observable benefit to us all. So, while Conservatives may be proud of their military, it is ironically one of the most glaring examples of Socialistic ideas that we have in this country.
Does the wealth presently accumulated by a few in this country serve our country better in the hands of a few or would redistribution of this wealth help our country improve? Would we ever have had the Googles, Microsofts, Apples, Epics, and Walmarts if we operated under Socialism? How come none of these Socialist countries boast of our success? Can we wipe this all away with socialism? Would we ever have a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which donates hundreds of millions of dollars to helping the world? Just because you are wealthy does not mean you stop serving humanity. Think it over America.
God bless America and God bless you all from the Maverick Doctor,
Rick R. Redalen, M.D.
Pick up a copy of my book “God’s Tiniest Angel and the Last Unicorn,” available on Amazon.
Dr. Rick is a retired American physician, entrepreneur and philanthropist who has done mission work around the country and around the world. He is now on a mission to improve healthcare in America.
Visit maverickdoctor.com or email him at rickr@maverickdoctor.com.