Progressives are true pros at renaming their failures. Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and their derivatives, all function with commonality.
What socialism, fascism, communism, and other such ideologies have in common is an assumption that some very wise people — like the ones advocating it — need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
But, but, fascism is a “far right” ideology the progressives will scream.
There is overwhelming evidence of the fascists’ consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left’s embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s. Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot — and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.
(progressives are also experts at shifting blame and making it stick)
The left’s vision is not only a vision of the world but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, “We the People…”
That is why the progressive left has, for more than a century, been trying to get the Constitution’s limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges’ new interpretations, based on notions of “a living Constitution” that will take decisions out of the hands of “We the People,” and transfer those decisions to our betters.
The American system of capitalism, even in its current adulterated state of cronyism, is better for the individual, better for liberty and freedom, and better than socialism, democratic socialism, and the other distasteful ism’s they inevitably morph into.
The socialists talk a good game. It all sounds so logical and practical and “caring.” They had an eloquent teacher in Karl Marx. But the lessons of history reiterate the old phrase “talk is cheap” while the price paid by millions under the heavy hand of socialism turned communism turned fascism was anything but.
Here’s to the hope that American’s will fix what’s broken in their current economic system by getting back to the free market principles that made it the most effective path for personal economic progress and wealth creation on the planet and reject the siren’s song being hummed by the socialists among them.
*Attribution: Some concepts and excerpts were taken directly from the writings of economist Thomas Sowell
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