Tag: socialism

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Johnny Can Be Indoctrinated

Government schools in Frederick County, Maryland, deem the third grade the appropriate time to push a political agenda. Cindy Rose found this out when her daughter came down with the flu and read a textbook, Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond, at home.

Mrs. Rose calls the book “socialistic.”

Judge for yourself. On page 104, it reads: “Child care is important, but it is not free for most people in the United States. Families have to pay for child care. It can be very expensive. In some countries, child care is a public service. For example, in Denmark and Vietnam, child care is free or costs very little. This makes it easier for parents to work. Do you think child care should be a public service in your community?”

Rose took her complaint to the school board, which suggested that the book’s slant might be balanced by other materials — but could point to no evidence it was being balanced. Those defending the textbook insist that it teaches critical thinking, but as one school board member asked, “Do you get much pushback from an 8 or 9‑year old?”

Only if the book explained marginal utility and the Thomas Theorem would I put much stock in the “critical thinking” excuse.

“The entire slant of the book,” Cindy Rose argues, “is … the idea of government running your life.”

Thankfully, my wife homeschools our children. I can tell you that’s not one of the lessons.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Demolition Time!

The socialist party of Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, expects to lose seats in the next election. El Presidente pled with voters to not forsake the “revolution.” He dubbed the opposition — which last time around boycotted the elections — “Operation Demolition.”

This is supposed to be a bad thing?

Surely what we hope for in an opposition party, in South America or El Norte, is, in everything but the incendiary, literal sense, demolition.

Of expansive, intrusive, know-​it-​all government.

“Big” and “intrusive” are just two words that characterize what the GOP brought to America during its heyday. Others? Massive spending, a new medical “entitlement,” growing public debt, and — as a sort of crackpot coda — bailouts for rich people. 

Same for united government under the Democrats: More uncontrolled spending, an even more massively expensive medical “entitlement,” ballooning public debt — and, as a variation on a theme — more bailouts yet.

Massive government with no limits. But we’re told we can’t call it socialism!

Reports from Venezuela say the opposition has shifted from hatred of Hugo to issues such as rising crime and cost of living. In America, Tea Party folks have gained most ground when they attack spendthrift and socialistic policies rather than demonizing President Obama.

In both cases, ordinary people’s everyday concerns — taxes, debt, inflation, thuggery, and all the other things that go along with socialist-​leaning policies — trump the cult/​anti-​cult of personality as well as political theory, expressed by this ism or that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly free trade & free markets too much government

The Alternative to the Public Option

The congressional “progressive” caucus still wants to impose a public health insurance option, allegedly to “reduce the deficit.”

According to caucus kingpin Raul Grijalva, deficit hawks are “hypocrites” for predicting that government spending would balloon were a public option imposed. Their “excuse … that it was going to be too expensive is phony,” according to Congressman Grijalva.

The progressives’ notion seems to be that accelerating the pell-​mell government takeover of the medical delivery industry is the very best thing one could do to reduce the deficit.

If that’s the case, then why not also “reduce the deficit” with respect to other sectors of the economy in which government spends any money at all — that is, in any economic sector — by launching a government takeover that eventually swamps private markets altogether? 

By “progressive” logic, communizing the whole economy must be the best way to foster fiscal sobriety in DC. 

Absurd, I know.

Perhaps Grijalva’s deceived by his franking privilege. The public option for postal delivery works so well. For him. For the rest of us, we have to pay the billions the USPS loses every year.

The solution to the USPS’s constant, persistent failure is not to regulate and nationalize Fed-​Ex and UPS and every other alternative. 

Real progress requires the opposite of Grijalva’s “progressivism”: Pry government out of both health care and postal delivery. This is not a radical idea. It is only … well …

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

Prisoners of Conscience

The crusade against political dissent under Venezuelan socialism rages on. The latest victim of President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is former presidential candidate Oswaldo Ålvarez Paz. In March, Paz contended that Venezuelan officials had ties with drug traffickers and terrorists. For articulating this conclusion he is charged with “conspiracy” and “spreading false information.”

The president of the Human Rights Foundation, Thor Halvorssen, notes: “Ålvarez Paz said Venezuela was ruled by a ‘totalitarian regime.’ The Chávez government disagreed so strongly with this that they proved him right by arresting him and keeping him imprisoned.”

Guillermo Zuloaga, who owns the independent television network Globovisión, on which Paz uttered his opinion, was also arrested recently for saying things “offensive” to Chávez. 

Touchy, touchy, El Presidente.

“If the Venezuelan government can imprison a former presidential candidate and the head of the country’s only independent TV network because their opinions ‘offended’ the president,” asks Javier El-​Hage, HRF’s general counsel, “then what options are left for a college student who wants to protest against the government, or an independent journalist wanting to write a critical investigation?”

The Human Rights Foundation is one of many organizations rebuking Chávez’s conduct and calling for the release of persons arrested for what has been called the “crime of opinion.” They will have earned a large share of the credit if Chávez is ever forced to change course — or Venezuela manages to change course by getting rid of Chávez. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
too much government

Impossible Dream, Real Nightmare

Over at Amazon​.com there’s a discussion of Oscar Wilde’s essay “The Soul of Man Under Socialism.”

Some visitors decry the horrors of socialism enabled by such wishful thinking. Others say, “Hey, be fair! The calamitous ‘socialist’ regimes of the 20th century aren’t what Wilde was talking about!”

But not many volunteer for Wilde’s “voluntary” socialism. To impose such utopian dreams society-​wide can only be done by force.

If an unrepentant socialist admits the track record, he must insist that his own ideas of perfect, magically blissful equality have been ignored or misappropriated. What he proposes is the socialism in which the incentives and demands of human life in society have disappeared, in which men and women are disembodied spirits, in which wishes are all-​powerful fairy dust.

In the real world, socialism quickly devolves into the looting of the better-​off and transferring a portion of said loot to the lesser-​off — at the point of a gun. The more consistently socialists work to equalize everyone’s economic condition, the more rampantly and brutally they must deploy coercion. And so, under socialism, comes death to individual hopes, dreams, options … and souls.

The unbridgeable gulf between socialist fantasies and inconvenient facts explains much about recent health care reform. ObamaCare won’t be the socialist medical nirvana anybody was proposing. But it never could have been.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Cuba Needs Freedom

A viral video is making the rounds of Latin America. You can find it on YouTube. It’s an interview with a man on the street, and another Cuban man walks up and steals the show. He points to his open mouth. In island slang he says he’s hungry, and that “what Cuba needs is food.”

A lot of people blame America for Cubans’ hunger. And our government is now considering removing the embargo we have had against Cuba since its Communist-​inspired revolution. But that should be done — or not — for reasons that have nothing to do with the motto “Cuba needs food.”

Think about it. Cuba can trade with the rest of the world. In fact, on a cash basis, even with the U.S. Plenty of opportunities to produce and purchase food. 

And hey: The resorts in Cuba are well-​stocked with food. Canadians and Europeans and Arabs and others visiting the island don’t complain about a lack of food. 

But the common folk do.

Why?

Well, Cuba suffers from a kind of apartheid. Everyday citizens get ration cards. Their food shelves are bare. They cannot visit tourist beaches, shop at tourist supermarkets, or eat at tourist restaurants. They have to make do with the meager food they’ve been rationed.

So much for the abolition of the class system by Castro!

To feed Cubans, just one thing is needed: Freedom — an end to socialistic apartheid.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.