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Accountability general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies Popular too much government

Pulling It Off

Give democratic socialism a chance? 

So says Dr. Cornel West, the “provocative democratic intellectual” who serves as one of eight honorary co-​chairs of the Democratic Socialists of America. 

This accomplished Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton, explained to Fox News host Tucker Carlson that socialism’s “fundamental commitment is to the dignity of ordinary people and to make sure they can lead lives of decency.”

“What happened in Venezuela?” Carlson asked West. “They called that democratic socialism. But they don’t have toilet paper and it’s less equal than ever.”

“But part of the problem is though, brother,” the professor responded, “that any time there [have] been attempts by ordinary people to engage in self-​determination, they can get crushed by external nations. Look at U.S. policies toward Venezuela [which have] been very, very ugly — Nicaragua in the same way.”

West offered nary a specific to his charge, but was handy stating his conclusion. “So, we have never had a chance to really pull it off,” the “it” being socialism. 

“So it’s only been a movement so far.”*

How convenient.

West implicitly acknowledges that those ruling Venezuela and Nicaragua are practicing socialism. But he won’t hold them or the ‑ism responsible for the economic collapse, the hunger, the exodus of millions of very desperate “ordinary” citizens, the arbitrary arrests, use of torture and murder of innocent citizens. 

Dr. West, a follow-​up question: Just what specific U.S. policy triggered these socialists to murder and torture their own people?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


* Dr. West also announced that socialism “is not an ‘ism,’ brother.” I think the professor needs to take a course in ism-ology.

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism property rights too much government

Of Salt and Socialism

Nearly 75 percent of Venezuelans have lost 19 pounds or more in 2016. “People have become so desperate,” the Miami Herald reported recently, “that they are butchering and eating flamingos.”

While acknowledging the problem, TeleSUR, a television network based in Venezuela and funded by governments including Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, called the Herald’s story “kooky” and suggested taking reports “like alleged flamingo eating with a grain of salt.”

If, in socialist Venezuela, one could find a grain of salt.

In America, salt is necessary, too, when listening to our socialist Hollywood celebs blather about their kooky diets, for which some are blaming President Trump.*

Socialism kills. The deprivations in Venezuela are no joke, for along with economic chaos, Venezuelans are experiencing political repression on a grand scale. A new report from Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), documents the thousands arrested for protesting or “having posted something against the national government or a public official on Twitter.” The report details the “curtailment of civil, political and electoral freedoms” and “torture” and “censorship.”

Almagro calls for the suspension of Venezuela’s membership in the OAS, which is long overdue. The Human Rights Foundation demanded that nine years ago.

The Obama administration opposed such a move, as the Washington Post editorialized, in order to pursue “a legacy-​making détente” with “the Castro regime in Cuba.”

At Townhall,** I urged Trump to support the effort to boot Venezuela out of the OAS, which might provide some assistance toward political change there … and Venezuelans eating more.

And perhaps to socialists in Hollywood and elsewhere eating crow … but not flamingo.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* I covered this last week, when I compared their Trump Diet nonsense to the “Maduro Diet,” named for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the socialist dictator presiding over the complete economic collapse of what, prior to socialism, had been South America’s richest country.

** From which this Common Sense is adapted.


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Categories
ideological culture meme moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Popular too much government U.S. Constitution

How Socialism Kills

3 Ways That Socialism Kills:

  1. state enforced redistribution requires violence (even if some participate willingly, it’s guns and gulags for everybody else)
  2. central planning produces starvation
  3. a state powerful enough to enforce socialism is an irresistible temptation to those who would abuse power

All the good intentions in the world can’t change this…

but hold on… what about “democratic socialism?”