I hesitate to publish this because it will change very few and possibly not a single mind, and it will turn some of my friends into former friends. But I am beyond that. At age 77 (same age as Biden, but you’d never know it according to my wife), I have stopped worrying about who likes me and who does not. Besides, I have always enjoyed “stirring things up”! THEY tell you that THEY “know what predators look like (but won’t share that information), that the current administration is only interested in THEIR own and THERE friends’ financial gains (really? This is from the guy who came into office dirt poor and now has a net worth of 70 million), besides Trump mishandled the economy and the pandemic (at what data have THEY they been looking?).” What the Socialists don’t tell you is what THEY will do, that comes after you vote them in: raise your taxes, open the borders, socialize medicine, eliminate the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution, ban fossil fuels, amnesty for all illegals (with welfare and medical care), nationalize most large business, and many more radical ideas to defund you (along with the police).
Socialism has somehow become respectable again, despite the fact that every country that has tried it has been hurt by it. Mighty nations (like the USSR) have collapsed under it. China has switched much of its economy to a capitalistic hybrid that has saved them, after almost succumbing to Mao’s idiocies, like the Cultural Revolution, a little clue what leftist leaders can do when they become demented. The pure communist countries, like North Korea, are grotesque examples of pure evil.
Our young people have been indoctrinated for decades by most universities that teach socialism/communism. Most of the professors have actually never gotten personally close to it, but they are experts because they have read a book or two. I, on the other hand, almost lost my parents to what I consider an immoral monstrosity created by two spoiled rich kids, Marx and Engels, who grew up into spoiled men that then stole money from their parents to write an inane book about money (Das Kapital) something of which they had absolutely no realistic concept and no understanding of the human condition. Humans are programmed to want more if they work harder and resent people that are rewarded for doing nothing.
Many of you will not read beyond this point. Who wants to listen to an old fart who is obviously biased, and Trump is seen by the left as a flawed human whom they hate beyond belief, to the point where it warps their thinking, ruins their life, and their Facebook posts. They say he is crude, tells lies, and is incredibly imprudent (especially for a billionaire). Getting rid of Trump is worth risking the destruction of this country. Whatever it takes! The catastrophe is that with a Trump loss, we buy an incredible turn to the left for our nation. The Democratic Socialists have an agenda that will fundamentally change this country. They know better what is right for us, the moronic masses. Among some of their plans are as follows (I did not make up theses bullet points; they are taken from their published literature, my editorial comments are in italics):
- The Green New Deal will become the new rule. – you should start learning it now!
- Ban fossil fuel to save the planet. We have 12 years before irreversible changes set in.
- Confiscate all guns and ban the Second Amendment. (because guns kill – and here I thought it was people who kill)
- While at it, suppress parts of the First Amendment too. Certain kinds of speech need to be banned (you will be notified as to what types of speech are unacceptable)
- Get rid of the Electoral College. (this would give Los Angeles County the voting power of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North and South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, Montana, Main, and New Hampshire combined, no joke!)
- Get rid of police and replace them with social workers and psychologists
- Reduce the prison population.
- Racial sensitivity needs to be incorporated into the justice system, in fact into all systems, to eliminate systemic racism once and for all.
- Downsize the military.
- Promote late-term abortions, also called partial-birth abortions, (meaning, right before birth is not too late)
- Socialize medicine. Health care is a right.
- Establish a Wealth Tax. The very wealthy need to pay their fair share. (you will be surprised who they are; it shall include many more than you think; it might even include you)
- Increase the death tax. Wealth should not be passed on. The family farm will cease to exist. (Stalin did that in Ukraine at an accelerated rate. Those that refused to do so he starved to death, about 11,000,000 people)
- Top marginal tax needs to go up to 70% to pay for all the benefits (the rate that almost bankrupted Sweden in the 1970s)
- Reverse all of Trump’s tax cuts, personal income, corporate, and capital gains
- Forgive all student loans.
- Make college free for all.
- Every person, working or not, needs to have a basic income (citizens income).
- Pay reparation for the families of former slaves and all Native Americans.
- Increase the minimum wage.
- Remove the wall and have no borders. (get rid of ICE)
- Help all immigrants (legal or not) to come to the promised land (even previously deported ones and criminals, also give them a decent start by providing welfare and free health care for them). We are the land that welcomes all!
- Amnesty for all with fast track to citizenship. (that would add 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 to the voter population. Three guesses with whom those new voters will side. We will become a socialist one-party nation)
- End all new drilling and mining on federal land.
- Regulate all foods and eliminate the sale of health-endangering foods, foods containing too much sugar, salt, and animal fat. (They will inform us of how much is too much)
I am choosing to vote with law and order, against Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and Joe Biden, who calls them brave Americans. They are left-wing communist-inspired anarchists who have announced a complete restructuring of our country, new flag, new anthem, new Bill of Rights, new Constitution, get rid of police and hire social workers, change our historical monuments, and change our soul.
The first thing the Socialists did in other countries was to forbid criticism of the regime, i.e., you cannot say anything even close to negative about the presiding government. That is defined as hate speech, and punishment, anywhere from prison to the death penalty, would be dealt out. That would include what we see on our social media of political commentary. Our Supreme Court has meticulously avoided regulating Freedom of Speech, even so-called “hate speech.” It is narrowly defined now by the SCOTUS and is limited to making disparaging remarks regarding race, color, religion, sex, nationality, age, and genetic issues. All legal attempts to broaden that definition have been rejected by the Supreme Court so far. But every Socialist government from Castro, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Hugo Chavez, Mao Zedong, etc. all had their Gestapos that monitored correct speech, and even children were enlisted to spy on their parents. Their definition of hate speech was not as specific and included anything they claimed to be hate speech.
My father became well acquainted with what freedom of speech in a socialistic milieu means. He was the town doctor in annexed Austria, in what was called the “Anschluss,” and in 1939 became Nazi Germany. A family in the town, the Sturm’s, had a son and a daughter. In 1943 the son came back to his hometown in a body bag. He was killed on the Russian front. At his funeral, his 18-year-old sister walking behind the coffin expressed her grief by exclaiming that she would rather walk behind Hitler’s coffin than her brother’s, something the SS did not miss. She was arrested as soon as the coffin was in the ground. Speaking in a threatening manner of the Führer, Adolph Hitler, was a capital offense (hate speech). She would be executed, as most civilian traitors, by decapitation. Military traitors were executed by hanging. The grief-stricken father came to my father, the town doctor, for help. “They are going to kill the only child I have left!” he exclaimed. After thinking about it all night, my father went to the prison and explained that the girl they had was his patient, and he needed to administer some medication to her. Actually, he really wanted to talk to her as to what he thought she should do. He educated her as to what a hebephrenic schizophrenic act like. He then went out to the prison SS colonel to explain that this was a long term schizophrenic patient of his. By then, the Nazis had been shamed into stopping “mercy killings” of a variety of people with illnesses, including the insane, by the Catholic Church. They had their own doctor confirm the diagnosis. It was no longer seemly for the Reich to execute an insane person. She was released to my father’s custody. Her father was forever indebted to my father for saving her life.
The point of the story is Socialism, whether Marxist Socialism or Nazi Socialism, neither tolerated critique of any kind! Freedom of speech cannot possibly exist in Socialism, the dictatorship of the people! Hate speech is what they say it is! And it threatens their existence. The Socialists of Bernie Sanders have no idea what freedom of speech is when interpreted by practicing Socialists. If our “trained Marxists” are attentive students of Marxism, they too will catch on to the need for eliminating freedom of speech as a danger to them. I can just guess what a Facebook comment like “F….ing Moron President” if referring to them would evoke. I would think Kamala would find that very threatening. They just might bring back the Guillotine. Don’t say it can’t happen here. It happened in the civilized country of Germany just 80 years ago, and in the Soviet Socialist Republic only 30 years ago. Kamala has shown that she could be merciless when she was Attorney General of California, blocking evidence that would have freed an innocent man on death row so as not to spoil her record of prosecutorial wins. Eventually, a higher court forced her to reveal the evidence. It is not without cause that she has earned the reputation as a “Cutthroat Politician.”
Having a George Floyd statue preside over Golden Gate Park, instead of Francis Scott Key, really will make most black people (as well as white people) wonder how to explain why a drug-addicted criminal is there instead. Perhaps a little kiosk with the entire video of the police body camera next to the statue would highlight the rather stupid and unnecessary death he suffered, (hint- the full video is difficult to find – if it hasn’t been taken down yet). I rather doubt it will make little children proud. It will remind us all of how anarchy works.
My parents left Romania because they learned to reject Socialism and Communism, and they had a price on their heads. If you look at the Democratic party, the extreme left has taken over the party’s thinking. Democrats are no longer the party of Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, and even Carter or Clinton. My overriding factor is that anyone who aligns with Socialism is a NO vote from me! I did not learn this in books or at universities, but from my parents, as well as what the rest of my family experienced with Socialism, including the internment in the Siberian Gulags.
AOC has declared herself as a Democratic Socialist. She is a protégé of Bernie Sanders, who is likewise a Democratic Socialist. Do you people know what Democratic Socialism is? Keep in mind that North Korea calls itself the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of North Korea. It is neither Democratic nor a Republic, sort of like Democratic Socialism. Most of the turning over of private property to the state has not happened voluntarily, but by armed force, to nationalize (confiscate) assets, not all that democratic!
Most property is owned collectively in all Socialist countries, which means by the state. Utilities, transportation, and health care are included in the state-owned and run businesses. Most of you have never worked in the VA (Veterans Administration) or the military, both government-run health care systems for the active and former heroes, a little preview of socialized medicine. I have been active military and trained at the VA. Even my “socialist” friends could not tolerate working there. Even in a Democracy, the bureaucracy was stifling. It took hours to find test results, and X-rays, when patients had been relocated in the larger institutions. Incompetent doctors, nurses, even janitors, could not be fired without an act of Congress.
I recall a heart valve replacement operation where the restocking clerk had failed to replace valves that had already been used. One cannot guess the size valve needed until the heart is open. The correct size was missing. You can imagine what happened to that poor soul. In the military, the medications that I prescribed were changed to different ones (that were inappropriate) based on cost, without ever letting me know. Every now and then, they try to fix the system, but it is still broken! But of course, remember it is free!
Every country that has tried Socialism has failed. Even the USSR fell apart. The Socialist apologists always point to the success of the Scandinavian countries, which they claim as Socialist successes. I must point out that is a lie. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are free-market economies. Admittedly they have high taxes and very generous social programs, but that does not make them socialist or communist. Actually, they are solidly capitalistic; the means of production are in the hands of private money, private ownership, private direction, and not state-run. That voids the Socialists argument. AOC, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib need to retake Economics 101. The Scandinavian countries’ economies are supported by the prosperous businesses that they tax heavily. In the 1970s, they went overboard with taxation, and businesses, as well as wealthy people, started to leave the country. Their economy became weak; unemployment became a problem for the first time. The Volvo, an automobile made in Sweden, was taxed so high that the tax bill exceeded the price of the car. They had to pull back on their heavy taxation and generous social programs, but they did find the sweet spot on the Laffer Curve of taxes that would generate the highest tax revenue for the government, without driving people to leave the country.
The university professors tell us that Socialism is the civilized form of government. The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles spells out the mechanism of how to reach the worker’s paradise. The workers (proletariat) need to take over from the rich (bourgeoisie) and control the economy. When everyone is equal (social justice), there will be no class distinction and no class struggle.
Russia was the first to try this, but what really happened was that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” didn’t work out so well because they did not have the means or knowledge to manage the economy. Thus a new class sprang up. This new class, the bureaucrats, were the real dictators! They had more power than the old superior bourgeoise class. They could imprison you, tear you away from your family, and even kill you. They had special privileges, even their own grocery stores, in which the workers were not allowed to shop. The real workers actually worked in near slave conditions, with often the lack of the necessities of life like, food, shelter, and clothing. Literally, millions of people died from starvation, execution, torture, and imprisonment. My family experienced this personally and upfront. Building walls became a necessity. Unlike our wall, that is meant to keep people out, the Communist walls were designed to keep people from escaping the “worker’s paradise.” The state never did “wither” as it was supposed to, according to Marx.
My surgeon cousin from Romania was allowed to visit me, but only if his wife and family remained in Romania to guarantee his return. He worked in a tertiary referral hospital in Bucharest. I had more equipment and advanced tools in my little country hospital in Santa Paula, CA, than his university hospital had. I gave him tools he had only read about, such as a Fogarty Catheter, a device to remove blood clots from plugged arteries. He also coveted all my sports jackets that he took back with him. This was in 1985. Socialism was a pitiful failure. As a surgeon, his income was not enough to afford a car. He rode a Moped to work. His salary was supplemented by “preoperative visits” at his home for patients he would operate on the next week, where the customary “donation” took place to assure a good outcome. His specialty was upper gastrointestinal surgery. Since Romania did not have the drugs to control stomach acid as we did, and Nicolae Ceauşescu, Romania’s Communist dictator, saw to it that vodka was one of the few things that they had plenty of, my cousin had to remove people’s stomachs for any ulcer diseases. That took care of acid production, and they could still drink vodka! He had done 5000 gastrectomies (stomach removals) at that point in his life. Despite his family remaining “as hostages” in Romania, he desperately wanted to defect to the US. I convinced him to return to his home because he was over 50; his English was poor, and he would likely never get to practice surgery in the US. He did return to Romania and stuck it out until 1990 when Romania became a free market economy. By then, they could get stomach acid-reducing drugs, and he didn’t have to remove as many stomachs anymore, also he did not have to solicit bribes and finally got his car. That is a little vignette about the “Socialist Worker’s Paradise” that I’ll bet Bernie Sanders never heard.
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