Socialism
December 29, 2019 — Steven Hayward
On Friday the Wall Street Journal ran an extra-long and remarkable editorial about the agenda of Elizabeth Warren (“Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan, Oh My“), which is so far beyond extravagant that “socialism” seems an inadequate adjective. She makes Bernie Sanders look cautious by comparison. As the Journal put it in the lede: “[A]s we discovered after a tour of her 60-some policy papers, Ms. Warren is proposing a transformation
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November 20, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Let’s take in a few headlines from the last few days, starting with the New York Times: COPENHAGEN — More than 60 years of hassle-free travel from Sweden to Denmark has ended after the Danish authorities, struggling to quell a wave of bombings blamed on Swedish gangs, introduced passport checks for the first time since the 1950s. The measures put in place on Tuesday are temporary and will be applied
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September 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The highlight of the Dem presidential candidates’ debate last week was the 30-second advertisement run by Elizabeth Heng’s New Faces GOP PAC. We posted the video along with an admiring note here over the weekend. The truth quotient of the advertisement stood in stark contrast with that of the Dem presidential candidates. If we could divide by zero, we could put a number on the quotient. Speaking of zero, however,
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September 15, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Brontosauruses are renowned for their small brains, but let’s be fair: at least they weren’t socialists. They may have become extinct, but unlike Sanders and many of his fellow Democrats they didn’t subscribe (as far as we know) to an extinct ideology. Michael Ramirez imagines what really killed off the dinosaurs. The cartoon also features an ancient fossil. Click to enlarge: I don’t suppose socialism actually killed the dinosaurs, but
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September 14, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The highlight of the Dems’ debate this week must have been the 30-second advertisement run by Elizabeth Heng’s New Faces GOP PAC (video below). In the ad Ms. Heng explains the true meaning of socialism to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her followers. Gary Saul Morson gives a longer account of the phenomenon in “How the truth dawned.” Glenn Reynolds offers this characteristically concise and optimistic take on the ad and AOC’s
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September 10, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Many, like us, are appalled that some politicians now openly advocate the failed system of socialism, while they and others try to deny the obvious fact that free enterprise has enriched the lives of billions of people. One is tempted to chalk such opinions up to an abysmal ignorance of history. But something else is going on, too. The meaning of “socialism” has evolved; or, one might say, it is
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September 2, 2019 — John Hinderaker
We have chronicled Venezuela’s descent into medieval levels of poverty and tyranny for several years now. But President Maduro enjoys, for the moment, the support of Venezuela’s military, so opponents are jailed, tortured and murdered, and the disastrous Chavez/Maduro regime hangs on by its fingernails, while millions of Venezuelans flee to non-socialist countries. What happens in the last stages of democratic socialism? For one thing, diseases that have long been
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September 1, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Violence continues in Hong Kong, as the Communist government continues to suppress popular demonstrations against Hong Kong’s loss of independence and freedom. This video gives a graphic sense of what is going on–a police riot. It is hard to disagree with Kyle Kashuv’s observation: “This is what real fascism looks like–the Communist Party of China.” Dear Antifa, This is what real fascism looks like — the Communist Party of China.pic.twitter.com/M1bKWOfViv
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August 28, 2019 — John Hinderaker
A lot of people are finding symbolic meaning in this funny video of Bernie Sanders hitting a speed bag. I understand the video to be genuine. Pro tip, Bernie: you don’t just hit a speed bag and then stand there waiting to see how it will respond: The relationship between cause and effect has always been difficult for socialists to grasp pic.twitter.com/M5qcJYsa8h — The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) August 27, 2019
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August 23, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Remy has outdone himself. With the Democratic Party devoting itself to providing free everything to everybody, Remy and the Reason TV crew did up this dead-perfect Beatles parody. Pair it up with “Taxman,” which will come back into fashion in 2021 if we get stuck with President Warren:
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August 5, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Leave it to the geniuses at the Babylon Bee to get to the essence of the Democratic Socialists of America convention that we have been intermittently covering: From the Bee article: Eventually, one attendee, who identifies as an owlbear, stood up and bellowed into a microphone, “POINT OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE: LANGUAGE ITSELF REPRESENTS SPECIES SUPREMACY AND IS VERY TRIGGERING TO ME,” threatening the entire convention. After a brief pantomimed discussion, conference
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August 4, 2019 — Steven Hayward
The intrepid Andy Ngo has posted this fifty-second clip of the Democratic Socialists of America at their convention, which is currently under way. Watch all the way to the end: Thank you “Comrade”?? Are we certain “comrade” is gender-neutral? Yes, I suppose when the “comrades” are in charge, a lot of neutering goes on, but we shouldn’t presume before the gulags are opened up. Chaser: I wish someone would say
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July 14, 2019 — John Hinderaker
In a fawning profile in the Washington Post Magazine, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, parted the curtain on the Green New Deal. The piece describes a meeting between Chakrabarti and an emissary from Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who is running for president on a global warming platform: Chakrabarti had an unexpected disclosure. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate
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June 25, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Bernie Sanders likes to cite Nordic nations as models of the kind of socialism he favors. That’s probably why he honeymooned in Sweden. Oh, wait. We have pointed out that the Nordic nations Sanders mentions — the likes of Sweden and Denmark — have turned away from socialism. Charles Lane of the Washington Post, relying on a report by JPMorgan Chase, presents the figures to support our view: Drawing on
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June 18, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Robert Samuelson writes sensible columns about the economy for the Washington Post. His latest column, less sensible than usual, is a contribution to the growing body of mainstream media musings about what socialism means and the extent to which various Democratic contenders favor it. Samuelson argues that accusing Democrats of being socialists is a “slur” because “we are all socialists now.” What counts, says Samuelson, isn’t labels, but rather policy
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June 15, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Bernie Sanders seems to me to embody the trouble with socialism. In his cranky attitude and crabby visage he gives expressive form to the spirit driving the thing. He takes the vast wealth produced by the citizens of the United States as a given. He wants at it with no apparent attention to the destructive effects of the socialist imperative. This week he purported to restate his manifesto (text here,
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June 14, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll has a modest proposal in the form of JUNIOR YEAR IN HELL. She writes: I have recently seen a poll in which the majority of millennials claim to want to live under socialism. Bully for them, and don’t let the door hit you in the bum on the way out, kiddies. One of my favorite comedians back in the day was a (then) young man named Jake Johannsen.
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