Freedom from Socialism

            The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns the fact that socialism does not work. Bernie Sanders and other socialists in the United States keep trying to move our nation closer to socialism, and they fail to consider the example of Venezuela that is imploding before our very eyes. They claim that socialism would work in the United States even though it has failed in every other place. “This time it would be different!”

            President Donald Trump has been taking the fight to the socialists. When he delivered his State of the Union address before Congress, he said the following. 

Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence --- not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.

            Trump made it clear in his address that Americans do not want socialism. We were “founded on freedom and independence,” and we intend to stay free and independent. Trump went on the attack against socialism again this week. He gave a speech that should make every American proud and that would have definitely pleased Ronald Reagan. 

For decades, the socialist dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela have propped each other up in a very corrupt bargain. Venezuela gave Cuba oil. In return, Cuba gave Venezuela a police state run directly from Havana. … But this is a much different day, and those days are over. The ugly alliance between the two dictatorships is coming to a rapid end.

A new future is beginning. … [That’s because those in the arena and outside it] are united because we know the truth about socialism in Venezuela, in Cuba, in Nicaragua and all around the world. Socialism promises prosperity, but it delivers poverty.

Socialism promises unity, but it delivers hatred and it delivers division. Socialism promises a better future, but it always returns to the darkest chapters of the past….

That never fails. It always happens. Socialism is a sad and discredited ideology rooted in the total ignorance of history and human nature, which is why socialism, eventually, must always give rise to tyranny, which it does.

Socialists profess a love of diversity, but they always insist on absolute conformity. We know that socialism is not about justice, it’s not about equality, it’s not about lifting up the poor. Socialism is about one thing only: power for the ruling class. And the more power they get, the more they crave.

They want to run healthcare, run transportation and finance, run energy, education – run everything….

They want to the power to decide who wins and who loses, who’s up and who’s down, what’s true and what’s false, and even who lives and who dies. In short, all of us here today know that there is nothing less democratic than socialism.

Everywhere and anywhere it appears, socialism advances under the banner of progress…. But in the end, it delivers only corruption, exploitation, and decay.

            It is good to have a President who is willing to tell the truth – at least as he sees it. It is good to have a President who defends democracy and our democratic republic. I am proud of him for the way that he stands firm in the face of hatred and stupidity. My God bless Donald Trump, and may God bless the U.S.A.