If Only ...

In Venezuela, things have gotten so bad that people have begun to eat animals that are sometimes pets. A once vibrant economy has been wrecked by a marxist dictator (who, of course, claims he isn't a Marxist), shortages of everything from food to medicine, electric power to public services abound, and the country spirals downward toward failed state status. It's quite sad and wholly predictable. Just another example of the failed socialist model—in real life.

This week Bernie Sanders unleashes his "Medicare for ALL" plan—a prescription for socialized medicine. Many Democrats have already endorsed Bernie's ideas (some, thankfully, have not) but the leftward tilt of the Democrat party continues. With it the endorsement of leftist, even Marxist ideas, begins to accelerate in the media, in academia, in the entertainment industry, and the arts. Those constituencies have a profound influence on culture, and that could mean trouble in the long term.

Brad Torgersen comments on Marxism when he writes about claims that communism and marxism are anachronisms that cannot take root in the United States:

Yet another Orwellian restatement of the obvious: Marxism isn’t done. It’s alive and well. Every time it fails, it re-brands itself, peddles itself to the next generation of wishful thinkers, and wrecks another country. Venezuela is the most recent, glaring example. The U.S. may be wrecked in time, too, because the proselytizers of Marxism (under various types of shiny Christmas wrapping) infest our university system, the entertainment establishment, the news media, and government.

Think Marxism will never happen here? Upton Sinclair—the ardent socialist intellectual—said: the American people will never accept socialism when it’s labeled as socialism, but they *will* accept socialism under different names.

Which is why modern American Marxists will so hotly and adamantly deny that their brand of socialism, is in any way Marxist, or especially communist. Because they know Marxism and communism have a bad rap. They are depending on their ability to re-brand the same bad ideas (which “sound good” in the words of Thomas Sowell) in order to push those ideas forward.

In the end, every time socialism fails, the Marxists will claim it’s magically not socialism. We have had numerous examples of different interpretations of Marxist theory implemented at the national level, and those examples speak of unprecedented human suffering. Which somehow doesn’t count, we are told, because these countries weren’t doing it right.

Indeed. It seems that whenever the blue model fails, it's not because the underlying premise (i.e., that dependency on big government is somehow freeing) is flawed, but rather that proponents of the blue model simply weren't aggressive enough in making dependency the core element of our existence. If only they provided a guaranteed income, guaranteed "free" healthcare, guaranteed outcomes, regardless of effort. If only they could ban any idea that conflicts with the marxist/socialist ideal (by shouting down or criminalizing those ideas), if only they could rid the world of every "ism", if only ...