"Coercion, Domination, and Control"

There's a recurrent sound bite that we hear from left-wing Democrats who want to sound like they have gravitas, "It's important that we have a national 'conversation' on ... [you fill in the subject]."

Of course, the last thing they want is a robust debate because the minute opposing views are voiced the Dems and their trained hamsters in the media begin to attack, accusing the opposing voices in the "conversation" of "racism," or of being "anti-immigrant," or of being "misogynists" or any of a laundry list of ad hominem epithets. The reason is that the left has trouble with details*, with explaining how massive government programs, uncontrolled spending, and poorly-constructed policies will work in the real world.

At Tuesday night's SOTU, Donald Trump started a "conversation" when he said:

We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom — and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair. 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.

Watching the Democrat side of the audience, you would have thought Trump suggested that everyone run out and kill puppies. Dour looks, grimaces, and silence. After all, the Dems are rapidly adopting socialism as their guiding philosophy and they're not happy when someone questions or challenges their direction.

The programs being proposed by supposedly mainstream Democrats—a full government takeover of healthcare, a "new green deal" that would transform 90 percent of the energy sector, guaranteed income and/or jobs for everyone, eliminating the autonomy of private sector corporations, stratospheric tax rates—are making the big intrusive government that we already have seem small by comparison. The editors of the Wall Street Journal comment:

Some readers might think this is all so extreme it could never happen. But presidential candidates don’t propose ideas they think will hurt them politically. The leftward lurch of Democratic voters, especially the young, means the party could nominate the most left-wing presidential candidate in U.S. history. If other Democratic candidates oppose any or all of this, we’d like to hear them.

The American public deserves to have a debate about all this, lest it sleepwalk into a socialist future it doesn’t want. Credit to Mr. Trump for teeing it up.

The Democratic left will defend its position with emotion but leave the details for later. It's critical that the voting public demand the details now. It's also critical that the recent history of socialism (and its myriad failures) and it's kissing cousin, communism, be fully explored. Venezuela is not a bad place to start.


* UPDATE:
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In an effort to defend the socialist paradigm that was attacked by Donald Trump, the Democrats are trying to go on the offensive. A key democratic proponent of socialism was interviewed by NPR. Tom Elliott reports:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she has no qualms about acknowledging a so-called “Green New Deal” will mean unprecedented governmental intrusion into the private sector. Appearing on NPR, she was asked if she’s prepared to tell Americans outright that her plans involve “massive government intervention.”

“As you know, congresswoman, one reason that people are politically conservative are skeptical of efforts to combat climate change is that it sounds to them like it requires massive government intervention, which they just don’t like,” Steve Inskeep asked. “Are you prepared to put on that table that, ‘Yes actually they’re right, what this requires is massive government intervention’?”

“It does, it does, yeah, I have no problem saying that,” Ocasio-Cortez quickly replied. “Why? Because we have tried their approach for 40 years. For 40 years we have tried to let the private sector take care of this. They said, ‘We got this, we can do this, the forces of the market are going to force us to innovate.’”

Hmmm. No innovation huh? No improvements, right? Unfortunately, AOC's media charisma can't hide her ignorance of facts and history, nor can it hide the rabid ideological zeal that warps her thinking and makes her look like the empty suit she is.

Over the past 40 years there have been dramatic reductions in air and water pollution, the fuel economy of gasoline vehicles, the efficiency of electric appliances, lighting systems, and alternative energy generation. There has been the dramatic growth in zero emission electric vehicles that will become as much as 30 percent of the new car market by 2030. All of this is due to private sector innovation, not big government takeovers.

Apparently Ocasio-Cortez is too lazy or too stupid to do the basic research to note these simple facts. (The search took me about 10 minutes) She isn't the type of person to worry about details or reality or numbers. She's too caught up in an authoritarian takeover—as long as she and her fellow travelers in the Democratic party are in authority to coerce, dominate and control the rest of us.