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Socialism is Never CoolBy Brent Smith November 20, 2017 Socialism never works. Look at a country like Brazil. Brazilian journalist Felipe Moura Brasil explained all about the rise and fall of his country in a segment at Prager-U online.
In the early 2000s Brazil was a burgeoning capitalist nation. Inflation, something that plagues all socialist paradises was drastically reduced and the government had decided to give up or at least pare down its hold over many “state-run” companies. They were moving toward a free market – toward capitalism. Things were looking pretty good for Brazil.
In 2006 Brazil became one the famous BRIC nations, and American and other private investors poured their investment dollars into Brazil, looking to get in on this new free-market boom. BRIC was a group of four “emerging market” nations ripe for private investment. BRIC stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China.
But they made one big mistake. You see, in a truly free society, while most succeed, some will be left behind. It’s just the way it is and has always been. Not everyone has equal talents, nor is everyone equally industrious. Politicians love to focus on these free-market inequities. They prey on the guilt of the more industrious and convince the rest that through a transfer of wealth, all can share in the bounty. Sound familiar. Are you “Feelin the Bern?”
Due to this successful sales pitch, the people of Brazil elected a socialist as president. His name was Lula Da Silva. He wasn’t just any socialist. He was a cool socialist. You know – a cool socialist – like Bernie Sanders. Lula made the younger set in Brazil “feel the Bern.” Socialism was cool. It was all about social and economic justice, man. Lula, like Bernie, was a good salesman. He could sell socialism.
Socialism worked for a while in Brazil. When enacted, it always works well for a while. Then reality catches up. It can take 5, 10, 15 years or more, but it always catches up. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Things went from bad to worse as Brazilians compounded their problems by electing an even more corrupt socialist, Dilma Rousseff.
Felipe explains how things went from bad to worse, as the government, to achieve social and economic justice, spent massively on government “stimulus” programs. He says they increased the minimum wage so that workers could have a “living wage.” They also increased “investment in the future.” This was code for massive hiring of government workers, which invariably ends up as just nepotistic hiring, as well as payback for cronies.
Does any of this sound familiar? It should.
Brazil’s rise and fall was relatively rapid. Their economy is now a disaster. Not Venezuela bad, but headed in that direction.
Now one could argue that America could never fall into this trap. After all – we right wing wackos have been complaining about this very thing for decades, and we’re still chugging along – relatively free.
This is both true and not. Brazil and the United States are coming to socialism from two very different places along the timeline. America waded into the idea of socialism from a place much closer to pure capitalism – no big government – no entitlements, and a fraction of the bureaucracy. Not to mention the differing sizes of our economies. The U.S. is the largest economy on Earth. Brazil is much smaller. It will take our ship much longer to turn around.
Progressivism in America didn’t and couldn’t take hold until the last of our Nations founders died off. Just like the original rise of the Progressives in the U.S., socialism can’t truly take hold until we Constitutionalists are culled from society.
But as we bite the dust, we will be replaced with a generation of millennials much more amenable to socialism.
“According to a newly released survey conducted to assess American attitudes toward socialism, nearly half of American millennials said they would rather live in a socialist country than a capitalist one. Some even said they would prefer to live in a communist country,” writes the Blaze.
And the percentage seems to grow every year. This is a sad fact, but a fact all the same. But one can’t blame millennials as much as the education that was provided them. They haven’t been taught that as bad as socialism is, it invariably gives way to something far worse – communism. Socialism has always been a mere layover toward the final destination of communism – which has been responsible for snuffing out well over 100 million lives worldwide, and causing misery to untold billions.
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 Brent Smith, "The Common Constitutionalist," offers not just conservative commentary and analysis, but a blend of politics, history, arts, science, and humor. Whoever said conservatives aren’t funny? Yeah, I know…most people. Brent is a contributing writer for numerous online publications. When he is not burning the midnight oil writing his insightful commentaries, he is raising his two teenage sons to be patriots and Conservatives.Visit Brent Smith's website at www.commonconstitutionalist.com
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