Heinlein’s Crazy Years got nuthin’ on us. His pastors ate clay sandwiches. We’ve got the crazocracy. His fictional society recovered and achieved space flight. We won’t have the education, technology, or resources to redevelop the automobile because they’re all “racist.”

Our future will look a lot more like Anthem than RAH’s “future history.”

Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger
June 24, 2020
HEINLEIN WAS AN OPTIMIST
[Both Heinlein and Rand references in one great quote. Few will fully understand and they will puzzle at it’s meaning until they spend many hours reading the books. Sorry about that.

I post this anyway, knowing that only 25%, at best, will fully appreciate it with additional effort. But the enthusiasm of those the get it on the first pass will be awesome.—Joe]

Obama might have started out as a likable, naïve socialist.

But he became the inevitable state-worshiping fascist that is always necessary to sustain socialism in the face of its inevitable failure and devastation.

Don Kilmer @donkilmer
Tweeted on May 21, 2020
[This may be giving Obama more benefit of the doubt than he deserves, but that doesn’t change the correctness of the conclusion.

As my friend Eric E. once described it, “Socialism is like a piece of candy which, years later, causes terminal cancer.”—Joe]

Dogmas collapse first in the minds of believers, when they slowly awaken to the reality that the dogma no longer serves them, it only serves to prop up the wealth, power and prestige of their increasingly fanatic leaders. Propping up a failed system doesn’t actually fix what’s broken; it only guarantees the banquet of consequences will include shackles: the option to escape the consequences will no longer exist.

So sorry, but your karma ran over your dogma.

Charles Hugh Smith
September 29, 2019
So Sorry, Your Karma Ran Over Your Dogma
[He has a point there.—Joe]

The grand fallacy of the political left is that decisions are better made by third parties who pay no price for being wrong. Much of the 20^th century has been taken up proving how tragically mistaken that theory is, all around the world. But those who want to be the third-party decision-makers remain undaunted.

Thomas Sowell
March 6, 1999
THOMAS SOWELL: Back again – random thoughts
[This is true in economics, personal ethics, self-defense choices, and all but a few special cases mostly covered by the enumerated powers given to the U.S. government in the constitution.

At this point I’m convinced it’s only a fallacy or mistaken belief on the part of the useful and professional idiots. Those who are smart enough to rise and retain political power have to know the truth.

Evidence for making the case for the 21^st century will be little different from the 20th is Venezuela.—Joe]

If Trump were to have a socialized medicine plan, it would cover treatment for whatever disease it is that causes liberals to consider socialism a good idea.

Harvey
June 26, 2019
Trump Truths: TrumpCare
[I find it humorous but the last I checked there wasn’t a cure for stupid.

Well, I suppose that isn’t entirely fair. A fair number of smart people believe socialism is a good idea because they believe they would be one of the special ones in power.—Joe]

One election after the next, we have seen how much the results of the US presidential vote impact not just the 50 states, but the rest of the planet too. And if the future of foreign countries is shaped to a significant extent by what goes on on US Election Day, shouldn’t they get a say in who gets to lead the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years?

In other words: shouldn’t foreign countries have a right to vote in the US presidential election?

Clémence Michallon
March 23, 2019
America should allow other countries to vote in the 2020 election
[No and no.

Next question.—Joe]

Nobody, except for a few libertarians and conservatives, are countering the ideas AOC represents. And they have a very limited audience. The spirit of the new century is overwhelming the values of the past.

When the economy collapses – likely in 2019 – everybody will blame capitalism, because Trump is somehow, incorrectly, associated with capitalism. The country – especially the young, the poor, and the non-white – will look to the government to do something. They see the government as a cornucopia, and socialism as a kind and gentle answer. Everyone will be able to drink lattes all day at Starbucks while they play with their iPhones.

…

That’s not even the best part. She’ll be idealized, lionized, and apotheosized by an adoring public. The media will hang on her every word. That’s pretty rich for a stupid, evil dingbat. Other young socialist idealists will try – and succeed – in replicating her success. Congress will increasingly be filled with her clones.

Frankly, at this point, resistance is futile.

Doug Casey
January 11, 2019
Doug Casey on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
[Certainly there are lots of paths to a very bleak future. However, I’m not sure resistance is futile. The courts are being filled with people much more inclined to declare her ideas unconstitutional than courts of the last 20 years. And one can make a reasonable case the courts will continue in this pattern for another five or more years. And SCOTUS could easily be originalist leaning within a year.

And even if the courts don’t “save the country” there are a lot of states that could “just say no” and ignore a significant part of the nonsense thrown at them as the Feds and other states nosedive into the dark pit of socialism. Resisting can take the form of moving to those states which can most effectively avoid the socialist influence. If the union fails being geographically and politically isolated is going to be to your advantage.

The Feds have a 22 trillion dollar debt with no plan to even slow the descent into catastrophe. When hard core socialists go toe-to-toe with reality, reality ultimately wins. This time will be no different. The biggest questions are, “How long will it take?” and “What is the best way to avoid the implosion?”—Joe]

That pile of cash is the Venezuelan equivalent of one US dollar. Behold the power of socialism.

Cam Edwards @CamEdwards
Tweeted on July 23, 2018
[The destructive power of socialism is absolutely amazing. No other political system has been so well tested and proven again and again to be such a threat to property and lives. Only an “intellectual”, completely out of touch with reality, could honestly advocate it as an improvement in the living conditions for the majority of the people.—Joe]

When Deng Xiaoping inaugurated an agricultural reform in 1979 which relied heavily on private ownership, he launched the most impressive period of economic growth that any large country has ever experienced. But that ended socialist economic planning. When, on December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union was going out of business, that ended the lure of socialism among the intellectuals. They had always clung to socialism because they expected that their class would exercise power in a socialist regime. When it became clear that the Soviet Union was too feeble to impose its will on the Russian masses, that was the end of their infatuation with Communism and socialism. It was always about power. It was never about the logic of socialism.

So, in this month, the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s Bolshevik revolution in Russia, we can rejoice in the fact that socialism is dead. From a theoretical standpoint, it was never alive. It was a corpse from day one. It was sustained by rhetoric, not logic.

Gary North
October 12, 2017
Why Socialism Is Dead
[Just because it is, and always was, dead doesn’t mean that there aren’t large numbers of people worshiping it and demanding, upon the pain of death to non believers, that others worship it as well. The Second Amendment helps guarantee you can exercise your First Amendment right to freedom of, or from, religion.—Joe]