Socialism: The Jaguar of Political/Economic Systems

Opinion

Once upon a time the Jaguar was generally deemed to be the most beautiful car in the world. Many of us dreamed of owning one, but few did. When I finally achieved sufficient success to afford one, it's cache had ended. Other cars had caught my eye. More importantly, I had learned too much. It was beautiful, but it didn’t work…

Did you ever watch the movie The Gumball Rally? It was written by a Jaguar owner who had a story to tell. A warning actually. Yes, the Jaguar was beautiful, but it didn’t work.

As the other contestants raced across America, eluding a persistent cop and falling into various adventures, most humorous, the scene frequently switched back to the starting line where the Jaguar and its frustrated driver worked without joy to get it started. The mechanic repeatedly remarked, “It’s beautiful” and the driver responded, “But it won’t start”.

Well, that’s socialism.

Socialism, it seems, is the beauty queen. Despite failure after failure, people succumb to its siren song of equality and justice for all. And in every instance where it has been tried, it has given rise the the most brutal tyrannies. Yes, most are equal in socialist nations, equally destitute and miserable. Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions are murdered by their own government. But those who sit atop the government live lavishly and ultimately escape when the system collapses, with what little treasure remains, to live lives of luxury in the resorts of the world.

With socialism, there's always a Maduro. A Castro. A Stalin. A Hitler. Socialism can only work if power is centralized. Power to control the economy. Power to control everything. Power to make every decision. Power to free people from the responsibility of being free. And centralized power is, by definition, tyranny.

When you attempt to educate those caught under the pall of socialism by pointing to examples such as Venezuela and Cuba, they mock you. “We’re not talking about those places,” they’ll retort or, “Those places aren’t doing it right.” If you mention past failures such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, they’ll dismiss them as “Not true socialism”. But they were socialist. Mention the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock and they’ll look at you as though you need a lobotomy. However, it was socialism that almost destroyed those early American colonists, and it wasn’t the native Americans who saved them. It was the fact that the Pilgrims awoke from the pall of socialism before it was too late.

When I was young and besotted with cars, I wanted a Jaguar as much as my friends and family want socialism. Fortunately, I can no more afford to give them socialism than I could afford to purchase a Jaguar. Socialism, you see, is all about people living off of the money of other people, and I don't have enough. No one has enough. Not all the people pooling their resources have enough.