Category: Socialism

Let’s Try Socialism

Posted on | by hr | 3 Comments on Let’s Try Socialism

I’m serious. Let’s do it. This appears to be an idea whose time has come [again]. A lot of the people who tried it in the 20th century, 100 million or so of them, are unfortunately no longer alive to tell us that it didn’t work. And, also unfortunately, it seems that we are not teaching students that socialism didn’t work, and so they’re naturally enough assuming that maybe it does.

So let’s give it a try. We can chalk it up as a learning experience.

But let’s not start with those precious luxuries, food and medicine and toilet paper and hot and cold running water, that we have grown to take for granted. The people of Venezuela have learned not to take any of those things for granted. Let’s try not to repeat their mistake.

Let’s try socialism in the entertainment industry. Let’s try it in Hollywood first, and not roll it out to the rest of the country until we are satisfied with the results there. There are an awful lot of rich people in Hollywood, and a lot of them are socialism enthusiasts, so it seems the perfect microcosm in which to experiment with this old new idea.

I don’t care what flavor of socialism we try. Make it real socialism, or “democratic socialism,” or tax-all-their-money-away-and-spend-it-on-social-services socialism. Let a thousand socialist flowers bloom — but let them bloom in Hollywood.

Sure, it will tend to destroy everything it touches, but I am willing to make that sacrifice, if that’s what it takes to teach the next generation. I really, really like food and medicine and toilet paper and hot and cold running water. I can live without Hollywood.

So come on, Hollywood. Show us how it’s done. I can hardly wait to see what central planning produces in the way of great art.

Slamming the “Overton Window”

Posted on | by hr | 2 Comments on Slamming the “Overton Window”

The Overton window, as most people probably know, is a term used to describe the range of ideas that are considered serious and worthy of, or acceptable for, public discussion and debate. As the window moves, ideas that would previously have been entertained become unacceptable, and ideas that previously would have seemed too outrageous for consideration enter the realm of legitimate discourse.

Slamming describes an illegitimate business practice that was popular after deregulation of the telecommunication industry in the 1980s. When competition was allowed in telephone service and new telephone companies began competing with AT&T, some customers would have their service switched from AT&T to a competitor without their knowledge or consent. This technique of stealing customers, known as slamming, was relatively easy to do given the procedures imposed by the government during the breakup.

The Overton window is being slammed. It is being pushed, by a hyper-activist progressive movement and an ideologically homogeneous press, far beyond anything the American people consider sensible or acceptable. The purpose of pushing the Overton window is to shift the public’s perception of which views are and aren’t legitimate and debatable. This strategy works, but it has its limits, and the new wave of recklessly progressive Democrats have gone beyond those limits, attempting to shift the public’s perceptions too far and too quickly.

We saw a bit of this excess during the Obama administration, when the President made demands about who could and couldn’t use the ladies’ room. That overreach garnered ridicule and outrage, and quite possibly contributed to a Republican presidential victory in 2016.

I think we are seeing the same kind of ideological overreach now on abortion, economic policy, environmental policy, and sexual identity. Moving the Overton window so far to the left that abortion-until-birth, socialism, the economic takeover of the United States required by the so-called Green New Deal, and the abolition of the concepts of man and woman are things that normal people are suddenly talking about strikes me as profoundly unwise, from a political standpoint. It’s too much, too fast, and too outrageous.

It’s also the consequence of a left that has given up any pretense of rigor or analysis in its thinking. When you are fueled by rage and obsessed with a fundamentally negative political ideology — one of identity/victimization, environmental apocalypse, economic envy, and an inexplicable but unquenchable passion for terminating pregnancies — it’s easy to believe that the nation will catch fire along with you — that revolution is afoot and nothing is too outrageous.

But the progressive bubble isn’t as big as the new hard-left thinks it is. They are introducing extremist ideas too fast, ideas that are not going to play well with a majority of Americans and that the left is going to somehow have to run from as we approach the 2020 elections. It will be interesting to watch the Democratic candidates try to distance themselves from an increasingly demanding and unhinged base.

The Green MacGuffin

Posted on | by hr | 9 Comments on The Green MacGuffin

The British screenwriter Angus MacPhail is credited with coining the term “MacGuffin,” though it is usually attributed to Alfred Hitchcock. In drama, the MacGuffin is anything the pursuit of which serves to drive the plot forward. The MacGuffin may not itself be of any intrinsic interest; what is important is that the protagonists of the story are desperately seeking to acquire it.

In House Resolution 109 – Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal, the environment — the “Green” bit — is the MacGuffin. Though the proposed legislation is ostensibly aimed at saving the planet from the looming carbon apocalypse, that really isn’t the point of this bill. Rather, climate change is simply the excuse used to justify broad and deep changes to our economy, and drastic restrictions of our choices, prosperity, and freedom. It is a truly fascistic resolution masquerading as a noble pursuit of clean water and blue skies.

It’s also a very dishonest bit of work. It begins with a recitation of falsehoods about increased severe weather events, and a claim of anthropogenic global warming that is not supported by evidence. It then trots out the ludicrously tenuous projections of economic impact four score years from now, and cites them as a justification for a truly draconian forced transformation of the economy.

The environment is really not what the resolution is about. All the talk of “renewable” and “Green” and “clean” this and that is simply the MacGuffin intended to move this ugly bit of central planning forward. What the resolution is really about is social justice, government control, and socialism.

That’s why it spends so much time talking about “indigenous peoples” and “communities of color,” and why it invokes the common — but not environment-related — leftist tropes of income inequality and racial/gender divides.

That’s why it promises to (all bold text taken verbatim from the resolution):

promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities ….

Maybe those are noble goals (though I actually think they’re mostly victim-baiting and grievance-mongering), but they aren’t environmental goals. They’re simply more of the left’s redistributive, identity-group social engineering.

What else does it offer? Free education:

providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States ….

Union jobs:

high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages

Guaranteed wages, benefits, vacations, and retirement for everyone:

a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States

More stuff for unions (because we love our unions):

strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain

More business regulation and micro-management:

strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, antidiscrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors

A big nod to the American Indian community:

obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples

And providing — that’s the word it uses — every American with:

high-quality health care

housing

economic security

food

and access to nature.

Got it? This supposed “environmental” legislation would: guarantee you a house, a job, food, a college education, and health care; strengthen unions; and provide reparations and special advantages to all sorts of “aggrieved” groups including Native Americans, the young, the handicapped, women, and minorities.

Why don’t they simply call it the Turn America into Venezuela Proposal? Because that wouldn’t sell (and, let’s be honest, because they’re too foolish to appreciate that that’s where this would go). So instead they wrap it in a dishonest claim of imminent global catastrophe, and use that as the justification for calling for de facto state control of industry and commerce, education and health care, our jobs and our homes and our lives.

The new fascists are cute and perky and full of themselves, but they’re still fascists.