by Michael Quinn Sullivan
An insane number of young Americans seem to think socialism works. The global reality tells a very different story, but not necessarily the one you think.
We expect that socialism destroys economies. And it does, everywhere. But that’s not all that it destroys.
In the United States, Mississippi is the brunt of most every economic joke. It is the nation's poorest state. And yet, Mississippi’s per capita GDP is higher than that of Europe’s five largest economies, except Germany. Even between the two, Germany and Mississippi are in a dead heat.
People romanticize living in socialist Europe like children wanting their home to be a candy store. The cry of “Free candy!” from children who have never had to work to pay for it is little different from adults demanding that they be provided “free health care.”
In reality, it isn’t free. Worse, it is deadly. Again, not entirely the way you think.
But let’s start with that. Consider the miraculous wonders of magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. In those counties with “free” health care, the people will wait four to eight weeks for a routine MRI, and a week for “urgent” needs. In the UK, the wait times exceed two years.
In comparison, the wait time in the United States averages two weeks for a routine scan and hours in an emergency. Even the humble X-Ray requires a three-week wait in much of Europe.
“Free health care” is meaningless if it is unavailable when you need it.
Canada has come up with a solution to keep costs contained: the expansive use of euthanasia. In Canada, “free health care” means a death sentence if government bean counters determine your life isn’t convenient.
That’s bad enough, but it is an altogether different kind of suicide that socialism is inspiring.
To fund their socialist societies, the European countries have committed slow-motion cultural suicide. Remember, the once-mighty Germany can barely muster the economic strength of Mississippi. The United Kingdom, upon which the sun reportedly never set, is now in its twilight years economically and culturally.
While one can point to an extraordinary example of a singular product or company, socialist countries must, by definition, strangle the creative and entrepreneurial mindset necessary for a vibrant culture and economy. Socialist governments are hungry leviathans that must be fed at an exponential rate. Small business owners, wealthy investors, large corporations, the elderly, the infirm … All must be devoured.
The advocates of socialism understand this, even if their acolytes do not. Socialism must eliminate the economic structures, societies, and cultures upon which it seeks to impose itself. There can be no competition for service or affection. There can be no higher power than government.
The promise of free everything, coupled with a misplaced sense of cultural guilt driven by leftist ideology, has seen modern Europe overrun by the dregs of Islamic culture. No, “overrun” is not fair; that implies innocence on the part of the Europeans. No, Europe imported the very worst of the Middle East to prop up its flailing economic infrastructure against the crushing weight of socialism.
One need only consider the no-go zones of Paris or the euphemistically styled “grooming gang” scandal in England to understand how little that carefully guided European vacation showed. Indeed, what visitors glimpse of modern European culture is actually a continent-sized museum of 18th-century life.
So then why do 62 percent of American adults under 30 say they hold a “favorable view” of socialism? Or, even more worrisome, that 34 percent of the same group have a similar view of communism?
Together, those worldviews drove more than 110 million state-sponsored murders in the 20th century, and continue producing misery and despair today. Yet they are being spoon-fed as fairy tales to American children every day.
It was one thing when tenured professors in post-graduate courses waxed poetic about the glory days of Comrade Stalin. But the rapid influx of left-wing ideologues indoctrinating our elementary and secondary schools presents a greater threat to our economy and constitutional liberties.
As socialism devours cultures, Islamification steps in to reanimate the corpse in the Sharia-proscribed horror demanded by its false god.
Like Europe, which first fell sway to leftist ideas before welcoming Islamic radicals, one need only see Minneapolis—which allows the public broadcast of the Muslim call to prayer five times per day—for a glimpse of the destination to which we are mindlessly running. Where Europe has gone, the United States is sadly following.
We are not there yet. There is time to act. Alarms are ringing. Will we snooze, or will we take action to save our republic?
