Soap Box

I can’t bring myself to believe that there aren’t enough Americans alive who still remember the reality and abject failure of socialism and the wide path of human deprivation and suffering, shattered societies and failing dictatorships all socialist governments eventually morph into, to stave off the onslaught of socialist presidential candidates that inundate the democrat side of the upcoming election.

I know I do, I remember the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, the people who were shot and killed for nothing more than trying to escape the horrors a totalitarian regime always wreaks on its people, the long lines of people in the Soviet Union just trying to procure the basic food and necessities for daily life.

I remember crossing Checkpoint Charlie shortly after the wall started coming down and crossing from a vibrant, bustling, fashionable West Germany into the colorless, dismal streets of East Germany where the people wore worn out threadbare clothes and were suspicious of anyone who approached them, a fearful, haunted look in their eyes.

Oh, there’s plenty of information about the disastrous history of socialism. In fact, you need to look no farther than Venezuela, a country that should be thriving, and was until Hugo Chavez brought his idiotic communist ideas and heavy-handed rule, and now Venezuela is on the verge of starvation.

But be that as it may, even with all the voluminous sources of information on the evils of socialism, the current generation, thanks to an inadequate and left-leaning educational system, does not know about the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and all the other scars socialism has left on history and listen, wide-eyed, to the promises of a new American Shangri-La, where everything is free and all of life’s gnarly problems can be laid at the footstep of an all-powerful nanny state government who would see to their every need from cradle to grave.

I don’t believe that America will accept or elect a socialist candidate in this election cycle, but if something isn’t done about the education of the coming generations there will be a successful socialist candidate sometime in America’s future.

Oh, I don’t think it would be a crusty old pseudo-communist like Bernie Sanders or a shrill-voiced shrew-like Elizabeth Warren, but some even-tempered, unflappable young man or woman who does not resort to name calling and political histrionics, but simply stays on message proclaiming the universal fairness of a system that makes sure everybody is treated equally.

A person who has been schooled and prepared for the task of selling the masses on the nobility of collectivism. A smooth, even-tempered individual who will have all the answers at their fingertips, a rebuff for every objection, an explanation for every instance of failure, the mechanics and mistakes that had turned every other socialist experiment into a disaster.

And this likable, sophisticated, urbane new face will become the darling of the media and dominate the airwaves, the hero of the Hollywood airheads, magazine covers and TV specials the wunderkind, the hope of America, adored by leftist governments around the world.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”

Sounds noble, don’t it? The words of Karl Marx in 1875, the supposed cornerstone of communism, the idealistic phrase that brings it all together, perfect fodder for the present-day canon of “progressive” governance, a level playing field for all, free college, medical care, open borders and the rich at last paying their “fair share”.

But behind all the high-flying phraseology and the inflated promises lies a world that actually differs little in philosophy from the plantation days, when a hand full of the elite who wield the power live in splendor with different health care plans, different benefit and retirement packages, different pay scales and different privileges than the lumped-together, one size fits all, numbered but unnamed masses who live under their thumb.

God forbid that that day should come, but the indications are strong that we are headed in that direction.

A socialist America.

Another deceived nation on the scrap heap of history.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem

God Bless America

— Charlie Daniels

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