Rand Paul: America should reject the false appeal of socialism

[Brian4Liberty]

Rand Paul: America should reject the false appeal of socialism
By Sen. Rand Paul

The biggest threat America faces is not the enemy without but the enemy within. As America’s memory of the horrors of socialism fades, some are tempted by the false appeal of socialism.
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While America drifts toward the socialism of Western Europe, Western Europe regulates itself in the direction of Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the failed Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe yearn for the freedom and prosperity that made America great.

For decades, the economists of free markets have demolished the arguments of the socialists. Not only did socialism intertwine itself with the Soviet gulag and the Holocaust of national German socialism, but socialism just plain did not work — and millions of people starved to death because of it.
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What defect caused socialism to fail?

Hayek used the word “conceit” to describe the flaw inherent to socialism. In Greek, I am told the word is eparsi, or arrogance. It is precisely an elitism or form of arrogance that underlies socialism.

Socialism relies upon a belief that planners are smarter than the rest of us — that a complicated economy requires central government planning.
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Socialism crushes the free distribution of knowledge.

America is threatened because we’ve begun to forget what made us great. America has begun to forget that socialism does not work.

America’s survival is not dependent on the outcome of some misbegotten battle in the mountains of Afghanistan but rather is dependent on the will of the people to be free from the arrogance of big government, aka socialism.

Essentially, the argument for capitalism is two-fold. First, it is a matter of liberty. The bigger government gets, the less liberty you have.

Second, it is a matter of prosperity. That America is the richest and most humanitarian nation in recorded history is no accident. Our prosperity is directly linked to our freedom.
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Not only do I wish my country to remain free and prosperous, but I also hope that other countries aspire to join in the great benefits of the free market.

America, like Greece, faces a mountain of debt. Nothing guarantees that America will not someday suffer from insurmountable debt as Greece does.

The lesson is clear for Greece and America: choose less government and more freedom, and your debt will slowly wither away.
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More: http://rare.us/rare-politics/rare-li...socialism/amp/

[timosman]

To play the devil's advocate - would the national debt be higher or lower if US were a socialist country?

[Danke]

To play the devil's advocate - would the national debt be higher or lower if US were a socialist country?

Yes

[Brian4Liberty]

To play the devil's advocate - would the national debt be higher or lower if US were a socialist country?

You must mean a "more" socialist country. Socialism is spending. More spending leads to more debt.

[oyarde]

You know you have serious problems when Rand has to mention that it is not supposed to have appeal .

[r3volution 3.0]

Good article

Glad he mentioned that the NAZIs too were socialists, as should be obvious from the name, but gets forgotten.

[otherone]

The cronies need debt, because they need the petrodollar. The cronies need war, because they need the petrodollar. Between Wilson, FDR, and Johnson, the individual is tethered to the federal government. Taxes and entitlements keep the system in place. It's socialism without a safety net.