Boots & Sabers

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Tag: Communism

Venezuela Erupts After Fraudulent Election

by | 0702, 30 Jul 2424 | , , | 2 Comments

I hate to say “I told you so,” but I did. You can’t oust communist at the ballot box. They don’t allow it.

Protests erupted in the Venezuelan capital the day after President Nicolás Maduro claimed victory.

 

The opposition has disputed Mr Maduro’s declaration as fraudulent, saying its candidate Edmundo González won convincingly with 73.2% of the vote.

 

[…]

 

A heavy military and police presence was on the streets of Caracas with the aim of trying to disperse protesters and prevent them from approaching the presidential palace.

 

Crowds of people chanted “freedom, freedom!” and called for the government to fall.

 

[…]

 

In a speech on Venezuelan state television, Mr Maduro said it is his “obligation to tell you the truth”.

 

“We are all under the obligation to listen the truth, to gear up with patience, calmness and strength because we are familiar with this movie and we know how to face these situations and how to defeat the violent.”

 

[…]

 

Mr Maduro has accused the opposition of calling for a coup by disputing the results. “This is not the first time we are facing what we are facing today,” he said.

 

“They are trying to impose in Venezuela a coup d’etat again of fascist and counter-revolutionary character.”

 

The Venezuelan attorney general warned that the blocking of roads or breaking any laws related to disturbances as part of protests would be met with the full force of the law.

Does that rhetoric look familiar? The claim to speaking the “truth” and labeling all opponents as liars? The claim that opposing an obviously fraudulent election is a “coup?” The rigorous enforcement of laws against political opponents while allies run wild? All of this after disarming average citizens in the name of “safety.” Only those ignorant of history don’t know what’s going on. This is the classic Communist playbook and we are seeing it here in America.

Tax me now!

by | 0752, 17 Jan 2424 | , , | 0 Comments

This is such idiotic pandering.

More than 250 billionaires and millionaires on Wednesday reiterated their call on elected representatives of the world’s leading economies to introduce higher taxes on the very richest in society.

 

In an open letter to political leaders gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the rich signatories said they wished to deliver a clear message: “Tax our extreme wealth.”

“We are surprised that you have failed to answer a simple question that we have been asking for three years: when will you tax extreme wealth?” the letter said.

 

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society. This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

First, nothing stops these people from giving their money to government or privately funding things. They could help build roads, sponsor police departments, kick in for the welfare bill, or whatever. They are agents of choice.

Second, the reason that I oppose higher taxes – even if only target at the mega rich – is because that’s never where it stops. We have centuries of history of small, targeted taxes being expanded into the middle and lower classes. More government spending creates demand for more government spending that must be satiated.

Third, notice the comment, “unproductive private wealth.” Unless a rich person is hoarding cash in their mattresses, that wealth is not unproductive. In fact, concentrations of wealth are a necessary part of capitalism and vital to making capitalism work. You need concentrated wealth to invest in new ventures and innovation to progress the economy and raise the standard of living for everyone. There’s a word for when we give all of the money to government and allow the government to make those decisions: Communism. These people are Communists advocating for communism. The fact that they are rich only means that they expect to continue to ride atop a Communist society but with the violent power of government added to the power of their purses.

Bernie Sanders Launches Effort to Delegitimize Election

by | 1053, 23 Sep 2020 | | 23 Comments

Here we go.

Sen. Bernie Sanders is planning to mount an aggressive campaign to counter potential attempts by President Donald Trump to delegitimize the results of the November election, warning that Democrats and Republicans alike must do “everything that we can to prevent that from happening.”

In a phone interview on Monday evening, Sanders said he would spend the next six weeks urging the country to prepare for a “nightmare scenario” in which Trump declares himself the winner of the election and refuses to step down even if he loses.

Notice that the only “acceptable” and “legitimate” outcome of the election is a Biden win. Anything else is being characterized as a Trump usurpation. And watch the media go right along with that characterization. People like Bernie are working hard to portray any Trump win as invalid and in doing so are undermining our Republic.

The Sanders surge and the slippery slope

by | 0706, 25 Feb 2020 | , | 14 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Check it out:

One of our national great failures is that we, the people, have allowed our government schools to teach that communism, and its more polite brother, socialism, are anything other than the violent, failed doctrines of tyrants and lunatics. This is one of the reasons that Bernie Sanders is surging through the primaries and might be anointed the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party right here in Wisconsin.

Communism is not just an alternate form of organizing society or an altruistic expression of collective will. It is not just another way of accomplishing the same goals as capitalism and liberal democracy. Communism is an evil and murderous creed.

Communist governments have killed at least 100 million people over the last century. That is far more than every other kind of government combined. The oppression and killing by communists span cultures, geographies, and time. Whether in communist China, Soviet Russia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, Ethiopia, or elsewhere, communist violence is not a bug. It is a feature.

Some defenders of socialism and communism contend that the failures and atrocities of communism in places like Russia and North Korea were caused by externalities and circumstances that can be avoided on the next attempt. What these defenders neglect to share, or understand, is that centrally planned societies and economies require a tremendous concentration of power into the hands of a very small group of people. Those central planners are subject to the same emotions, flaws, passions, egos, jealousies, and sins of any other human. Communism does not bestow virtue on the practitioner. If anything, the old saw holds true that absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

Even if communism could be implemented by purely perfect noble beings, the very construct of the doctrine is contrary to the human condition. By eliminating free markets (legal ones) and individual rewards (except corrupt ones), people have little incentive to be productive or worry about making things that people actually want. The absence of incentive robs people of their initiative and denies society the benefit of their ingenuity. The result is the inevitable decline of a decaying society. The lessons of history are all too important today as a sizable number of our fellow Americans are supporting Bernie Sanders, and more importantly, his ideology. Sanders has put together a string of primary victories as he heads into Super Tuesday. Here in Wisconsin, a recent poll by the UW-Madison Elections Research Center shows Sanders the overwhelming favorite of Wisconsin’s Democrats with twice the support of his closest rivals, Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg.

Now that he is a national figure, Bernie Sanders likes to disavow communism in favor of something he calls “democratic socialism.” It is a distinction without a difference. Wordplay has always been a favorite tool of communists. Without going into Sanders’ long history of support and praise for communism and communist regimes, one need only look at Sanders’ platform to see it for what it is.

Sanders’ “Medicare for All” is the same government takeover of the health care system that we have seen for decades. Sanders would have the government outlaw private health care providers in favor of a health care system run by the federal government. Such a system puts government bureaucrats in charge of our personal humanity — our health.

Enacting the Green New Deal would require the government to force action in the energy and construction sectors of our economy. It would also require the government to obliterate private property rights in order to impose environmental mandates across the country.

Sanders’ plans for what he calls “workplace democracy” would shove people into unions and require the government to dictate the policies of heretofore private companies. Given government control of wages, health care, private property, etc., unions would be relegated to little more than enforcement arms of the government.

Does this sound familiar? Look at the verbs in the preceding paragraphs. “Outlaw.” “Force.” “Require.” “Obliterate.” “Impose.” “Dictate.” All of these policies require a colossal concentration of power into the hands of a select few in faraway Washington, D.C., to centrally manage our health care, work, economy, energy, and homes. With such concentration comes the inevitable violence and oppression to bend the people to the will of the central planners.

While some of my fellow conservatives relish the idea of a Sanders’ victory because they believe that Sanders would be the easiest challenger for President Trump to defeat, we must not risk our great nation for game theory and political theater. In this case we must follow the communists’ example and smother the threat before it grows — peaceably in the voting booth.

Bernie Proposes Canceling all Medical Debt

by | 1132, 1 Sep 1919 | | 12 Comments

Do I really have to explain why this is stupid and harmful? Apparently I do because some of y’all support this communist.

Sanders’s plan would cancel $81 billion in existing past-due medical debt, repeal parts of the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill and ensure that unpaid medical bills do not impact one’s credit score. Sanders has hit the 2005 bill for eliminating “fundamental consumer  protections,” accusing it of making it difficult for Americans to pay back medical debt by imposing stringent means tests.

“In the United States of America, your financial life and future should not be destroyed because you or a member of your family gets sick,” Sanders said in a news release previewing his plan.

Let’s play this out, shall we? Let’s say Sanders gets elected and cancels all medical debt. All of the people who owe the money presumably received quality medical care for which they did not have the money readily available. Whether or not those medical fees were “too expensive” is not germane to the discussion because Bernie isn’t talking about only canceling debt where the medical provider could be shown to have overcharged for their service.

The people received quality medical from professionals who trained for years and with, in most cases, advanced medical technology and medicine. The patients didn’t have the money at the time, so they incurred a debt. What happens when Bernie cancels it? Who is left holding the bag? The medical professionals and medical companies who provided the service are stiffed for their services.

How will they react? If you were stiffed out of money owed to you, how would you react? Most people would stop providing services unless people have the money up front. If the government can just cancel the debt, then why would you work for free? You wouldn’t. The only people you would reasonable provide services for would be people with the money (in cash and/or pre-qualified insurance) in hand.

If medical professionals stop providing services unless the patients pay up front, who is harmed? The people who don’t have the cash, of course. For rich people, this isn’t a problem. They can pay for it. The people who are harmed are the people in the middle and lower class. Sure, some of them could use a credit card, but how long would it take credit companies to stop allowing their cards to be used for medical services if the government can cancel the debt? Left without a way to incur debt to pay for services, the people in the middle and lower classes would be left without access to medical care.

And here we finally get to Bernie’s real motivation… if doctors and other medical professionals refuse to provide services for free to people in the middle and lower classes, how will Bernie, the communist, respond? He will respond the same way communists always respond. He will use the violent force of government to force them to do so. He will say that the government should compel medical professionals to surrender their time and talents to the collective. If they refuse, they will be denied a license to earn a living or worse.

And here again… who does that hurt? If qualified medical professionals are compelled to either work for free or leave the profession, many of them will choose another profession. With fewer and fewer medical professionals available, and the best and brightest certainly looking elsewhere to earn a living, it is the people in the middle and lower classes who will be denied service. This time they won’t be denied service because they don’t have the money. This time they will be denied service because there just isn’t anyone there to provide it.

Welcome to communism. This is how it always ends because the tenets of communism are not aligned with human nature and it relies on violence to bend, or break, people to its will.

Communists in California

by | 0739, 9 May 1717 | | 0 Comments

Um, I think that ship sailed a long time ago. A Communist by any other name…

Being a communist would no longer be a fireable offense for California government employees under a bill passed Monday by the state Assembly.

Lawmakers narrowly approved the bill to repeal part of a law enacted during the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s when fear that communists were trying to infiltrate and overthrow the US government was rampant.

The bill, which was authored by Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta, now goes to the Senate.

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