“Socialism is a
philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of
envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
—
Winston Churchill
“The problem with
socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money (to
spend).”
—
Margaret Thatcher
Two statements on
socialism, from the British who tried it after the “Downton Abbey”
era ended. Now we Americans, who have been flirting with it for
decades, are apparently planning to leap into it without apology
during this year’s election of a Democrat presidential candidate.
And Democrats have the nerve to criticize Republican candidates as
extremists during the silly campaign season?
I was thinking of Margaret
Thatcher when we learned Nancy Reagan died, right after I watched a
piece on “60 Minutes” about the new Canadian Prime Minister, Justin
Trudeau, the son of Pierre Trudeau. I recalled my favorite story
about our President Ronald Reagan, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau,
British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher and French Prime Minister
Francois Mitterrand, meeting for the first time after Reagan’s
election.
In the past, the tradition
had been for the heads of state to refer to each other with
formality: Mr. President, Madame Prime Minister etc. But our
friendly Aquarian president Reagan walked into the room saying, “Hi,
I’m Ron; and everyone became from then on, “Ron, Maggie, Pierre”
(and dare I say?) “Francois” As these extraordinary leaders worked
together, “Ron” became friends with Russia’s Gorbachev (Mikhail),
and ended the Cold War.
I think this may be the
point being made by Donald Trump, about getting along with Vladimir
Putin.
So, we here all understand
what socialism is. You work hard, the government takes as much of
your hard-earned money as possible, gives it to other people to
empower politicians and government bureaucrats, and eventually you
too need government help in order to survive. So the politicians and
bureaucrats own all of us, have all the power, get their cut of the
money – great plan, Democrats!
Europe gets away with it
because Europeans are malleable folks, and can run their economies
with the help of capitalist America, which pays for their national
defense, leaving them free to pay for socialized medicine. Thanks,
but I’ll stick with the Republicans, weird as they are acting. Just
heard Mitt’s robo-call to Floridians urging them to vote for Rubio.
At first I couldn’t
understand why our former governor was leaping into the dance of
idiocy when he could have remained with dignity above the fray,
maybe been asked to step in if Republican primary voters couldn’t
decide on their final candidate. Then once again my aging
institutional memory was jogged as I listened to an interview with
Rush Limbaugh
by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday last weekend. Rush reminded
us that Romney’s dad “did much the same thing against Barry
Goldwater in a cabal with Republican establishment guys back in
1964.”
That year was my first
campaign, as I pushed my newborn son’s carriage around the
neighborhood passing out Goldwater flyers. Slowly I learned that
fiscal conservatives were hated by the Republican establishment as
well as by the socialist-leaning Democrats. How can you build a
Washington, D.C., lobbyist-run power base if you can’t tax, spend
and borrow unlimited amounts?
So maybe Romney is just
emulating daddy again. George Romney pushed Barry Goldwater out of
that 1964 race, then lost his own race in 1968 to Richard Nixon
after declaring himself “brainwashed” about Vietnam. I myself liked
George Romney, and thought that most of Washington, D.C., was
brainwashed about Vietnam, but, here’s my new theory:
Mitt just wants to be like
Daddy, attacking another Republican, then running himself before
losing too, as a family tradition. Yes, Mitt Romney has taken out
2015-2016 FEC documents for “Romney for President,” with Darryl
Crate of Beverly as treasurer. Was this a just-in-caser? Or was his
plan always to be chosen at a brokered convention, on the
assumption, shared by many last winter, that Trump would falter?
Here’s another good one.
The
Huffington Post has reported that “the most powerful people in
the technology sector, along with other billionaires and top
Republicans, flew to a small island off the coast of Georgia last
weekend to attend a secretive forum, where they discussed, among
other things, how to keep current Republican front-runner Donald
Trump from winning the party’s presidential nomination.
“Among the cabal of tech
CEOs who met at the remote Sea Island Resort for the American
Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum were Apple CEO Tim Cook…
Google co-founder Larry Page…. Top Republicans, including Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senator
Tom Cotton, and Karl Rove also attended the forum, as did
billionaire GOP donor Philip Anschutz and New York Times publisher
Arthur Sulzberger.
“The off-the-record event
reportedly included a presentation about Trump from Rove, who shared
focus-group findings that indicated Trump’s biggest weakness is that
he can be erratic and that voters don’t consider him to be
‘presidential.’”
I love reading about
“secret meetings.” I just want to know what “presidential” means to
voters who chose Barack Obama.
And this reminds me of the
saddest thing I’ve heard: that when Dr. Ben Carson left the race, he
expressed his regret that he perhaps hired the wrong people to run
his campaign as they
walked away with millions of his donors’ contributions. Yes,
easy to imagine the professional campaign consultants taking
advantage of the campaign civilian, just as they took advantage of
real politicians like Romney in 2012; now they’ve created another
losing campaign while being paid tens of millions from Carson
supporters.
It’s now March madness
time. I don’t know whether to crawl into a hole in the ground to
sleep until I emerge to see the shadow of the Republican candidate,
or continue to watch every debate, collect the delegate count on all
primary winners, and share my opinions with you. Well, I guess I
decided for now.
Barbara Anderson of
Marblehead is a weekly columnist for the Salem News and
Eagle-Tribune Publishing Company.
