Socialism Freebies ~ What's the Cost?

Whaddya mean Bernie Sanders is trying to sell me on Socialism?

Woke up this morning and flipped on the news. First story was about a survey of how socialism is gaining traction among women. What? Makes no sense! Contradiction in philosophy. How are women supposed to be modern, strong, make their own decisions, independent…. yet want to be taken care of…. not by a man…. but by the state? Too proud to compromise with a husband to make a successful marriage…. yet willing to sell their souls and become passive…. to the state? Women don’t like being trapped in oppressive households and relationships. Ladies, be careful what you wish for.

Socialism is a bad idea for men and women…….. but it’s even worse for women, and all of us should know better.

I read Bernie’s platform in 2016 and the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America (DCA). If you have not read it, give it a try. It’s a contract for your life, and you should read it before signing up…… Bottom line, DCA/Bernie/AOC and her buddies advocate for government control of healthcare, banking, and all energy. Anyone who’s gone beyond an 8th grade education understands this is a bad idea…. that is….if we want to be free.

Everyone who has ever had their heart broken, especially women, should easily understand this conundrum. Nothing is ever ALL sunshine and rainbows. Without the rain, there are no flowers. Without ugly, there is no beauty. Without money, there are no great shoes…..

The problem is, socialism isn’t all gimme, gimme, gimme….. free college, better wages, guaranteed jobs, and life as a special rainbow unicorn in utopia. It’s a trade-off. No one talks about what we have to give up…. to get the “free” stuff. The politicians never mention the bad parts. WHAT college will the politician ALLOW you to go to? WHO will select YOUR job, YOUR career (because there will be a bureaucrat and a test to take in order to decide your career path)? WHAT will you be allowed to eat? HOW many children will YOU be allowed to have……. if any? WHERE will YOU be ALLOWED to live? It won’t be YOUR choice…. a bureaucrat will make the decision. With socialism, those days of “choices” are gone. Let’s not be stupid, here.

With capitalism, we have to work for and earn what we receive. What are you willing to do? We all want to be trim and fit, but are you willing to exercise and eat well?

We all want to be loved, but are you willing to invest in relationships, compromise, forgive, and heaven forbid, occasionally admit to being wrong? Could you relinquish your position even when you know you’re right? Because to be loved and in a relationship will take a LOT of capitulation….. for both parties. Or is it easier for you to get a dog/cat… where you can always be right?

We all want to be rich, but are you willing to forego instant gratification, work endless hours to develop your product or idea, buck the trends and your friends, remain determined……. even after you may fail multiple times? Could you do it? Or would you rather have “rich” fall into your lap…. easily.

Think about it. What are you willing to “give” in order to “take”, because there is always a trade-off.

Bigger questions….. What would make you happy? Does controlling others make YOU happy? Do YOU really think you would be one of those in power in a socialist system? I’m laughing…. some people assume they will be…… Do you have realistic expectations? What makes YOU so special? Why shouldn’t your neighbor be in charge of what YOU can have?

Would being rich, loved, or handsome/beautiful make you happy…… or is it really something else which is makes you angry, driving you, makes you restless, causes your fear? And most importantly, WHEN do you answer those questions? When you’re 20? 30? 60? Or never….. Do you die with that baggage because it’s too hard to ask those questions? Look around, how many people do you know who live….. and die…… with a chip on their shoulder? Wow, what a burden to carry.

Aubergine said something yesterday or day before and it made my blood run cold. In a personal moment, she spoke of her mother being incredibly manipulative. The relationship with her mother caused her great pain, but taught her to stay away from people like her mother. She learned. I didn’t wish for the pain of Aubergine’s experience as a child, but oh, how I was jealous to not learn the lesson earlier in my life….. because it would have saved a great deal of pain in my life. And right there, I was guilty. I wished for Aubergine’s knowledge/experience……. without the trade-off of pain, and the wisdom with comes from the pain.

Nothing is ever free. What’s the trade-off? Yin and Yang. Equal and opposite reactions. Cause and effect. A free and easy life promised by politicians……no problems….. …sunshine and rainbows…… at no personal cost…… you’ve got to be kidding………. Who believes this crap?

The promise of socialism is so fake, so obvious, it’s like trying to sell a diet of doughnuts and beer, to ensure the body of a supermodel or the Diet Coke guy. It reminds me of Hallmark movies, where the young girl’s absent father reappears and he’s really a prince….. and sweeps away the young girl and her forlorn/bitter mother to a faraway European Castle. Yet, the Hallmark fairy tales edit out teenage pimples, all the overdue bills, mom working two jobs, many nights of tears at 2:00am, and the girl not being popular in school.

Socialism is a fairytale. Grow up.

Today, too many people are buying what slick politicians are selling. They believe in the fairytale, take the easy path, the short cut to whatever we want…. It’s even better for politicians because they control the process…. Take the money and nice lifestyle from someone else… who earned it = socialism. The socialists rationalize their behavior, “They have to pay their fair share.”, but when do YOU do your fair share of the work? What are you willing to give up?

Healthcare

With the ACA, women who are beyond child-bearing years, and women who never want children, lesbians, those who are sterile, still pay a higher healthcare premium because maternity coverage is mandated by ACA. Is it worth an extra $200/month to you? Cuz you’re paying for it. A bureaucrat made the decision and YOU have no choice.

The interest on all student loans was raised from 3-6% to 6-9% because the government makes money on student loans, about $42 billion a year…. and the earnings help to subsidize healthcare. With an average student loan of $25K, the increase of about 3% is costing YOU about $75/month extra. Is it worth it? Cuz you’re paying for it. Did you think just the rich people were paying taxes? Hahaaaa. A bureaucrat made the decision.

Yes it is noble to advocate for healthcare for the poor but let’s look at what we have to give up……. the trade-off. Yes, our system failed as those with serious illness were driven to bankruptcy because of healthcare costs but this particular problem has not yet been addressed. Yet, the ACA wrecked healthcare for the VAST majority of Americans, no choice of physician, led to part-time jobs, and spiraling premiums (mine is up 400% and I still go out of network, pay cash, cross a state line, to visit our family doctor)…. cuz the insurance companies were guaranteed a 15% profit. Gee, who wouldn’t want to be in a business with a guaranteed profit…… with no cost reduction measures as part of the deal. Who represented the American people for such bad contract? Ahhh, yes, it was the Dems, the precursor to socialized medicine.

Limited choices and more expense. Any 8th grader would reject it. Women with a student loan are paying about $275/month more = trade-off.

Banking

Why would anyone think it would be a good idea for a government to take over our banking sector. Are they kidding? The answer from the American left to the Crash of 2008 was Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, February 21, 2011. The Obama/Holder DOJ didn’t prosecute anyone for the Crash of 2008. No one went to jail. We got the crash of 2008 because the government thought they could regulate housing and EVERYONE deserved a house. How did that work out?

Tell me, who has benefitted from the CFPB? My little bank used to spend $300K a year in compliance costs. After CFPB, they spend about $2 million/yr. It’s less money for car loans, kitchen remodels, small biz expansion…. and less employees in the bank. How was the CFPB good? We still have loan shark pay-day loan businesses and exorbitant credit card interest for those who can least afford it. Ahhhhh, that’s right, the CFPB doesn’t answer to Congress…. so we’re really not sure.

The CFPB fined banks for billions of dollars (12 billion so far) ( Link ) and is allowed to redistribute funds to “community organizations” which have a loose connection to those who were allegedly harmed. So the CFPB is really just a money train, taking money from banks…… and makes the cost of banking rise, for every American. Did you know, the CFPB has fielded 720K complaints since 2011……. which are public so anyone can make a wild claim, but the same database already existed at the FTC (which is private and adjudicated). It’s a dual effort…… yet the CFPB does employ another 12K people at government expense.

Duplicate agencies, the CFPB with no accountability to Congress, waste of taxpayer dollars…….. no, the 8th grader says, “NO!”. The 12 billion + cost of 12K workers = 13.74billion/150 million adult Americans = It cost you $91.60/year for a duplicate agency OR an amount equal to about 1/4 of the entire budget for the Dept of Education.

Energy

The idea of our government taking over the energy sector is scary. Even with Obama’s sluggish economy, the PRIVATE oil sector created fracking and a boom began, employing millions. We also recall the $6,000/gallon biofuel the Obama Administration insisted upon for the US Military, and the $7000 per car subsidy for electric cars. Billions upon billions were lost to “invest” in renewables and sustainable energy, and no socialist cared about children in the Congo mining Cobalt for 14 hours a day. Advances in nuclear energy were ignored. Coal production was all but shut down for “climate change” while the Chinese built 5 coal plants a month ….. because the bureaucrat in charge picked favorites. The Trump Admin came to office and 60K coal miners went back to work…. supplying clean coal plants….. reducing our energy bills and giving us more options for energy. We even export coal, decreasing our trade deficit. The USA is often referred to as the OPEC of coal. Who walks away from #1 status?

Those of us who are old enough to remember the OPEC embargo of the 70’s recall the humiliation of Americans standing in line, our economy brought to a standstill, because Middle Eastern Countries would not sell us oil. I was young but shocked a country as powerful as our’s could be brought to our knees. Well, under the Trump Administration, we’re now the #1 Oil and LNG producer in the world. A competent government would have addressed the problem much sooner.

Even if we were to assume Global Warming is the dire problem the DCA believes it is, we know Petroleum forms the base of thousands of products. Petroleum is also in the top three trade items of every single country on earth. It makes economic sense, and sound national security policy, to be a global leader in the petroleum industry…… unless you’re an ideologue who is a member of the DCA.

My fictional 8th grader took a look at this partial list of 6,000 items made with petroleum. The 8th grader wants to keep these items and is not willing to give up petroleum production…. even for the promise of freebies in a perfect world with sunshine and rainbows. My guess is …… the women who THINK they want socialism would reject such an ugly, smelly, dirty, socialist utopia.

Take A Look At The List of Petroleum Products

Even for shallow self-absorbed females……. Without nail polish, shampoo, makeup, lipstick, sunglasses, toothpaste, hair curlers, sweaters, dresses, perfumes, soap, purses, shoes, and deodorant…. no woman would want to live in such a world. (Link )

Diesel Fishing lures Dresses Tires Golf Bags Perfumes Cassettes Dishwasher Tool Boxes Shoe Polish Motorcycle Helmet Caulking Petroleum Jelly Transparent Tape
CD Players Motor Oil Bearing Grease Ink Floor Wax Ballpoint Pens Football Cleats
Upholstery Sweaters Boats Insecticides Bicycle Tires Sports Car Bodies Nail Polisher Faucet Washers Antiseptics Clothesline Curtains Food Preservatives Basketballs Soap Vitamin Capsules Antihistamines Purses Shoes
Dashboards Cortisone Deodorant Footballs
Putty Dyes Panty Hose Refrigerant Percolator Skis TV Cabinets Shag Rugs Electrician’s Tape Tool Racks Car Battery Cases Epoxy Paint Mops Slacks Insect Repellent Oil Filters
Umbrellas Yarn Fertilizers Hair Coloring
Roofing Toilet Seats Fishing Rods Lipstick Denture Adhesive Linoleum Ice Cube Trays Synthetic Rubber Speakers Plastic Wood Electric Blankets Glycerin
Tennis Rackets Rubber Cement Fishing Boots Dice Nylon Rope Candles Trash Bags House Paint Water Pipes Hand Lotion Roller Skates Surf Boards
Shampoo Paint Rollers Shower Curtains Guitar Strings Luggage Aspirin Safety Glasses
Antifreeze Football Helmets Awnings Eyeglasses Clothes Toothbrushes Ice Chests Footballs Combs CD’s Paint Brushes Detergents Vaporizers Balloons SunGlasses Tents Heart Valves Crayons Parachutes Telephones
Enamel Pillows Dishes Cameras Anesthetics Artificial Turf Artificial limbs Bandages
Refrigerators Golf Balls Toothpaste Gasoline Ink Dishwashing liquids Paint brushes Telephones Toys Unbreakable dishes Insecticides Antiseptics
Dolls Car sound insulation Fishing lures Deodorant Tires Motorcycle helmets Linoleum Sweaters Tents Refrigerator linings Paint rollers Floor wax
Shoes

Nah, the women who run businesses and need caulking, diesel, floorwax, coolers, ammonia, chemicals, …….. and our lipstick…. will stick with capitalism.

With Socialism, we have no choices. The bureaucrats decide what we should do and we’re too independent now. The trade-off is too steep, the cost to high. We’ll keep our freedom. Maybe we should start walking or running to lose a few pounds and/or be happy with the way we look. Yes, we could probably figure out a way to save $5/day, and accumulate a little nest egg. And that guy around the corner, who worships the ground we walk on…… he’s willing to compromise and meet us halfway. Maybe, we should give him a chance.

Socialism wants to assure equality of all people. No one poor, but no one exceptional either. Why try? Why innovate? Why be a leader? Why defend anyone? Pretty soon…. we wouldn’t even “want” or “hope” anymore…. because everything we did want would not be allowed by bureaucrats.

Thanks anyway, DCA. No thanks, Bernie.

No deal.

Democrats In White Forget That Phyllis Schlafly Was Right

On Tuesday evening when the women of the Democrat Party appeared in the House of Representatives Chamber wearing white jackets as part of their ensembles, there was a piece of flair on just about every outfit that gave this writer pause. It was a button that simply read “ERA YES.”
This writer’s memory of the original ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, that passed both sides of Congress with supermajorities, and fell three states short of ratification by its ten year deadline, was the failure of passage. (I was a kid.) The darn thing died in 1982 thanks to a campaign spearheaded by a woman hailed among conservatives by the name of Phyllis Schlafly.
Mrs. Schlafly passed away during the 2016 presidential campaign at the end of a fight with cancer which she had endured for quite some time. Headlines screamed that summer of her removing a daughter from the board of her Eagle Forum which spawned a lot of unfounded speculation. (The truth is the daughter, Mrs. Schlafly’s primary caregiver within the family, wanted her mother to rest in her final months, and Phyllis being Phyllis wouldn’t do it.*) At the time, this writer did some research on the fight against the ERA, and came to the conclusion that the women of the United States had Phyllis Schlafly to thank for saving them from themselves.
Mrs. Schlafly’s primary concern in opposing the ERA was not to stop women from being who and what they were meant to be, she did go back to school to get a law degree after all, but to protect the American family. At the beginning of her fight in the early 1970s, Mrs. Schlafly predicted that with the passage and ratification of the ERA, several social changes would occur that would be detrimental to the future of the nation.

Why “STOP ERA”? Phyllis Schlafly traveled across the U.S. throughout the 1970s calling for opposition to the ERA because it would lead to the following, most of which pro-ERA lawyers argued were not actually real threats from the ERA:

Homosexual marriages: traditional gender roles were, Schlafly argued, essential for preserving the family.

Women in combat: women, Schlafly argued, would weaken the military’s combat strength, and serving in the military would violate traditional gender norms.

Taxpayer-funded abortions: Schlafly, a … Catholic, ardently opposed abortion.

Unisex bathrooms: one of the best-known of the arguments Schlafly promoted, this was likely meant to create fear of losing a safe space. Schlafly argued that the ERA would also remove laws that depended on gender to define a sex crime, and that it would weaken laws about rape.

Elimination of Social Security benefits for widows: she believed women should not be in the paid workforce (though she herself was paid a salary) especially if they had young children, and so a Social Security benefit for women who had not earned their own benefits was essential to the mother’s ability to stay home.

Hurt families: She argued that the ERA would abolish a husband’s legal responsibility to support his wife and family, and making child support, that it would alter child support and alimony laws to make them gender neutral. In general, she argued that it would undermine the authority of men over women, which she saw as the proper power relationship for well-functioning families.

Many of these claims about what the ERA would do are disputed by legal scholars. On the other hand, some of these results evolved after the 1970s to become public policy, accepted by a majority of the electorate.
The Eagle Forum and so-called states’ rights groups warn that the ERA would transfer a great deal of power from state to federal governments.

Amazing isn’t it, that many of her predictions came true whether the ERA passed or not.
All these years later, Mrs. Schlafly’s ability to think logically down stream, as it were, and sound the alarm on so many issues that the people of the United States have been fighting in recent years did inspire Bloomberg, at least, to admit she was correct.
So if she was correct, and the ERA would have been a disaster for American women frankly by putting us on the same legal footing as men (can be drafted into the military, etc.), and it was defeated by the deadline imposed by Congress in 1982, why were the women in white pushing support for the long ago departed?
Basically, because they don’t believe it is dead.
In recent years, two states, Illinois and Nevada, ratified the amendment despite its cadaverous state. That means that only one more state would be needed for final ratification if Congress would only lift the time limit of ten years required for the ERA’s passage.

After its passage by joint resolution of Congress, the amendment had until 1982 to be ratified by the required 38 states. The deadline passed, but as [Alaska Sen. Lisa] Murkowski and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) wrote in a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, a renewed effort to ratify the amendment at the state level began about two years ago, and was buoyed in part by #MeToo.
Nevada ratified the amendment in 2017, and Illinois did the same in 2018, meaning only one more state is needed to get to 38.
And, Murkowski and Cardin write, Congress could remove the deadline, allowing the amendment to become law if a 38th state joins in.
“Women should not be held back or provided less opportunity, respect or protections under the law because of their gender,” they write. “This is not a partisan issue but one of universal human rights. Gender equality should be an explicit, basic principle of our society.”

It looks like, now that Mrs. Schlafly and her ability to rally the troops and circle the wagons are gone, the women of the Democrat Party and the men who are too spineless to stand up to them are going to try to revive the corpse of the ERA regardless of the consequences.
The reality is that the Senate may well be the roadblock on this one as amending the original legislation would take a big vote, but rest assured, the other side of the aisle will keep pulling out all the failed ideas of the past as the generations go on and have no idea of why such measures were defeated and who is responsible for making such things come to pass.
* The six degrees of separation in Mrs. Schlafly’s hometown is really two, and this writer has information that was on the ground, but never reported about the family fight in question.