The Fruits of Socialism

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
(Margaret Thatcher)

“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)

“One of the consequences of such notions as 'entitlements' is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”
Thomas Sowell)

“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
(Alexis de Tocqueville)


We are witnessing the fruits of socialism in Greece, and sadly we are heading down that path.

Read from One News Now, and see what awaits us if we continue down this course:

Economics: It's Greek to the socialists
Robert Knight

[...]

"After years of socialist policies, Greece is in economic ruins and is threatening to bring down the European economy with it. The government has been forced to announce austerity measures that are not sitting well with a people accustomed to socialist illusions.

It doesn't matter to them that the budget deficit is as high as 14 percent of the gross domestic product -- a whopping 11 percent higher than the European Union requires its members to observe. Led by the public employee unions, a general strike ensued on May 5, and it quickly turned murderous. Three people burned to death inside a bank that protesters had torched and then had blocked firefighters from saving them.

Trying to secure a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Prime Minister George Papandreou had announced a second set of wage cuts for public workers, a second sales tax, and a pensions freeze. And even this might not be enough to pull the Greeks out of the monetary gutter. Add to this a dive in tourism as the world watches Athens erupt day after day.

The attitude of the protesters was epitomized by Andreas Petropoulos, spokesman for the ADEDY, the public sector umbrella union, who said, 'We want the government to take back all, and I mean every single austerity measure.'

Really? Every single one? This is like watching passengers on the Titanic attack the crew for getting lifeboats ready, demanding that they instead serve up more hors d'houevres. That sinking boat? Ignore it and it will go away.

One would think that the socialist labor unions would have lost their clout by this time, having engineered the destruction of a once-viable economy. And what about those communists? Weren't the deaths of more than 100 million people worldwide at the hands of communist dictatorships during the 20th century enough to persuade them to try...something else? Apparently not. In the Ukraine this week, where Joseph Stalin had murdered more than 10 million people through famine and executions during the 1930s, communists erected a statue to him in Kiev.

Socialism is an ideology built on illusion and envy. It's about 'spreading the wealth' by taking from some to give to others. And its inevitable result is poverty, accompanied by force. That's because socialism is based on dishonest assumptions that transgress economic laws that are as immutable as gravity."


Read it all.