Why Do Liberals Over-Reach?

Richard Nixon was worried about being re-elected president.  He needn’t have been.  His opponent, George McGovern, made a classic liberal error: he over-reached.  Not only did he oppose the Viet Nam War, but he promised to virtually dismantle the American military.

So let’s call this the McGovern effect.  When liberals feel confident that they can win office, they tend to go overboard and reveal their true colors.  McGovern thought that Nixon and the Viet Nam debacle were so disliked that he would prevail in a walk-in; hence the openness of his pacifism.

Jimmy Carter also ran against Ronald Reagan by promising to reduce military spending.  Despite his own military record, this did not go over very well.  Reagan won and went on to dramatically increase the budget for the armed forces, which eventually helped to defeat the Soviet Union.

Bill Clinton got the message.  He therefore ran for office as a moderate, who supported a strong military. His left wing successors turned out to be more tone deaf.  Barack Obama’s popularity, irrespective of his weakening our army and navy, made dismantling the military seem inconsequential; ergo the Democratic emphasis on domestic spending.

Present-day liberals have also been misled by the transient popularity of Bernie Sanders’ socialism, the distaste for Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and the media hype for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  As a result, they let the Genie out of the bottle and raced as far left as they could get.

Liberals have always been socialists.  Ever since they thundered onto the political stage as muckrakers, they have been anti-business and pro-government.  They have always assumed that they were smarter and nicer than ordinary folks and were therefore destined to guide the country toward a collectivist utopia.

Most of the time, they have had to be discrete in pushing this agenda because the American public harbored capitalist inclinations.  The major exception was during the Great Depression when an economic collapse made even the communists seem palatable.

Today the conditions for a leftward tilt might appear to be less propitious.  After all, the economy is booming.  Even so, people are unhappy because a century of liberal policies has not delivered the unremitting happiness they were led to expect.

As a result, the progressives have doubled-down on their promises.  They have been emboldened to submit a Green New Deal for public edification.  On the grounds that we must be protected from an imminent environmental crisis, they propose to destroy our economy and insert government regulators into every corner of our land.

More moderate politicians tell us that this is merely aspirational. They know that it cannot be achieved in a scant decade.  Nonetheless, that the government should be so increased that it can tear airplanes from the skies and hamburgers from our lips ought to be terrifying.

Have the elected officials in congress behaved so valiantly that we should give them control over our personal lives?   Have the bureaucrats who administer our laws demonstrated a brilliance that deserves to be rewarded with greater power?

Liberals and socialists have been peddling rosy scenarios ever since the days of Karl Marx.  They habitually celebrate how wonderful things will be when we all cooperate for our mutual good.  Once those evil business people are removed from the scene, we will be transformed into a band of secular angels.

In fact, nowhere have collectivist dreams been converted into reality.  Everywhere socialism has been tried it produced poverty and bondage.  Be it in Russia or Cuba or now Venezuela, people are less happy and less free.

So what has been the progressive response to this history of misery? On the one hand, socialists make bigger promises.  They tell us that under their tutelage we will become super-rich, with everyone equally prosperous.  They call this social justice and portray it as a moral imperative.

On the other hand, they warn of dire consequences if their program is not adopted.  The sky will fall, the oceans will boil, and human life will be wiped off the face of the earth.  Not long ago, this boogeyman took the form of a nuclear holocaust.  Today, it takes the shape of global warming.

The biggest problem, however, is that liberals believe their propaganda.  When Ocasio-Cortez warns that unless we act the world will come to an end in a mere decade, she means it.  The question is: will the rest of us swallow this canard?  Will we crawl out on the same limb as the over-reaching liberals?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Great Dictator: Donald Trump

Now that Donald Trump has declared a national emergency on our southern border, he is being roundly condemned as a dictator.  Those who hurl this epithet at him do not consider it figurative.  They really believe he is a tyrant who must be stopped in his tracks.

Look, they tell us, at all of the illegitimate powers he has swept into his corrupt hands.  See how he is violating the constitution and ignoring congressional prerogatives. This, they insist, is the way dictators behave, whether they rule over Nazi Germany, communist Russia, or the United States.

This litany would be somewhat more persuasive if liberals had not been calling Trump a tyrant since before he took office.  From the beginning, he has been compared with fascists, Bolsheviks, and religious fanatics.  Evil to the core, his goal has always been to enslave ordinary Americans.

To those on the political left, this sounds about right.  They so hate Trump that everything he does becomes evidence of his malevolent megalomania.  Vicious characterizations of his persona are repeated with such consistency that they seem true irrespective of their validity.

But is Trump really a dictator?  According to the dictionary, a dictator is a person who rules by force. He is an autocrat who has absolute power over those he governs.  So powerful are dictators that they can inflict any whim on the people they dominate.

Does this apply to Trump?  Is he actually an evil despot who has imposed total control over our once contented democracy?  I submit that none of this is the case; that the invectives tossed at him are hyperbole. They are rank exaggerations intended to diminish his standing.

Let us begin with Trump’s declaration of a national emergency.  The president’s enemies tell us that this is a manufactured crisis.  Let us suppose they are correct.  Has this announcement led to oppressive measures?  Is moving federal money around to build a wall despotic?  Is this really an effort to undermine our democratic institutions?

If it is, other presidents have been equally guilty.  In point of fact, executives in most bureaucracies do this with regularity.  Unless they did, they would not have the flexibility to administer their organizations.

But let’s get back to what it is to be a dictator.  Dictators throw people in jail.  They deprive them of their freedom if they have the temerity to disagree with their leader.  Has Trump done any of this?  Of course, not.  He has not even threatened to do it.

Well then, a dictator will at least quash dissenting opinion.  He opposes freedom of speech; hence he punishes those who insult him.  Many in the media are certain this applies to Trump.  Hasn’t he characterized journalists as the enemy of the people? Hasn’t he accused them of disseminating fake news?

Obviously Trump has done these things.  Nonetheless, has he closed down any newspapers?  Has he jailed any reporters?  Has he even sued them for libel?  The answer to each of these questions is: No.  He has merely pointed out the undeniable fact that modern journalism is deeply biased.  This is a truth, not a variety of oppression.

The embarrassing fact is that Barack Obama did threaten to sue reporters. He did seek to intimidate some into remaining quiet about missteps in his administration.  What was the reaction to this?  It was mild because the press loved Obama.

Dictators also undermine public institutions.  In order to concentrate power in their own hands, they steal it from others.  Has Trump done this?  We are told he behaved in this manner vis-a-vis his emergency, yet there were laws that permitted him to act as he did.  Congress remains intact.  So does the judiciary.

Once again it was Obama who did more to weaken our traditional forms of governance.  Wasn’t it he who boasted that he had a pen and a phone that allowed him to get around congress?  So where were the voices that branded him a dictator?  They were absent because the media agreed with his usurpation of power.

Donald Trump may be an atypical president, but he is not an oppressor. He has stolen none of our freedoms and punished none of his detractors.  If anything, it is his critics who abused their powers.  Witness the Mueller probe that imprisoned people in order to extract information unfavorable to the president.

Although some may believe that Trump is a terrible president, they need to distinguish apples from oranges.  If they don’t, they may one day clear the path for an actual dictator—probably a socialist one!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Liberal Childishness

The secret is out.  Liberals are superannuated children.  Their recently unveiled Green New Deal is a pipe dream crafted in the minds of the very immature.  It is an idea that only the inexperienced and untutored could love.  Based solely on the fantasies of irresponsible politicians, it is a prescription for national disaster.

Alexandria Ocasia–Cortez is both young and enthusiastic.  She is also an attractive personality.  But why did Democrats anoint her their pied piper? She is plainly leading them over a cliff with her siren songs.  Perhaps it is because they too are immature socialists at their core.

We don’t know who first said it, but the observation that “if people are not socialists when they are twenty, they have no heart; yet is they are still socialists when they are forty, they have no head,” is apt.  AOC’s Green Dream was obviously not thought through.

In the space of little more than a decade we are told that we must get rid of all fossil fuels, retrofit every one of our homes, and build high-speed railroads from coast to coast.  Although this would mean dismantling countless industries, we are assured this will bring about an improved lifestyle.

Much of what we are told we must do is patently impossible.  There is no way we can replace all of our automobiles with electric vehicles in the time allotted.  Nor are we going to eschew airplane travel or consuming hamburgers. 

As for the cost of this nightmare, no precise figures have been attached to it.  Given the scope, however, this will be in the tens of trillions of dollars—and that is a conservative estimate.

So where will these dollars come from?  You guessed it; they will be commandeered from the wealthy.  Their marginal tax rate is to go up to between seventy and ninety percent.  Unfortunately, this will not be enough to pay for the entire Green Dream.  The rich are rich, but not that rich.

What is worse, once the wealthy are stripped of the incentive to earn more, they will stop investing and thus cease creating new jobs.  How do we know this?  Because is happened before—as during the Great Depression.  Having never studied history, of course, the young do not realize this.

Nor will confiscating everything the wealthy own do the job. This would be a one shot deal that could not address a long-term program.  The middle classes are therefore left to pick up the tab.  Their taxes will have to skyrocket.

One left-wing commentator declared that this prospect is not alarming. He compared what will be needed to what was done during World-War II.  At the time, the proportion of the national income spent by the government doubled.  This enabled us to mobilize to defeat the Nazis.

Why then, we are asked, shouldn’t we do the same to save the planet from over-heating?  This is described as a comparable emergency—only it is not.  AOC may insist that the sky will fall in a dozen years, but the government’s recent climate report only suggested that the GDP might lower by ten per cent in a century.

So for this we are supposed to destroy our civilization?   Needless to say, the young do not remember that during WWII there was strict rationing?  Few private automobiles were produced, while meat, butter and eggs became luxuries.  Is this belt-tightening necessary for a phony emergency—especially when there are superior alternatives?

To top off this Green irrationality, even if the goal of zero-carbon emissions were met, it would do no good.  With China and India increasing their carbon footprint, the overall level of pollution will rise.  Global warming would consequently continue despite the United States having voluntarily chosen collective poverty.

So why did so many Democratic politicians jump on the Green New Deal bandwagon?  Didn’t they realize the dire—even laughable—implications of the program?   Apparently many presidential aspirants did not.  They heard what sounded like a winning political slogan and decided they did not want to be outflanked by the opposition.

They were vulnerable to this foolishness precisely because their liberalism is grounded in socialist fantasies.  Socialism is utopian.  It does not accurately assess the future, but hides it behind a screen of impractical aspirations—just as children do.

Where then are the grown-ups?  Where are the adults who understand there are limits to what we can achieve?   If we are to improve our lives, we must deal with the world as it is.  Many liberals have evidently decided reality is too harsh for them to accept.  Too bad!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Falling in Love with Poverty

You have perhaps heard the observation that God must love the poor because he created so many of them.  Whether or not this is true, it seems to apply to liberals.  They claim to be the party of the people, but there policies are intent on increasing the numbers of poor.

The recent proposal for a Green New Deal heads the list of crackbrain schemes that if implemented will impoverish us all.  Socialism, in general, has been conducive to scarcity. Everywhere it has been tried, it has degraded the living standards of ordinary people.

The misery inflicted on Venezuela is only the latest example of the tangible implications of the collectivist dream.  Politicians, who promised to redistribute the country’s oil wealth, reduced what had been the richest nation in South America to destitution.

In fact, the richest person in Venezuela is currently the daughter of the country’s late dictator Hugo Chavez.  She became a billionaire while ordinary Venezuelans literally lost, on average, twenty pounds in weight because they had so little to eat.

Similar declines in the quality of life occurred in Russia, China, and Cuba.  Most people do not realize it, but the Russian economy grew more quickly under the Tsars than the Soviets.  Forced industrialization lined the pockets of communist party hacks, while it reduced millions of Russians to slavery.

As for China, Mao Tse-tung lived like royalty in multiple palaces, while he concocting a Great Leap Forward that resulted in the starvation of tens of millions of Chinese.  Meanwhile, Cuba under Castro went from one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America to one of the poorest.

This is not an admirable track record.  It is certainly at odds with what Karl Marx promised.  He believed that once the means of production were ripped from the capitalists’ hands, the excess value produced by nascent industry would automatically be redirected toward the poor.

Ordinary workers would then become so comfortable that they could go fishing in the morning and report to the factory in the afternoon at their own discretion.  No longer wage-slaves, by cooperating with one another, they would ensure that all became prosperous.

This remains the vision of contemporary neo-Marxists.  We see it in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green Dream. She believes that by eliminating the use of carbon fuels we will not only save the planet, but improve the living conditions of the poor.

How this is supposed to happen when entire industries are put out of business is a mystery.  Does she really believe that Detroit can completely switch over to electric cars within a decade without massive dislocations among its work force?   And where will those folks working in the oil industry go? Will they all be installing wind farms?

Only economic illiterates could assume that these changeovers are feasible.  Only they would fail to realize that the modifications in equipment and worker skills require long periods to evolve.  These must be developed and tested and gradually put in place.

Liberals do not comprehend this because they are dreamers.  They actually have the nerve to tell us that as long as we can dream something, we can make it happen.  Their assumption is that they are such good people that whatever they imagine must be possible.

How absurd this is was revealed in one of Ocasio-Cortez’s throwaway lines.  She wants to ensure that everyone will have the resources to live contentedly. According to her, the government must therefore supply funds to those who cannot work or are unwillingto work.

That’s right: unwillingto work.  This is a dream all right.  It is the dream of college graduates who still want to live in mom and dad’s basement. It is the fantasy of those who have never worked, and thanks to a superior education, believe they should never have to.

In this neo-socialist dream, some people voluntarily work at jobs so that a large proportion of their income can be confiscated and conveyed to the layabouts.  Aside from the fact that this is unfair, it is a prescription for pervasive poverty. Such a strategy guarantees lower work force participation and therefore less wealth to dispense to anybody.

So here are three cheers for socialism and poverty.  If the Democrats get their wish, there will indeed be more poor voters.  The question is whether these folks will realize that their erstwhile saviors foisted this circumstance upon them.  Do you think they will really like being poorer?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Is Marriage Obsolete?

Let me begin by answering my title question: Is marriage Obsolete? The answer is an emphatic, No!  Indeed, the institution is more important for our collective survival than previously. Despite all of the critics, committed intimacy is essential for our future.

Nonetheless, the traditional marriage is obsolete.  The ideal of the man as the sole breadwinner and the woman as the subservient homemaker is dead as a dodo.  Very few contemporaries want this; even fewer obtain it.

There is, however, a problem.  When I was in college, many of my male friends spurned the idea of marriage. Why, they asked, should they be tied down by a piece of paper?  After all, sex was available without it.  They did not realize that committed intimacy had value over and above sex.

At about the same time, feminists rejected marriage as a form of bondage.  It was a way for rapacious males to extract free labor from intimidated females.  Women were, therefore, urged to set up their own households so as to avoid dependence on toxic masculinity.

The result has been family fragmentation.  Divorce, cohabitation and unwed parenthood exploded.  More people live alone in forlorn solitude than before, while more children must make their way into adulthood without the reliable support of two parents.

Partly this is because we have changed our minds about the value of marriage, but even more crucially because marriage became expendable.  Our society has become so wealthy that neither men, nor women, have to wed in order to meet their personal needs.  Both genders can  accomodate most of these in the marketplace.

But there is an addendum to this growing freedom and it is this: If people want to marry and stay married, they need to know how to do so.  The tragedy is that many don’t.  Given that the old models do not fit the emerging situation, they cannot figure out where to turn.

This crisis of “voluntary intimacy” has to be recognized and addressed. We urgently require ways for men and women to make lasting commitments that benefit them and their offspring. These cannot be forced upon them. They must be such that the participants recognize their worth.

To this end, I have written another book.  It is entitled, Saving Our Marriages, Saving Ourselves: Surviving the Voluntary Intimacy Crisisand it is available on amazon.com as a paperback ($10) and an eBook ($5).  

The secret to determining what is appropriate to our current circumstances is to begin by examining the nature of marriage.  How did it develop and what functions does it serve.  Unless we know what is possible and what we want, it is impossible to decide how to get there.

At this point, we can ask how to choose a suitable mate, that is, one who is trustworthy and a moral balance for us.  Since this selection is voluntary, making a good pick depends on our being emotionally mature.  Committed intimacy is not for children.

Marital stability also requires that the differences between men and women be accepted and respected.  Each partner must be allowed to be him or herself without being forced into a Procrustean bed by ideologues.  Yes, women can be assertive, while men can be nurturing—but this has to be up to them.

This realism is essential because the domestic division of labor a couple negotiates has to fit them.  With the traditional job assignments outdated, the new ones need to match the requirements of a particular twosome.  Who is employed at what job, or has which particular skills, matters.

Exact parity is not the goal.  Mutually recognized fairness is.  In a good marriage the partners are a team.  They work together such that both get what they desire.  The idea is for them to have balanced satisfaction; not for one to be the winner and the other the loser.

With this in mind, the pair can collaborate on creating a haven in a heartless world.  They can construct a safe place into which to retreat when the demands of the outside world become insupportable.

They can also collaborate on raising a family.  Children deserve two parents who care about each other and their offspring.  It is under these conditions that the young are most apt to grow up to be strong enough to function as independent adults.

Our society is disintegrating.  Only strong families can hold it together.  This is why it is imperative that we—not the government—mend our marriages. Otherwise the tensions that surround us are destined to grow and become ruinous.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Saving Our Marriages

In earlier columns, I have spent a great deal of time explaining why liberalism is wrong.  One of my arguments is that in expecting government bureaucracies to save us from our worst problems, progressives have bet on the wrong horse.  One area where this is tragically the case is the fragmentation of the family.

Liberalism did not cause the upsurge in divorce, cohabitation, and unwed parenthood.  These arose thanks to the successes of capitalism.  Once our society became sufficiently wealthy, people could break loose from the marital restrictions of the past—and they did.

This, unfortunately, had dire consequences.  One is that people are lonelier than previously.  In the absence of dependably committed relationships, they drift into anomy.  Now rudderless, they do not know where to find the emotional support to endure life’s trials.

More importantly, they are less emotionally available to their children. Many of our young do not receive the reliable socialization they deserve.  As a result, they grow up insecure and unable to cope with taxing demands.  While they feel entitled to whatever they desire, they lack the toughness to perform complex jobs.

I have described this problem as owing to “voluntary intimacy.” Nowadays neither men nor women have to marry if they do not want to.  Both genders are perfectly capable of independently meeting their needs in an economy that can supply almost all of them.

The trouble comes when individuals who want to marry find that they do not know how to.  The old norms and the traditional gender division of labor no longer apply, whereas appropriate means of maintaining reliable bonds have not fully evolved. This has led to doubts about the validity of marriage as an institution.

One thing is certain: the government cannot fill the gap.  It has neither the will nor the expertise.  The government is an impersonal institution. So are the schools and welfare systems it sponsors.  Those who run these may be good people, but they have neither the time nor the inclination to furnish genuine love for millions of others.

In short: If our marriages are going to be saved, we are going to have to do the saving.  We must perform the emotional labor to make committed relationships work.  No one else can.  This requires that we begin with an honest assessment of what makes marriages work—including a realistic acceptance of their limits.

In my recently published book Saving Our Marriages, Saving Ourselves: Surviving the Voluntary Intimacy Crisis, the goal is to make these conditions plain.  Now available on Amazon.com as a paperback ($10.) and an eBook ($5.), the origins, functions, and pitfalls of marriage are laid our in straightforward language.

I go on to explain how we search for the appropriate partner and use courtship mechanisms to create emotional bonds.  Not romanticism, but honesty and interpersonal trust are essential. Above all, it takes mature adults to make mature selections.

This, of course, is not enough.  As anyone who has been married knows, intimacy brings inevitable frictions. These need to be successfully negotiated or they blow up in our faces.  I recommend a “dual concern” mode of doing so.  The crucial requirement here is moral equality between the partners.

More controversial are my recommendations regarding a domestic division of labor.  This must be hammered out by couples themselves, but will probably be influenced by gender differences.  Whatever the radical feminists say, there are such differences and they have an enormous impact.

Children likewise matter.  Once they enter the intimacy equation, adjustments must be made to accommodate their needs.  Good parenting is not automatic.  It must be responsive to the child’s situation and useful in preparing him or her to become a self-directed adult.

In this case, I recommend limits with latitude.  Parents must be adults who protect their children from life’s dangers, but also provide the space to learn how to make good personal choices.  Parents must be guides, not authoritarian overseers.

Regardless of all this, mistakes will be made.  Although they should be worked at, some marriages will fall apart.  This obliges us to understand the nature divorce and how its impact can be softened. This is especially important with respect to the children of divorce.

I find I have said a mouthful, much of which may raise questions in your minds.  The truth is that marriage and its implications are enormously complex.  That is why I wrote a book.  Perhaps some of you will check it out.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Gloaters-in-Chief

The spectacle was illuminating in its juvenility.  The president and the Democrats had been locked in combat for months.  Moreover, it did not look like there would be movement on either side.  Onlookers called for compromise, but the players were not prepared to give an inch.

Then Donald Trump did two things.  He decided to allow Nancy Pelosi to postpone the State of the Union, even though her excuse for doing so was transparently slender.  More importantly, he agreed to a three-week interruption of the partial government shutdown so that the two parties could negotiate their differences on the border wall.

That’s it.  Yet it was as if the sky had fallen.  Nancy immediately made it plain that Trump had “caved.”  She had gone face-to-face with the monster in the White House and backed him down.  She showed him who was boss and from this moment forward it was clear where the power lay.

Chuck Schumer was more explicit.  Trump had been taught a lesson.  Henceforth he had better understand that congressional Democrats would exercise governance; not the illegitimate upstart residing on Pennsylvania Avenue.  Once liberals said no to a program—it was over.

Actually, the Democrats thought they had done something more. They were convinced they had humiliated Trump into impotence.  By forcing him to capitulate, they were certain that he had been so humbled that he dared not to fight back.  For years, they had used resistance to stall his every initiative; finally it was mission accomplished.

These left-wingers, however, had missed an important truth.  When I was boy in Brooklyn, we loved playing touch football.  I especially loved it when I scored a touchdown.  The first time or two I was visibly gleeful.  Look what I did!  I was defeating the other side.  

It quickly became apparent that this was not the case.  Those other guys didn’t enjoy having my achievement rubbed in their faces.  The more I gloated, the angrier they became.  Indeed, the more determined they were to get even.  They were not going to allow me to portray them as losers.

It did not take long for the Democrats to discover this scenario applies to politics too.  Donald Trump did not experience a mortal blow.  He and his allies would have plenty of time to plot revenge.  They have not been rendered impotent; nor liberals invincible.

First, the State of the Union was only delayed a week.  Wow!  Some loss! Now Trump had been handed a platform that could attract more attention than ever.  If he uses it wisely, it can be a cudgel that redounds against the Democrats.

Were it up to me, I would use the opportunity to depict the Democrats for what they are.  I would not be bipartisan.  I would make it one hundred percent clear that the other side was intransient. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, two years of offering them olive branches produced more childishness than ever.

If this provoked the Democrats not only to withhold their applause, but also to march out of the chamber, this would suit me fine.  It would reveal to the public just how small-minded the opposition was.

Second, I would drive home the point that although I had sought to negotiate the border issue for months, there was no good faith rejoinder.  All I got for my efforts were insults, such as being compared to the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux, Klan.  

Furthermore, I would explain—in gory detail—that what was happening on our southern border was a major crisis.  Something had to be done.  This was a genuine emergency that a president was duty-bound to solve.  Otherwise it would fester.

In other words, Trump should make it apparent that his hand had been forced. Even though he wanted to work through normal channels, the Democrats decided to undermine traditional democratic governance.  This was therefore on their heads.

All of this needs to be said with sadness, not anger.  It was not retaliation.  It was a defense of our national interests against an unprecedented challenge by extreme socialists.  If a patriotic commander-in-chief did not declare an emergency and build the wall, it would not be long before there was no nation to defend.

This is a tough prescription, but we are living in tough times. When opposition politicians are arsonists, they should expect fire in return.  Yes, this may cause dreadful damage, nevertheless the absence of a backfire can only make things worse.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Confessions of a Teenage Socialist

When I was a teenager, more than half a century ago, I was an ardent socialist.  I knew that socialism was the wave of the future.  It was the only intelligent form of social organization; the only one that placed social interests above private greed.

How did I know this?  Had I read Karl Marx?  No, I hadn’t. Had I studied any other progressive thinkers?  Here too the answer was in the negative.  So how did I know?  The answer was that my ideas came mostly from my high school teachers.  They were my authorities.  They were the ones who indoctrinated me on the validity of left-wing beliefs.

Something else came along with this ideological baggage.  It was the conviction that socialism was inherently intellectual.  It had plainly been created by the intelligentsia and propagated by them. In other words, smart people fashioned—and sold—socialism on the basis of irrefutable science.

Anything less than complete agreement with this legacy was a sign of boorishness.  It was proof that the dissenters did not have the brains to understand the way the world worked.  Unwilling to learn from academics, they were destined to remain ignorant to their last days. I, of course, had already avoided this fate.

Contemporary socialists are, in fact, as arrogant as I was.  Their attitudes eerily mirror those of my adolescent self.  They too are convinced of their infallibility based on little or no evidence.  They too depict those who disagree with them as uninformed ignoramuses.

Senator Kamala Harris recently provided a sign of how shallow contemporary socialists are.  In explaining one of her political positions, she opined that capitalism was theft. That the rich should own much more than the poor was proof they had stolen from others.

This was nothing less than a restatement of the fiery rhetoric of Pierre Proudhon.  This eighteenth century French revolutionary denounced property on the grounds that everything should be owned in common.  It was brilliant sloganeering then; it does a serviceable duty today.

What grabbed me was that this was the very same language I used as a teenager.  I too was inspired more by its drama than economic insights.   Apparently this is true for senator Harris.  If so, it is an indication that her intellectual roots are as deep as mine were.

Or consider the brilliant cerebralism of congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  In describing how her tax proposals would be applied, she explained that the rich would not pay seventy percent of every dollar they earned, but that the highest marginal rates would apply only to what they earned above a particular level.

This lesson in progressive taxation came straight out of my high school economics class—only it was less sophisticated.  My teacher would never have referred to the wealthy as “the tippy-top.”  He would have regarded this formulation as insulting to his students.

But Ocasio-Cortez, despite her pretentions of understanding what is best for America, is more juvenile in her thinking than I was.  This grandiose naiveté is, unfortunately, epidemic among socialists.  Most assume they know more than they do.

I got lucky in college.  My conservative friends introduced me to a literature I did not know existed.  In fact, this discovery accelerated my journey toward the political right.  I felt betrayed by my erstwhile mentors.  They had sought to manipulate my allegiance by distorting the record.  This censorship was not intellectual; it was not science. Rather, it was propaganda.

Contemporary socialists are as narrowly informed as I was in my youth. Many of them, however, also have tunnel vision.  Yes, intellectually dishonest authorities have led them astray, but they contribute to their lack of knowledge by refusing to listen anyone who disagrees with them.

Socialism cannot work!  The evidence that it cannot has been available for a long time.  Socialists are unfamiliar with it because they actively reject it.  Take taxation, for instance.  Experiments in raising marginal tax rates to astronomical levels invariably fail. They do not being in more revenue, but less.

Confiscatory taxation also produces economic recessions.  During the 1930’s it kept the Great Depression going for a decade.  This did not help the poor, but exacerbated their distress.

So how is soaking the rich going to pay for Medicare for all?  Or for extreme environmental regulations? You guessed it: it won’t.  Why don’t the socialists realize this?  It is because they are as vainly ignorant today as their predecessors were in the past!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

A Divider, Not a Uniter: Barack Obama

Who can deny that our politics are askew?  Those on the right blame the chaos on those on the left—who immediately return the favor.  But why have we reached this impasse?  Why are so many people bitterly intent on censuring those with whom they disagree? “Divisive” is too bland a word to describe the acerbic situation.

One of the people almost never identified as responsible for this muddle is Barack Obama.  Nonetheless, he bears more of the onus than almost anyone.  His presidency was the pivot point that began our steep downhill slide.  After he left office, unprecedented social vituperation was baked in the cake.

Remember, Obama was supposed to be a uniter, not a divider.  He came to prominence by declaring that there was not a white or black America, but only an America.  Most folks took him at his word.  They assumed that a man who was half black and half white would understand that these two parts could subsist in harmony.

In fact, Barack turned out to be our betrayer-in-chief.  Judging by what he did—not what he said—he hated America and was determined to revenge himself upon it.  In almost every area, from our economy, to our democratic traditions, to international relations, he left a legacy of destruction.

I have sought to document this devastation in my new book, The Great False Hope: A Critical Account of the Obama Presidency.  It is currently available on Amazon as a paperback ($10) and an eBook ($5).  While I do not expect liberals to read it, conservatives should discover just why they were so appalled by him.

This book project began when I reviewed the Marietta Daily Journalcolumns I wrote during his term in office. Taken as a whole, they were a searing indictment of his multiple failures.  Not only was he an inveterate liar, but he was a glib agitator. Despite his luminous smile and charismatic speaking style, he left a trail of discord in his wake.

Let us concentrate on race relations.  Before his arrival on the scene, these had steadily been improving. Blacks ware making both economic and political advances, while whites were becoming more tolerant of diversity. Things were not perfect, but better than they had been.

The very fact that so many whites voted for Obama demonstrated how far we had come.  Mere decades earlier it was inconceivable that a man perceived as black would be elected to the highest office in the land.  Moreover, most white Americans genuinely hoped he would promote racial reconciliation.

Barack, however, did the opposite.  Mind you, although he did it subtly, he unequivocally reinforced the idea that whites were racists while blacks were innocents.  Whenever a racial conflict arose, he eschewed balance and instantly came down on the side of African-Americans.

We saw this in the dispute Henry Louis Gates had with the Cambridge police.  Without so much as an inquiry into what happened, Obama condemned the constabulary. Only later did he walk this back by offering a fig leaf beer to the cops.

Worse still was his handling of the Ferguson Missouri riots.  Here he gave credence to the lie that the black victim had raised his hands and said: don’t shoot.  This became a national mantra.  Obama could easily have gone on television and declared it untrue, but he instead backed his Attorney General in punishing the police.

Barack also sinned by omission.  He could have asked African Americans to be more responsible for their fate.  He never did. He could have told black men it was time to be responsible for their families.  Here too, these words remained unsaid.  Instead we found the police demonized and ordinary whites characterized as having an unearned privilege.

This one-sided portrayal of race relations had an impact.  The fact that it was a constant White House theme emboldened the racial radicals and intimidated the moderate reconcilers. Not integration, but retaliation, became the aim of the activists.

Today we see this in reflexive accusations of racism hurled against anyone with the audacity to disagree with the liberal agenda.  People do not have to demonstrate a modicum of discrimination in order to be silenced because they have white skin. Incidentally, the same is true of blacks that agree with whites.  They are automatically Uncle Toms.

So thank you Barack Obama.  Your persistent reverse racism poisoned our ability to hold a candid national conversation about race.  Irrespective of your sonorous denials, you resurrected some of the worst aspects of race hatred.  This was nothing less than political treachery.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

How Barack Obama Divided Our Nation

For some time now, I have been explaining that a mass techno-commercial society such as our own is in danger of fragmentation.  Millions of strangers cannot peacefully cooperate if they do not subscribe to a core of moral principles.  Without these their conflicts would wrench them apart.

I have further explicated the five essential principles.  These are: honesty, personal responsibility, fairness (defined as the same rules for all), liberty, and family values.  In their absence, people cannot rely on strangers to uphold their social duties.

As we peruse our fracturing nation, it should be apparent that these principles are being violated in almost every direction.  Lies, recklessness, and partiality appear to be ubiquitous. But why is this so?  What happened to make us less moral than our ancestors?

Oddly, one of the main culprits is Barack Obama.  As a man who was supposed to bring our nation together, he did the opposite.  Rather than help us be more understanding of one another, he sowed the seeds of distrust. He did this, in large part, by violating every one of the critical principles.

Although this may sound unlikely, I document it in my recent book, The Great False Hope: A Critical Account of the Obama Presidency.  (Available now of Amazon as a paperback ($10) and eBook ($5)).  Based on columns I wrote for the Marietta Daily Journal, it provides unequivocal evidence of his perfidy.

Let’s begin with honesty.  Everyone knows that Barack lied about ObamaCare.  He told people they could keep their doctors and medical plans, whereas he knew full well they could not.  This, however, was just the tip of the iceberg.  A review of my columns makes it plain that deceit was a running theme of his presidency.

Today we see the consequences of this mendacity.  Nowadays politicians and journalists lie without the slightest signs of shame.  Thanks to Obama’s ability to slide by, deception has become business as usual. If he could get away with it, so could these lesser lights.

Then there is personal responsibility.  Obama was totally unwilling to take the blame for scandals such as the IRS or Benghazi.  Amazingly, after he left office he opined that there was not there slightest whiff of scandal during his administration.  He must have been hiding in a back room at the White House.

Worse yet was his encouraging ordinary Americans not to be responsible.  After all, if they started a company, they did not make it.  Much better instead for people to depend upon the government. They could rely on it for food stamps and a free college education.

Next we come to fairness. Despite the talk about social justice, this policy amounted to favoring some Americans over others.  Political correctness decreed that millions were victims, whereas others were victimizers.  Whites, for instance, were asked to step back because they benefited from an alleged pigmentation privilege.

The rich, of course, were the multi-purpose villains.  They were not paying their fair share no matter how much they were taxed.  On the other hand, the poor deserved every advantage the government could bestow.  Meanwhile women, blacks and gays needed to be compensated for their previous trials.

As for liberty, it was honored in the breach.  Just how many regulations Americans had been saddled with became apparent after Trump began to dismantle them.  Obama’s attitude was that the government knew best and therefore should force ordinary folks to do what was good for them.

Last we have family values.  Barack was not against these per se.  When it came to his own family, he was, in fact, a good husband and father. The problem was that he did nothing to promote strong families elsewhere.  Despite an epidemic of unwed parenthood, he said little about the emotional devastation it wrought.

This is an amazing catalog of neglect and tyranny.  Obama did not overtly characterize himself as an autocratic socialist, but his actions consistently pointed in this anti-democratic direction.  That they did was confirmed by the subsequent success of the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Americans were plainly conditioned by Obama to expect lots of free stuff without any preconditions.  They were not required to uphold core moral principles, but to cede their administration to an allegedly benevolent government.  It would protect them from distress by controlling their day-to-day lives.

The trouble with this scenario is that if individuals are not principled, it will not be long before their government is also unprincipled. While they may agree with leaders like Obama one day, during the next they may be shackled to the personal whims of his successor.  Such is the legacy of socialism.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University