OPINION:
Democrats think they can gift their way into the Oval Office.
But after a while, even the most unaware of voters will start to wonder: How are you going to pay for this?
That’s one key to socialism’s failure, right there. Kudos to members of the NBC News team for broaching this point with some of the Democratic Party’s White House contenders who were on display this week for their first presidential debate — most notably, perhaps, to the self-declared openly democratic-socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders. And as answer, he waffled.
He tried to sing the praises of his “Medicare for All” while avoiding the very direct question about the dollars and cents.
The duck and dodge didn’t work.
Sanders was finally forced to admit, as The Daily Caller reported, “Yes,” the middle class “will pay more in taxes” to fund the program. He hurried to qualify and insist, that at the same time, the middle class would pay “less in health care for what they get.”
That’s another key to socialism’s failure.
It’s redistribution of wealth.
It’s the government’s taking from the pockets of the individual wage earner to give to the collective pot of health care for all.
And, looking at it through the lens of the larger theme, it’s the government-sanctioned boot-stomp on individual drive, ambition and creativity, and simultaneous government demand to create and produce for others. Not self.
As Sanders would like it believed, it’s all for the greater good.
But is it? Is it really?
Socialism and success aren’t generally two words that go hand-in-hand. Liberals like to point to the Nordic model — the so-called economic successes of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, countries with massively high taxes and massively generous government entitlement programs (not to mention, massively lower population levels than the United States). But here’s the thing, and it slices right through all the chitter-chatter about how America could be like Norway if only America tried a bit harder, or America could one day be like Sweden if only America just pooled its capital and listened to the likes of Bernie Sanders: America is not a Nordic country.
America is America.
Which leads to the third key of socialism’s failure, at least domestically speaking. America is not Norway. Nor Sweden. Nor anywhere else.
What makes America America, when you get right down to it, is this: Our citizen rights come from God, not government.
That’s not just a gift of individual freedom; it’s also an authority vested in the people. It’s the main mechanism by which Americans justifiably make clear to the political class that hey, we don’t work for you — you work for us.
That’s why Democrats — when they endorse tax-paid medical coverage for all, health care for illegals, free college tuition, forgiveness of college loans, etc. — are so offensive. They’re not just advocating for some political agenda or policy or piece of legislation. They’re outright violating the terms of the American agreement. What agreement? The one that says in this country, individual rights come before the collective. The one that puts politicians in their proper place of humble service to the people — of even humbler service to the Constitution, in all its limited government glory.
America can never go socialist and still claim to be America.
Democrats, hot on the presidential trail, may say they have a plan to pay for all their social programs and socialist-style endeavors. But even if the money were there — and it’s not, but even if it were — Americans still cannot afford the price of listening to this group of campaigning Democrats.
The cost, in the end, will be a crumbled country, a destroyed dream. An America that’s just not America — and never will be again.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.