Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Deconstructing Bernie:The cultivation of the modern socialist and why debunking socialism is essential

Spending time on a random Saturday afternoon with my family, I was met with some realizations that I didn’t want to encounter. I typically want to turn the brain down on “low” for those occasions, as it was a “day off”. Unfortunately, the liberal agenda NEVER takes a breather. When I think of simple entertainment options that my family may wish to partake in for enjoyment, such as taking your child to the movies, you become aware of many sobering realities. Your day of “family fun” isn’t simply mindless entertainment. It is actually an exercise in deflecting constant liberal propaganda, although you wouldn’t recognize it unless you were actively aware of its looming presence. Going to see a Pixar “cartoon” movie with cute, talking animals suddenly turns into a “Clockwork Orange” mental reeducation session. They’re littered with liberal comedians and progressively ideological actors and actresses that provide voice-overs covering a litany of leftist talking points and positions such as: Political Correctness, Climate Change and Environmentalism, Gender Inequality, and even revisionist history. The latter of which being its sole mission to reshape your view of the founding of the country in which you take tremendous pride in and love so much. These movies include a snappy, top 40 “insta-hit” that will be regurgitated on every radio station, every 18 minutes after the top of the hour...every hour. They will be played in every department store and restaurant across the nation. These little ditties will be reworked into school plays and will show up as song choices for contestants in Reality TV singing competition shows. The writers and performers who created these skull burrowing, “mental musical torture devices” that implant themselves into your brain will win Grammy awards or MTV VMA’s for said musical compositions. And while receiving their accolades, they will espouse their political talking points in their award show acceptance speeches, which are usually the same ones firmly embedded within the plots of those movies. Progressives will also inundate the unsuspecting, unassuming participant with propaganda in other forms of entertainment, such as Network television shows. Television shows which are littered with characters designed with left-wing, agenda driven stereotypes. They will meticulously place these characters into each sitcom, with the sole purpose of shaping and normalizing the unassuming public’s views towards their progressive platforms. The propaganda placement doesn’t end there! They will also inject it where the cutting edge, pop culture trends reside, such as new technological forms of entertainment. Their agenda appears in the highly skewed, streamed, “Netflix’ styled documentaries which are framed as being neutral while actually being highly focused on destroying the specimen to which they are “observing”. These Propaganda vehicles place us in a perpetual state of “Progressive wack-a-mole”, leaving us to continually swat down encroaching agendas multiple times a day. Their shaping and molding eventually culminates when the budding and flowering, free thinking College student arrives at the University. Academia is the “Coup De GrĂ¢ce” of propaganda that attempts to seal the deal on indoctrination. Higher education eventually becomes a virtual petri dish playground of progressive ideology and social engineering. It infects the “host” student without their working knowledge of it ever even occurring. It cannot be avoided, even within the “Safe Spaces” they seek for emotional shelter in order to hide from offensive language and opposing viewpoints or thoughts. Reshaping political ideology has been a methodical process of continual, slow erosion within our culture and through the teachings of progressive propaganda to the citizenry. The fight for the morality and ideology of an unassuming public is an ongoing war, established within the culture at the earliest of ages. Its goal is the shaping and the molding of the youth, in order to benefit those whom seek political control. If you are unable to recognize it, you will succumb to it. Millennials are the most susceptible to this process and find themselves at the core of this struggle. Most are completely unaware of it! The result is the rise of the Millennial Socialist, which explains the fanatical support of socialist agenda taste-makers, such as the current Democrat candidate, Bernie Sanders. We must defeat this phenomena in order to change the course back to freedom and to eventually restore individual liberty. To accomplish this, we must dissect the Socialist platform to illustrate its true negative impact on society and by showing its economic failings using the principles of free market forces.

Bernie Sanders flaunts a persona of a champion for the working man: the Anti-Big Business and Anti-Wall Street (aka Anti-capitalism) Candidate. His supporters long for an end to the influence of "Big Corporations" in politics. They view corporations as if they're aren’t even affiliated with actual human beings. They constantly speak of corporations as if they were mysterious phenomena, such as "Dark Matter", "Sasquatch", “Loch Ness " or even "The Force". So, what is the actual definition of a Corporation? A Corporation is “a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law”. Even though Mitt Romney was painted as an out-of-touch, rich Republican (especially with his 47% remark), he was correct in stating that Corporations are actually people. By definition, that is 100% true! But the corruption of Big Business and Multi-National Corporations, with their influence over government and political parties, is a tremendous issue. Even the Koch Brothers are agreeing with Bernie Sanders in that regard. Believe it or not, we Conservatives also agree as well…to a certain extent. Where we disagree is actually at the intersection of “Personal Freedom Boulevard” and “Government Solutions Avenue”. Which direction, lane, and speed we take determines the defining future of our society and place within the world. Do we take the turn down the avenue of those who've studied Aristotle, Socrates, and Montesquieu? Do we veer down the same road of those who were continually under the oppression of a religious zealot? Do we "tailgate" behind those who've lived under an all-powerful, ruling King who overtaxes its citizenry? Do we merge into the lane of those who’ve taken up the charge of charting a new course of governmental design within a new land, using the brilliant aspects of the Roman Government, portions of English Common law, and utilization of various experimental Colonial Governmental Charters established in various colonies in the "New World" (Pre-America)? Do we maintain this mix of governmental ingredients, which were specifically chosen, combined, and eventually fleshed out in a tortured manner in order to create something extraordinary in modern civilization? Or do we stay in the “authoritarian lane”? A lane which has been a standard road that has benefited the elite and autocratic rulers since the beginning of time. The standard under which the premise of pseudo "fairness" and faux equality is propagated in order to clinch the citizenry’s freedom in return for safety and order, overseen by selfish megalomaniacs (i.e. Socialism)? To illustrate the conservative disagreement towards Socialist talking points, let's dissect the argument to show the failures of the Bernie Sanders platform.

First point of interest: A living Wage – The Fight for $15/an hour. Bernie supporters continually tout the phrase, "C’mon, Give them a raise!” Those “Feeling the Bern” desire to increase minimum wage rates in order to inject more spending into the economy, with the hopes of aiding our country in its economic repair. Higher wages for everyone, including those in entry level jobs, will provide more money to be spent as disposable income and aid in injecting the economy with revenue. Viewing that Utopian solution in a singular perspective, this might make rational sense. But viewing it through the lens of the entire economic landscape, we can begin to see the entire picture and recognize the actual failures of government intervention through minimum wage increases. In Business, the entrepreneur decides to put his assets and collateral on the line for “Capital” (A.K.A. the resources needed to begin a business, sometimes in the form of a business loan) in order to place their talents, skill sets, or ideas into action in hopes of an economic return or benefit – otherwise known as starting a business. They embark on this journey in order to become profitable, while assuming the lion’s share of the risk. Their reasoning for beginning a business IS NOT to give you a $15 an hour, entry-level job. Employees are purchased for their talent by the business in the form of hiring, in order to accomplish the business' goals. The employees receive the benefits of the business’ success, indirectly. Although it makes excellent business sense to reward highly productive and extremely talented personnel through better wages, benefits, and bonuses in order to maintain employee retention (which is an actual business cost savings, by the way), they do not exist as a business entity solely to employ a portion of the population. So when the government mandates an increase in wages by law, what happens to the business? The business expenses have to increase in order to accommodate the new costs of labor from a higher minimum-wage. This changes the business model considerably. The new wage expenses must be allocated from some area within the business budget. The higher labor expense is not going to be reallocated from the businesses’ material cost, the cost of production, or even the cost of equipment needed to create the products it sells. It's not going to be reallocated from the cost associated with the tools, equipment, or even the travel expenses for those service based industries. It most certainly will not come from the Office Utilities Expense or from Administrative Costs for Accounting, Payroll, Human Resources and Management. It WILL come from a few areas: either it comes from reducing the profit margin or from reducing the business’ workforce. Reducing the profit margin will not even be considered simply to cover a higher labor wage law! That’s the whole reason why they invested the capital (or procured the business loan) that they’ve leveraged as a risk in order to facilitate a return on investment (R.O.I.). They want a percentage of revenue returned above and beyond the expenses and costs in the form of a profit. Any sane business person is not going to allow this area to be heavily impacted. It most likely will come from a reduction or reallocation of employee labor. That is one expense that can be controlled through effective management. They will reduce the cost of hourly employees in order to make up for the increase in wages. Once the mandate to raise the wages to $15/hour occurs, they will look towards reducing positions while continuing to maintain the same efficiency. They may even spread their current staff thinner and increase their workloads in hopes of maintaining the same level of production. It may also lead to a drastic result in order to control this cost in the form of technological innovation. A technological change towards automation will eliminate the cost of labor and aid in maintaining efficiency. Now, some businesses may be able to weather the storm of changing wage rates. Some established businesses will actually advocate for these rate changes and take a financial “hit” or even a slight reduction to their bottom line, because they know other businesses will not be able to handle the change. Through Government mandates, they effectively reduce their competition by running those businesses out of business, while increasing their market share in return for a temporary financial inconvenience (which can be viewed as a long-term Return on Investment). Case in point: Walmart. They’ve actually advocated and have even proactively raised their corporate minimum wage rate in order to set the example in the realm of public opinion. They do this to gain a better public relations image, along with the added hope of leading the charge of coaxing their competition into following suit. Thus, they collapse their competition financially and recuperate their initial loss with an increased market share in the long run. But let's talk about other costs that affect the bottom line for businesses. These costs are many times directly related to government intervention. Examples are: taxation and regulations - the costs of increased licenses, permits, and the costs of maintaining compliance measures. These are all additional cost a business must account for and scrutinize. Sometimes, these costs can be so tremendous that they become a barrier for entry for new businesses ventures seeking to enter the market, depending on their field. These can become extremely cumbersome costs that can be further exacerbated by an increase in a Government mandated minimum wage rates. We can safely surmise that a forced increase in wage rates will have a negative effect on business, which trickles down to the overall economy at large. This will negatively impact the employees financially. Businesses may also relocate to areas of lower government regulation and lower taxation, such as other nations or countries. They may have to weigh the risks, such as national civil unrest or the actual economic benefits relating to relocating outside of the United States, but a forced minimum wage rate increase will add to the consideration to relocate.  It will ultimately impact the entire nation’s economy, resulting with the culminating impact of those who are affected by the shrinkage, layoffs, or even business closings that result from a forced minimum wage increase while weathering a “recession storm”.

 Second point of interest: Free College – The advocates of “free college” are proposing the idea of free, government funded public higher education. The argument for free college is to have a better informed society with less debt due to the lack of college expenses. They see the possibility of an educated collective, one that’s well studied, as a public benefit to the nation as a whole. Free College advocates will specifically spin their cause, citing that it is specifically designated to Public Colleges, and not Private Colleges. Private College, should you wish to pay for it, will be available for purchase as normal. The government can either: remove the liability you’ve incurred towards that Liberal Arts Degree in Fashion you’ve slaved over for 4 years to obtain, or they should allow you to refinance the student loan, like a mortgage, because the Interest rate is too high. The crux and basis of these arguments are tremendously flawed from the outset. Firstly, much like private grade school programs, the price of schooling will drastically increase. Although the general public has the ability to engage in free public college, the smaller pool of private college recipients, or “Customers”, will lead to higher tuition rate in order to cover the cost of operations. Also, in regards to the difference in interest rates of student loans and home mortgages, a mortgage is a “secured” loan. It typically has a lower interest rate because it’s backed by collateral or a hard, valuable asset, such as the asset in the form of a home to which you are purchasing. If you default on the mortgage, they will repossess your Asset (“Home”) and recuperate their loan through its sale to a responsible purchaser. Also, obtaining a Student loan is a “Cost of Doing Business”. This is no different from a business owner that obtained capital in the form a business loan in order to create or enhance their business, as we covered earlier. Procuring the Student loan was done so that you could enhance your marketability, in the form of a higher skill set, a path to a possible certification within your field of expertise, or even the price paid for education from a prestigious reputation associated with the institute of higher learning to which you’ve attended. This raises your marketability in the context of the competition of the global economy considerably. Be aware from the federal income tax prospective, when a student loan is “forgiven”, you must still pay the tax liability associated with the amount of the debt that was forgiven. Most don’t ponder those aspects of loan forgiveness. What happens when you make that college degree free? Your degree now becomes worthless. It has absolutely no weight. The “free college” recipient has now obtained a degree that doesn't hold similar weight or stature to that of one that was purchased at a highly respected, private college. When in the running for that “gig” at the Civil Engineering firm, will they pick the candidate with the free degree from “American Community Public College” with the free degree? Or will they pick the candidate with the degree that was purchased and slaved over from Massachusetts Institute of Technology? These two points of interest refute the viability of a free, public college. Let’s not forget that it’s economically unfeasible for the Government to provide enough tax revenue in order to cover those expenses. In other words, defecate in one hand and dream for free college in the other…then notify us of which one arrives first! We’ll be waiting...

Third point of interest : Income and wealth inequality Bernie supporters think that he's going to “level the playing field” so that everyone will win and be paid the same. But here's the real world reality: some people are tall, some are short. Some individuals are smart, some are not. Some are ultra-talented, some marginally so. Some are extremely resourceful, others are not. The base line for equality has already not been met. This is the crux of the word “Individual”. So, how does someone think that income (which is based on talent, ability, and even exterior appearance, sorry to say) can be equalized? It’s never going to be equalized! You are not going to come close to tightening the income inequality gap. You will actually open up a “work ethic gap”. Are you going to be willing to step up and outperform the other employees in order to close this gap? Maybe you haven’t been given a raise in a considerable length of time. This may cause you to explore procuring additional employment. You may have to “fight” through multiple jobs to earn the money necessary to succeed. It may require you to relocate to other parts of the country that holds more promise in order to have better opportunity available to you! Regardless, you need to have that field of opportunity and “open environment” that a smaller government with less or more favorable regulation provides in order to earn and work for any success. Ultimately, it’s your responsibility to close the inequality gap and refrain from waiting for a higher governmental force to guide you to this result.




To understand the Millennial and their affinity towards Socialism, you must understand that all of these platforms are how Millennials define their “morality”. It’s not a spiritual morality, but a tangible morality that is based solely on an individual’s actions. Fairness, equality, selflessness (particular financial), and charity are the “Fruits of the humanists’ spirits”. The more you do outwardly, such as giving to charity, raising awareness to causes, paying taxes to maintain government assistance programs, and providing activism to change society, is how they make themselves right with the world. Bernie Sanders taps into this view of morality and attempts to portray the correction of immoral corruption by “Big Business” through Government’s role as the moral, higher authority. But this governmental regulation of morality falls short, especially in light of the recent Panama Paper’s Leak. These leaks show that, while actions were considered legal in many cases, Socialist leaders and Authoritarian overseers are more than content with cutting moral corners while hypocritically expecting their constituents, citizens, and servants to comply with unwavering servitude. As long as an individual with authority can compromise their integrity, principles, and character, Socialism will not work. No matter how you pepper up the ideology or rebrand it, such as the term Socialist Democracy (which was initially dubbed as such by Russian leaders like Vladimir Lenin before it naturally evolved into full blown communism, as it normally does) it will falter and collapse. These social democracies are simply communism that just won’t quite yet commit to the cause! They long for the economic benefits of Capitalism, while gripping and clinging to authoritarian control. Ultimately, Socialism is designed for those who are ruled under it. Those overseeing it are able to do so without reprisal. With the continual programming of socialism from birth to college and with its cultural influences of propaganda being inundated upon us with regularity, making the case for small government conservatism as to how it relates to the common ground solutions Millennials seek, is extremely essential. It’s a mission we must pursue on a continual, daily basis. And we must do so with the same vigor and tenacity that the Socialist seek, as they continually move the ball to their end zone.