Vin Suprynowicz

Please don't call it 'state socialism'

The modern Prussian police state was built by Bismarck and others in the 19th century on a Spartan model, giving the central government vastly greater control over the individual than had ever been considered possible before.

Bismarck's program centered squarely on insurance programs designed to increase support for the ever larger and more powerful government. The program included health insurance, workman's compensation, disability insurance and old-age retirement pensions, all innovations at the time.

Starting with the model of Prussian compulsary schooling, American "educators," starting with John Dewey and Edward Thorndike eagerly imported this Prussian model to America.

Trained to accept such state control (and now the new "green" religion) in the schools for most of the past century, then made dependent on government insurance programs (Social Security, Medicare) as surely as the pimp makes sure his young ladies are dependent on the needle and the fix only he can provide, slavery to the state soon appears inescapable, even ordained by God and nature.

Why, it's a good thing! In exchange for the possibility of ever becoming truly exceptional, of growing rich based on our own efforts, it rewards us with ... "security."

"It is possible that all our politics will come to nothing when I am dead, but state socialism ("Der Staatssozialismus") will push itself through," Bismarck said in 1881.

"State socialism," he called it.

We're told that for some reason we're not allowed to call the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda "socialism," "communism," "Marxism," "state socialism" "fascism," or anything else that might sound unpleasant.

Much as I hate to cite the tyrant Lincoln, if we call a dog's tail a leg, does it have five legs? Telling us we're not "allowed" to use an accurate label for something doesn't change what it is.

Instead of allowing General Motors and Chrysler to go through normal bankruptcies, through which new and more efficient private operators could have purchased their worthwhile assets while shedding their crippling union contracts, the two giant auto makers have now been effectively nationalized. Meantime, an unelected federal "pay czar" decides on the compensation of executives, even at supposedly private banks that have paid back all their "bailout" loans. Does that sound like the normal function of the American free market, as understood in 1910, 1960 or even 1990?

Thanks to thoroughly unconstitutional "bailouts," the federal government now de facto manages our major banks and/or credit card companies, along with our airlines and airports.

The health care bill was "sweetened" with a federal takeover of college loans. Why? You don't imagine the federal government will ever try to manipulate the behavior of college graduates, offering to "forgive their college loans" if they agree to behave in ways favored by the fedgov, do you?

"Federalizing" all these programs shifts money and employment from the private to the government-bureaucrat sector. Unionized government bureaucrats tend to belong to outfits like the SEIU, which actively back Democrat/socialists, while dispatching purple-shirted thugs to beat up black freedom-fighters handing out "Don't tread on me" Gadsden flags outside rigged Democratic "town hall" meetings.

The so-called "health reform" bill authorizes $10 billion to field 16,500 more IRS agents to collect and enforce mandatory "premiums," which we're assured are not a "tax." Providing you're a "normal" citizen with a job and house, of course. (Illegal aliens Get Out of Jail Free, as usual.)

Last week the Review-Journal mentioned in passing, in an editorial about socialist Congresscritter Dina Titus' move to facilitate the takeover of Nevada Occupational Safety and Health enforcement by the federal government, that the Constitution grants the federals no authority to regulate workplace safety within the states. One letter writer couldn't wait to write in that the newspaper was wrong: turns out the preamble to the federal OSHA law as adopted specifies that it's all constitutional, since the federal government is empowered to regulate interstate commerce, and "workplace health and safety can impact interstate commerce."

It would be more justifiable to hold that an IRS man can climb the fence into my back yard and smash the watermelons I'm growing there, since by growing my own watermelons I reduce the demand for supermarket watermelons grown in another state, and this "impacts interstate commerce."

So we're right back to "If you call a dog's tail a leg, does it have five legs?" If Washington can do anything it likes because everything somehow "impacts interstate commerce," why do we have a Constitution with that two-page list of specifically delegated powers? Why not just one sentence: "Congress shall have power to do anything it figures might promote the general welfare and/or impact interstate commerce"?

On the radio this week I heard Congresscritter Titus asked whether she's concerned about state lawsuits challenging the new federal mandate that everyone will have to buy "suitable" health insurance. "Oh, no," she said, "The Constitution has been interpreted all kinds of ways, so I'm not concerned about that."

This from a woman -- a supposedly well-educated college professor -- who swore a solemn oath to "protect and defend the Constitution" 14 months ago.

You're still waiting for the American economy to "come back"? You may wait a long while. Once the investment capital is scared offshore, and the foreigners stop buying our bonds, who's going to pay for even the "entitlement" programs already in place, let alone this Obama-Reid-Pelosi "State-socialism on steroids"?

The biggest buyer of U.S. government bonds will soon be the Federal Reserve. Where does the Federal Reserve get its dollars? It orders the Bureau of Engraving to print them -- or just taps them into existence on its computer screens. As ever more dollars bid for a fixed pile of goods, the value of each dollar -- including the paltry few you still have saved in the bank -- shrinks.

This is like saying, "I won't starve; I can always eat my own foot." By the time you've eaten both legs up to the knees, it may start to dawn on you that this is a recourse with a limited future.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal, and author of "Send in the Waco Killers" and the novel "The Black Arrow." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com/.

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Comments

Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

1. Paul W Apr. 1, 2010 | 1:03 p.m. Report Abuse

   Bill Smith,
   
   I used to blog at Capitolhillblue.com, until they decided to drop blogs. I'm looking into blogging at Ron Paul's Campaignforliberty.com.

2. Paul W Mar. 31, 2010 | 10:08 p.m. Report Abuse

   It is interesting to note that, no matter which new term the statists dream up to describe their atrocious, tyrannical system, they have to run from that term in just a short time.
   
   First, it was "progressive"--back in the days T. R. Roosevelt and the pinch-faced school-marm, Wilson. After screwing the country ten times over with WWI, the FED, the income tax, and the depressions of 1920 and 1929-49, no one wanted to be a "progressive" anymore.
   
   Then came "socialist" or "social democrat." After socialism brought tyranny to half of Europe (the eastern half), as well as much of Asia, no one wanted to be a socialist anymore.
   
   Then came "liberal" (a term that originally meant a defender of minimal government and laissez-faire economics). That term had become a pejorative by the mid 1960's.
   
   Statists just can't stand to have the name of the beast uttered. That's why they don't like Obama's obviously socialist medical plan being called what it is.
   
   "Sure," they seem to be saying, "we're calling for government mandatory insurance purchase, for mandatory coverage for pre-existing conditions (which will bankrupt any legitimate insurance company), fines for those who refuse to participate--but don't call it socialism!"

3. Chris.Mallory Mar. 30, 2010 | 1:09 p.m. Report Abuse

   @Neal Fahey
   
   Congresscritter is a more respectful term than most elected government employees deserve.
   
   Lincoln was a tyrant.
   
   The black robed nine have held that growing grain on your land for your personal use does impact interstate commerce and can be regulated by the Feebs. So Vin's watermelon example is well within the realms of possibility.
   
   Why should the states and local governments raise taxes? Why not cut programs. I am sure I could come up with a long list of programs my state and local governments fund that we could do without. Would some government employees feel some pain, yes. But then why should they be exempt from being laid off?

4. shawn1874 Mar. 30, 2010 | 12:16 p.m. Report Abuse

   I wouldn't be on democrats supporting immigration reform. Remember, they like unions too. Immigrant workers drag down labor costs which is good for a free market but bad for labor unions. I'm happy to know that immigration reform is next. That should keep the democrats arguing amongst themselves for a couple of years. On the other hand does it really matter at this point? We've already eaten off both feet so it is a little late to worry about limited constitutional government.

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