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Tips for Persuading the Fledgling Socialist in Your Life

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It seems everywhere I turn these days, liberty minded people are perplexed to see their friends, family members and the general public supporting presidential candidates who are socialist or socialist in everything but name. The younger generation seems especially friendly to “Feeling the Bern,” leaving small government people trying to figure out how their loved ones can possibly overlook candidates’ socialist tendencies.

I can tell you why so many of the youth love the socialist candidates. This is complicated point which will take a lot of concentration to understand and accept, so please brace yourself for the nuclear bomb of truth I’m about to drop. People are supporting socialist candidates because…they really, really like socialism.

I know this should be obvious, but I think a lot of people, especially the older generation, are in denial. Those who grew up during The Cold War era when the socialism of the U.S.S.R. was painted as the philosophical antithesis to all things American have an instinctive and vitriolic rejection of anything reminiscent of Soviet Russia, but most in the millennial generation were not even alive during The Cold War and none know much about it unless they happen to be a dedicated student of history. Most youngsters have zero problem with socialism, so no amount of, “But he’s a socialist,” style arguments will ever sway today’s budding leftists.

If you’re looking at me to convert your loved ones, you’re out of luck. You have a personal relationship while I’m just some dumb schmuck with a blog. Hopefully, the leftists you know trust and respect you which puts you in a much better position to reach them than I’ll ever possess, so let me share some strategies which should help you make your case.

Ease Off on the Nazis

Talking with a friend the other day, we discussed how our church gave us both the impression that a sinful life would immediately destroy you and make you miserable, so when my friend first smoked pot and first had premarital sex and did not immediately become a heroine addict or break out in genital warts, he felt the stated risks of sin had been nonsense. If the church had emphasized a more realistic view of sin being fun for a season but having serious long-term cost, perhaps he would have taken a different path.

Similarly, some conservatives paint an overly cataclysmic picture of socialism. Yes, Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all practitioners of different forms of socialism which lead to the deaths of at least a hundred million people, but we need to be intellectually honest. There are plenty of socialist states in Europe where people are not being rounded up and executed in death camps.

People do need to know the horror stories of National Socialism and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (by the way, you can start using these terms instead of Nazism and the U.S.S.R. to subtly emphasize the importance of socialism to these regimes), but leftists also need to know the more moderate problems inherent in all socialist nations such as the negative impact of socialized medicine, the higher taxes and the lower standard of living. However if you make it sound as if electing Bernie Sanders will lead directly to another holocaust, most leftists will understandably dismiss you.

Feelings not Facts

For generations, small government types have been making largely fact based arguments while leftists have appealed to the feelings of the American people. Which side has been winning?

Bernie Sanders hasn’t been giving specific answers to how economic systems should be structured to even the playing field or how he will fund his many new initiatives, but he has been abundantly clear in condemning the status quo as morally corrupt and stating that the rich have an unfair advantage. Many people don’t need to be convinced in their head if you can capture their hearts.

Fight fire with fire. It’s counterintuitive for many conservatives, but lead with emotions. Ask questions like, “Is it fair for people who chose not to go to college and those who sacrificed to pay their own way through college to have to pay for everyone else’s tuition?” and, “How will it make people who spent years working to earn $15 an hour feel to learn they are now working a minimum wage job with a higher cost of living?” Don’t drop the facts, but insert the feelings into the facts.

Philosophy not Politicians

We’ve all felt indignation when the media attacks a conservative politician unfairly. Perhaps we were not even that thrilled with the politician ourselves, but when we heard the opposition taking a hatchet to a guy on our side, we got defensive.

Leftists feel this way too. A lot of people love Bernie and Hillary, and if you aggressively attack them, you’ll likely end up hurting the feelings of their fans and make them less likely to listen to your arguments. It’s a tricky tightrope to walk, and I fully admit that I all too often fail in this area, but it’s important to focus criticism in a way that targets the message and not the messenger. Make sure to focus on issues rather than personal attacks or you risk ostracizing your audience.

That’s it for today, but later on in the week, I’ll release Part 2 where I’ll discuss a few more strategies. (For more from the author of “Tips for Persuading the Fledgling Socialist in Your Life” please click HERE. You can follow him on Facebook HERE and Twitter HERE.)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Poll: Democrats, Even Clinton Supporters, Warm to Socialism

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Senator Bernie Sanders’s speech on Thursday explaining his democratic socialist ideology carried little risk among supporters and other Democrats: A solid majority of them have a positive impression of socialism, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released this month.

Fifty-six percent of those Democratic primary voters questioned said they felt positive about socialism as a governing philosophy, versus 29 percent who took a negative view.

In an address Thursday afternoon at Georgetown University, Mr. Sanders argued that the redistribution of wealth was at the heart of the American social contract, seeking to link himself with the legacies of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The applause he drew should come as little surprise: Sixty-nine percent of Sanders supporters see socialism in a positive light, versus just 21 percent who view it negatively.

Even most of those supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination approve of socialism, 52 percent to 32 percent . . .

Over all, Democrats are just about as keen on socialism as they are on capitalism. In a Gallup survey from November 2012, 53 percent of all Democrats gave socialism a positive rating, while 55 percent did so for capitalism. (Read more from “Poll: Democrats, Even Clinton Supporters, Warm to Socialism” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

For First Time, Most Democrats View Insane, Failed, Murderous Political Philosophy Favorably

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Over at Rasmussen, the pollsters have discovered that — for the first time in history — self-identified members of the Democrat Party now view socialism favorably.

The man currently running a distant second for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is a self-declared socialist, and most of his party’s voters now have a positive view of socialism. They are almost evenly divided as to whether they like capitalism or socialism more.

Socialism, Communism, Maoism, and National Socialism (e.g., the Nazi Party) are all offshoots of Marxism. They are all branches of the same defective tree.

Marxism has failed in literally every venue it has been tried, despite progressives’ laughable efforts to claim certain countries have implemented it successfully.

No country has and no country ever will, because — as Margaret Thatcher sagely observed — “[the] problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”.

And those who point to the “success” of European countries that still maintain the semblance of civil societies have yet to see the Marxist endgame play out:

• All of these states have rung up immense and unsustainable levels of debt thanks to the socialists’ endless wealth redistribution schemes. Only a series of elaborate can-kicking exercises have kept the European Union from economic collapse.

• Thanks to open borders policies, courtesy of Left-leaning do-gooders, Europe faces demographic upheaval, seen most recently in countries accepting swarms of Islamic immigrants.

Where “Marxism Light” — socialism — gave way to its more extreme flavors (e.g., Communism, Nazism, Maoism) the inevitable result was mass murder by government.

According to a study conducted by academics at the University of Hawaii, Communism in the 20th century alone led to the murders of 110 million men, women and children.

Isn’t it ironic? When it comes to their own ideologies like climate change, progressives like to shut off debate by claiming that “The science is settled.”

In this case, the record of history is settled. Marxism and it descendents have failed in every situation and in very region across the world.

That the majority of Democrats could embrace such a twisted political philosophy is an indictment of not only our media, but also our failed, union-controlled educational system.

They can’t or won’t appreciate the intricate system of government created by our Framers that inarguably built the most magnificent economic miracle in human history. They live in the lap of luxury, unappreciative and stupefied, unable to explain how even the lowly pencil is made in our society. (For more from the author of “For First Time, Most Democrats View Insane, Failed, Murderous Political Philosophy Favorably” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

George Will: “Global Warming Is Socialism By The Back Door”

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Photo Credit: The New American

Photo Credit: The New American

George Will sits down with The Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein.

GEORGE WILL: Global warming is socialism by the back door. The whole point of global warming is that it’s a rationalization for progressives to do what progressives want to do, which is concentrate more and more power in Washington, more and more Washington power in the executive branch, more and more executive branch power in independent czars and agencies to micromanage the lives of the American people — our shower heads, our toilets, our bathtubs, our garden hoses. Everything becomes involved in the exigencies of rescuing the planet.

Second, global warming is a religion in the sense that it’s a series of propositions that can’t be refuted. It’s very ironic that the global warming alarmists say, “We are the real defenders of science,” and then they adopt the absolute reverse of the scientific attitude, which is openness to evidence. You cannot refute what they say.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tea Party Turns Five: How The Movement Has Changed America (+video)

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Half a decade later, the Tea Party is still going strong despite the concerted efforts of leftists determined to halt its growing influence on the nation. Joe Miller, who aligned with the Tea Party early and quickly became one of its most recognizable leaders, explained the importance of Rick Santelli’s 2009 impromptu monologue.

“He basically said, ‘This is America. President Obama, are you listening? It’s time for another tea party,’” Miller recalled during an address at the recent Western Conservative Conference.

Since then, he explained, “grassroots have become activated.”

Instead of wringing their hands and lamenting the direction of America, millions of concerned citizens were able to identify with the movement and find a way to become active in correcting our nation’s course.

“If you want to change the direction of this country and are willing to go outside of the box to make it happen,” Miller continued, the Tea Party presented such opportunities.

Read more this story HERE.

Communism, Socialism, and Christianity: One of These Does Not Belong

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Photo Credit: APOn Christianity, Socialism and Communism

By Rev. Marcel Guarnizo

February 5, 2014

There has been much discussion in recent weeks over the debt of Christianity to—and its compatibility with —the ideas and praxis of the socialist revolution, and even of communism. Many, even in the Catholic Church, believe that we share some of the ideals of the socialist revolution because it seems to them that communism, socialism and Christianity are for the poor. In addition to this most unfortunate error, the opposite fallacy has also been made popular in the minds of many, namely that capitalists and advocates of a free market economy, hate the poor.

But the historical record of communism tells an entirely different story. I have worked with the countries of the former Soviet Union for over 20 years, and I have seen what communism does to populations and nations. The scourge of the socialist revolution around the world gave us 6 million people killed by artificial famines in Ukraine and, as documented by The Black Book of Communism, 20 million victims in the U.S.S.R., 65 million in China, a million in Vietnam, 2 million in North Korea, another 2 million in Cambodia, a million more in the rest of Eastern Europe, 150,000 in Latin America, 1.7 million in Africa, 1.5 million in Afghanistan and through the international Communist movement and related parties about 100,000 more victims in various nations. This is a body count that reaches to 100 million victims worldwide.

Communism completely destroyed the economy, social fabric, and political culture of dozens of nations. It hollowed out the intelligentsia, ruined every economy where the seed of socialism fully “bloomed,” and abrogated fundamental rights and individual freedoms of the nations it subjugated. Clearly the Judeo-Christian commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is not among the doctrinal teachings of communism and the socialist revolution. It is hard to believe that the socialist revolution—unlike Nazism—still finds promoters and defenders in the West.

The compatibility of Christianity and its legitimate concern for the poor owes nothing to the violent and inhuman regimes created by the socialist revolution. No system in human history has produced more poverty and misery than communism.

No greater foe has the Church ever encountered, than the communist revolution. During the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of religious and priests were sent to forced labor camps or simply executed. Five year plans to abolish religion were implemented and no true believer was ever safe in such nations. What social doctrine of the Church was ever derived from such madness? Communism and the socialist revolution are not only the antithesis of Christianity. They are also incompatible with free, just, and democratic societies.

Read more from this story HERE.

Establishment GOP and Karl Rove Declare War on Reaganite Conservative Base of Party in 2014

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Photo Credit: UPI

Photo Credit: UPI

Happy New Year.

It’s war.

While America was celebrating the holidays, the Wall Street Journal ran a page one story the day after Christmas headlined as follows:

GOP, Business Recast Message

Republican Leaders, Allies Aim to Diminish Clout of Most-Conservative Activists

The story said this right up front:

Meanwhile, major donors and advocacy groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, are preparing an aggressive effort to groom and support more centrist Republican candidates for Congress in 2014’s midterm elections.

Translation?

Karl Rove (i.e., architect of the American Crossroads SuperPAC), the Chamber of Commerce, and the Washington GOP Establishment have declared war on the Reaganite conservative base of the Republican Party.

Welcome to the 2014 election.

To read more how the Establishment GOP and Karl Rove Declare War on the Reaganite conservative GOP base click HERE.

Socialism Viewed Positively by 36% of Americans

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adolf_hitlerMore than one-third of Americans (36%) have a positive image of “socialism,” while 58% have a negative image. Views differ by party and ideology, with a majority of Democrats and liberals saying they have a positive view of socialism, compared to a minority of Republicans and conservatives.

“Socialism” was one of seven terms included in a Jan. 26-27 Gallup poll. Americans were asked to indicate whether their top-of-mind reactions to each were positive or negative. Respondents were not given explanations or descriptions of the terms.

Americans are almost uniformly positive in their reactions to three terms: small business, free enterprise, and entrepreneurs. They are divided on big business and the federal government, with roughly as many Americans saying their view is positive as say it is negative. Americans are more positive than negative on capitalism (61% versus 33%) and more negative than positive on socialism (36% to 58%).

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Toasts Failed Socialist Founding Dictator of Tanzania

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

President Barack Obama toasted the founding dictator of post-colonial Tanzania on Monday, who collectivized the nation’s low-tech agricultural sector, established a one-party state and left that African nation’s economy in ruins.

“[Y]ou might say an American child is my child. We might say a Tanzanian child is my child,” Obama said after quoting the Tanzanian saying “my neighbor’s child is my child.”

“In this way, both of our nations will be looking after all of our children and we’ll be living out the vision of President [Julius] Nyerere,” Obama continued.

“The core values that he proclaimed for Tanzania also describe what both our countries seek — wisdom, unity, and peace — Hekima, Umoja, na Amani,” Obama said at a state dinner, held at 9:00 p.m. local time…

Nyerere “led a one-party state that nationalized key industries and created ujamaa, a rural, collective village-based movement of ‘African socialism’ and ‘self reliance,’” according to a 2011 report by the Congressional Research Service.

Read more from this story HERE.

Greenwald: NSA Can Store One Billion Phone Calls Per Day, Intent is to “Destroy All Privacy” (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald hasn’t published the story yet, but he gave the Socialism Conference in Chicago a big taste of his next reveal:

The National Security Agency can store one billion phone calls each day.

Speaking to a raucous audience via Skype on Friday, Greenwald said the NSA’s “brand-new technology” gives it the power to “redirect into its own repositories one billion cell phone calls every single day.”

“But what we’re really talking about here is a globalized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency,” Greenwald said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re listening to every call; it means they’re storing every call and have the capability to listen to them at any time, and it does mean that they’re collecting millions upon millions upon millions of our phone and email records.”

Read more from this story HERE.