Collectivism

Freedom and the free society are once again under direct attack by those who espouse far-greater degrees of government control over people’s lives.

Executive Editor Justin Haskins joined TrendChat with Brian Bledsoe at CPAC 2019 to discuss his new book Socialism Is Evil: The Moral Case Against Marx’s Radical Dream ($1.99 on Amazon) and the evils of socialism. 

One of the most accusatory and negative words currently in use in various politically “progressive” circles is that of “Neo-Liberalism.”

The current counter-revolution against liberty is being fought on a number of fronts in American society.

Personal and economic freedom are under attack in the United States and in many other parts of the world. This is seen most clearly in this year’s contest for the White House. In all the rhetoric about America’s political, social, and economic problems that is heard from the lips of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, there is one phrase that is hardly ever mentioned or considered important: the liberty of the individual.

Election years are depressing experiences for friends of freedom. The campaign stump, invariably, brings out even more of the worst in mainstream politicians who make their living by making promises they cannot keep through spending other people’s money. The 2016 presidential election cycle has only magnified this pattern.

America! For more than 250 years the word has represented hope, opportunity, a second chance, and freedom. In America the accident of a man’s birth did not have to serve as an inescapable weight that dictated a person’s fate or that of his family. The American identity is shaped, not predetermined. We are a society of the free.

The year that is just closing, 2015, has been full of events that continue to dominate the news, including renewed racial tensions on the streets of American cities, growing fears about terrorist attacks on the territory of the United States, and one of the most fear-focused presidential campaign seasons in living memory.

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s power grab and annexation of the Crimea has filled global news headlines as he attempts to reverse what he has called the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century” – the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it needs to be remembered that this conflict has its deeper roots in two ideas that have plagued the world for over two centuries: nationalism and government interventionism into economic affairs.

The Ukrainian-Russian crisis over the de facto occupation of Crimea by Russian military forces, which has enveloped the concerns and fears of the world over the last weeks, revolves around two conflicting claims of national self-determination. It has, once again, brought with it the danger of war on the European continent.

This time of the year, whether in good economic times or bad, is when Americans gather with their families and friends and enjoy a Thanksgiving meal together. It marks a remembrance of those early Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the uncharted ocean from Europe to make a new start in Plymouth, Massachusetts. What is less appreciated is that Thanksgiving also is a celebration of the birth of free enterprise in America.

The German government is engaging in central planning at its worst: demographic planning.