Cuba

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the new face of the progressive left, says she wants socialism as it is practiced in Norway and Sweden, not as it is or was practiced in the Soviet Union, Cuba or Venezuela.

November 7 marks a century since the founding of one of the most murderous tyrannies in human history.

What if we could have an experiment to compare the two systems? Wait – we already did.

Socialism is a failed ideology. It was the avant-garde approach to how to do government – in the Twentieth Century. The Soviet Union was the flagship petri dish. That conquered, infiltrated or ingratiated themselves with many other nations – to establish them as additional petri dishes (Hello, Cuba). We certainly now have a large enough, long enough sample set – and the results are in. The system is contaminated – Socialism does not work.

Twenty-five years ago this week, the most visible symbol of Communism and the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, saw its last days.

Want to know why capitalism will always triumph over collectivism? It responds to people’s desires, even those who would consider themselves enemies of capitalism. A case-in-point is the ubiquitous Che Guevara t-shirt. Anyone who has spent any time walking down a city street will have come across at least one young person wearing Che’s famous likeness. Some leftists have argued that the sheer pervasiveness and popularity of the image is proof of the enduring principles of which Che has sometimes been seen as a symbol. Yet that is not the case.

This is a true Tea Party agenda that should be the Republican agenda, and the true American Kennedy Democrat agenda.