Why I’m Voting Against Socialism – Part II

The failures of Socialism are seen in all the rest of the countries that have tried it: the USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, all the eastern European block that did not give up communism when Russia failed, but soon had to follow suit, like East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the former countries that made up Yugoslavia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, andSerbia, additionally, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.  Did I forget anyone? I never thought I would again have to reject this failed political joke created by two egg heads in the mid-1800s.  This stupid idea almost cost my parents their lives and with them my existence (see my books Tales of a Country Surgeon and Tales from my Home Town).  There are only five countries in the world today that are communist: China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba. Three of those have relied heavily on capitalistic measures to save their declining economies, and North Korea is a total disaster on all fronts.

We now have a group of intellectuals that have never personally experienced Communism, like Bernie Sanders and his crew, who want to resurrect that failed system.  Bernie has pulled Biden to the left and with it the Democratic platform. There are more Communists working as professors in our universities than there are in all of Russia now.

Admittedly, Trump does have flaws, he is constantly caught in crude statements that lack grace but are typical of the New Yorker personality, and he could temper many of his Tweets. But unlike most of my left-wing friends, I do not think he is stupid. He is refreshingly not like any polished politician who often speaks without saying anything. What you see is what you get. He is a billionaire, mostly self-made, some of his businesses have come out of bankruptcy more than once, and he did not achieve his success by being stupid nor demented. He has done most everything that his Covid advisers, like Fauci and Brix, have recommended, as they confirmed multiple times from what I have heard them say. He announced shutting down the western border January 31, 2020, and eastern borders on March 11, 2020.  I remind those of you with short memories of Biden’s critique of “hysterical xenophobia”, even though Biden apologized for that remark later. Apology or no apology, it points out that Trump had a better understanding of the crisis and was ahead of the curve before Biden and many others.  There were mixed messages from Trump along with his “learned science advisers” early on before much was known: Mask, no mask, social distancing 3 feet, 6 feet, 15 feet, a variety of drugs including hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, steroids, famotidine, high titer antibody serum, nitrous oxide, etc. that are still in flux. Furthermore, there is a flurry of various controlled and uncontrolled studies backing up this or that point of view. Despite the recent consensus of wearing masks, a recent report from Sweden now says masks are useless, and they don’t advise them or use them. Incidentally, they have one of the best numbers if that means anything.  Science relies on evidence that often vacillates, and is not all that exact. Don’t worry, I still believe in masks and wear mine. Although, In my over half a century of practicing medicine, I have learned the hard way that today’s best practices are tomorrow’s heresies. Knowledge is constantly evolving, and with small sample size, results will often differ. It is still not all in folks!

Do we need to look at the tax returns of a billionaire who works for us free of charge? We should be asking for the tax returns of the politicians who took office poor as church mice, and consequently became millionaires after coming to office. That would interest me more! 

The economy prior to the Covid19 pandemic was the best it has been with employment numbers, as good as ever achieved in our history, especially for the racial minorities, Black and Hispanic. CNN, in 2016, predicted if Trump became President, the economy would tank! More recently, the same people on CNN say Trump had nothing to do with the good economy, if you care re-run those wise remarks. Of course, their most recent position is that it’s all Trump’s fault. Which version of the truth are we supposed to believe? This is especially significant now that the economy has made an amazing comeback so far, and unemployment is shrinking.

The fact is all politicians have been known to slant the truth.   Is that news? Is that supposed to guide our political thinking as to who tells the biggest lie? Biden has legendary zingers, as well as plagiarizing Robert Kennedy, John Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and British Labor Leader Neil Kinnock. But for me, I really don’t care if he was the first or last in his class, just as much as I do not listen to what Trump says about hydroxychloroquine and other medical issues. The press counts those as lies. My filters see them as wishful thinking, cheerleading, and politics.  It is easy to tell which are lies and which are not. If you can’t, I feel sorry for you because your hate is at such a level that you can’t tell the difference between fact and hopefulness. There is a bit overzealousness in the lying count, 20,000 lies, really? I suggest you recalibrate your lie detector a bit. But since we are talking about lies, let us talk about the biggest lie of all. Bernie, AOC, Kamala, and others are telling us a whopper. “Democratic Socialism” as defined by our trained Marxists is a much more sinister Socialism.  All you need to do is look at their published plans for us. AOC and Bernie have real Socialism in their back pocket, and it is not Social Democracy which is a capitalistic democracy that has peaceful social welfare programs such as education, health care, care for the elderly, workman’s compensation, and child care.  Real Socialism is a political system of government where the state controls the means of production.  The state owns everything that makes anything. They tell you what to make, where to make it, when, and how much to make. The idea for this form of government came before it actually existed.  It was one man that put the theory into action,  Vladimir Lenin. 

Tzar Nicholas with his family

For those of you who don’t know the story, and see Socialism as just another way that is a little kinder and fairer, you are sadly misguided and just plain wrong. He ordered the murder of Tzar Nicolas II, his wife, Alexandra, the four daughters, and their young son in a basement execution-style by shooting the whole family. Some of the girls, although hit, were still alive and had to be killed by bayonetting them to death.

You see, Socialism can never be democratic; it doesn’t work that way. You can’t take possession of things that are not yours democratically. If you believe that you believe in a Fairytale. Nor can you replace the Socialists in a Marxist, Chavist, or Nazi Socialist government by voting them out democratically. “Der Führer” will not let you. So that too is fiction. They will not leave, and that too would require violent force. People just don’t hand over possessions or power willingly. It was that way in 1917 in Russia and in 2018 when 5,000 people died at the hand of the Velenzuelan armed Forces, and in 2019, another 1600 were put to death on the orders of Nicolás Maduro. Bolshevik Bernie is just as deluded as Karl Marx was. Humans are like the rest of the animal kingdom when it comes to what is mine and what is yours; furthermore, Socialism has a fatal flaw. It believes that the state can make better decisions for people than people can make for themselves.

People are assigned to jobs by the all-knowing state, and if some don’t like it, you can guess what the Democratic Socialists will do with them. The word “Democratic” was placed before “Socialism” to make it sound milder, just like National Socialism sounds better. There have not been any successful states that have been Democratic Socialistic societies (and the Scandinavian countries are not Socialist if you know anything about economics). Nor have Socialists, Communists, or Nazis been replaced anywhere democratically with the exception of Israel, the UK, and India, further demonstrating that Socialism has failed in every country it has ever been tried. A very telling movie I saw recently, and recommend for you to see, The Death of Stalin, although a black comedy, will let you in on how Socialism really works.

This moron (me) was valedictorian of my high school class, fourth in my medical school class, in the 99th percentile countrywide on my surgery boards, plus I have seven books so far that I have published, and I am a Professor of Surgery.  I do not say that to brag or impresses you, but to make me more incontestable, convince you that I am not a moron and I am more capable as a human being to present to you facts and reasoning that may resonate with you if you know from where I hail. I swear that is the truth.  Most of you Trump haters know what he says in detail, but very little of what he has done.  Remember, actions speak louder than words. His medical opinions mean very little to me and are non-sequiturs as he has no control over use or non-use of any drug or treatment. But I do pay attention to his actions on EPA regulations affecting my ranch, along with Fish and Game that controls when and how I am allowed to clean the overflowing Timber Cañyon Barranca running through my property when it is full of debris. It so happens to be the habitat for the red-legged frog, unfortunately for me and the frogs, as the frogs are also on the endangered species list which Fish and Game watches all too closely. HUD (Housing and Urban Development)   impact my property which maybe someday I will be allowed to develop. Also, there is Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that regulates banking, which influences my retirement account. Trump has reversed two regulations for every new one, and many more that I know you could care less about because you are more concerned that he can’t pronounce “Yosemite” or that he called Haiti and El Salvador, “sh.. holes!” By the way, have any of you ever been to Haiti or El Salvador? I’d be interested in what you think.

This is a Biden vs. Trump comparison on some of the major issues:

Supports late-term abortionDoes not support late-term abortions
Health care: Obama Care with moreRepeal ACA
Regulate social mediaAlso regulate social media
Open BordersControlled Borders
Rejoin Paris Climate AccordsStay out of Paris Climate Accords
Has Socialsist advisersDoes not have Socialist advisers
Opposes death-penaltySupports death-penalty
Refund police(Biden term for defund)Do not defund police
ANTIFA &BLM are brave AmericansANTIFA & BLM are criminals
Raise minimum wage to $15/hStates to decide minimum wage
100% renewable energy by 2050Continue with fossil fuels
Reduce age for Medicare eligibilitySpending cuts in Medicare
Pressure on China is offPressure remains on China
Top income tax goes to 39.6-70%Top tax rate stays at 37%
Top corporate rate increases to 28%Top corporate tax stays at 21%

Although economists disagree on what effect tax has on the economy, most believe that higher taxes move money out of the economy and ultimately slows the growth and lowers the GDP.  All the programs that the Socialists want will require more than just an increase in taxes.  There are not enough high earners and wealthy people to pay for all on the wish list, including Medicare for all, funding renewable energy, free higher education, reparation payments, baseline citizens’ income, etc. It will require the confiscation of assets to generate those funds according to the economists that figure those things out. The National Socialists (aka Nazis) contrived a very clever way to confiscate property from whom the Democratic Socialists can learn. They simply raised the taxes on properties they wanted until the owner could not afford the property anymore.  Nazi Socialists were no dummies.

The issue with China has been a campaign promise of Trump since 2016.  China has been aggressively stealing our intellectual property, and industrial spying has been well recognized, but very little has been done to stop it by previous presidents, Democrats, or Republicans. Climate Change is a controversial topic that has come down to resembling religion with accompanying similar emotions and arguments.  98 % of scientists do not agree that it is settled, especially the part about how much of an urgent crisis this is.  Even if CO2 is the main culprit, lowering it is unaffordable with current means, and not as urgent as the alarmists claim, especially for the poor countries of the world, and they would suffer marked damage to their population in terms of starvation and health.  There are other options to lower CO2 without the damaging effects it would cause by eliminating fossil fuels (see my website gusiwasiuk.com the essay on Why the Green New Deal Will not Work).  Gambia, which has almost no industry, is close to meeting its promised reduction of carbon emission, but it too will still fall short.  The main polluters aren’t even trying.  For us to do so is useless as all those agreements have been so far.  It would also hurt us economically while China keeps on churning out CO2

As far as the criticism of handling the pandemic, you should realize this was a state by state project with governors resisting federal “interference” treating it as a political football: stay at home orders, masks, which businesses to close or open, schools, etc. It was the governors who shut down the businesses, not Trump. When a business is shut down, its employees are laid off by their employer on the order of the state public health department and not by Trump. What part of unemployment do you folks not understand? Incidentally, employment has dramatically improved from its lowest point during the pandemic of 14.7%. It is now down to 8.4% as of September 4, 2020, still a ways to go to reach its 50 year low of 3.5% in September 2019, but still an amazing achievement for this short time. Car sales and housing starts are also very encouraging. All will dip again with a Democratic sweep of all branches of government, according to the economists. Although if just one branch remains Republican, the economy will thrive as Wallstreet likes a split government.

The basic science of the Coronavirus was poorly analyzed at the outset, and China was less than helpful in providing information in the early phases. The Democratic Candidate Debates show how little democratic leadership knew or cared about the evolving pandemic.  The anti-Trump rhetoric at the debates swirled around climate change and not the virus, as late as February 19, 2020, when there were 74,000 cases in China with 2,100 deaths. By then, the “xenophobic hysterical racist,” Trump, had restricted travel from China on January 31,which was denounced as unnecessary and racist by Democrats, Biden, and the media. Now he is blamed for not acting soon enough and letting the virus in. He should have been a clairvoyant.  Where were all the smart people then? They continued to deny the dangers.

The February 1, 2020, Washington Post, “Get a grip America. The flu is a much bigger threat than Coronavirus.”                                                                                                                                 February 7, 2020 CBS This Morning Saturday,– “Coronavirus is not going to cause a major issue in the United States.”                                                                                                                     March 4, 2020 Anderson Cooper CNN – “So if you’re freaked out at all about the coronavirus, you should be more concerned about the flu.”                                                                            March 11, 2020, Trump shut down travel from Europe.  CNBC reported this was “politically motivated and unnecessary.”  Do you think CNBC was doing exactly what they blame Trump of doing?  Were they also just a little bit politically motivated instead of doing honest investigative reporting?

People that made many of the decisions were the governors of each state. Each state, in conjunction with their health department, made their own plan for better or worse, and the use of hydroxychloroquine is a medical decision, not the President’s decision. We can all agree that Trump does not have an MD degree. If you take medical advice from any laypeople seriously, you are the one whose IQ I question.

The public was less than helpful in following the public health dictates of masks, social distancing, and public gatherings (and still is!).  Nancy Pelosi, herself, encouraged demonstrations of thousands of people elbow to elbow exercising their constitutional rights, even if it did include looting a few stores and setting police cars on fire.  Admittedly having the Republican Rally in Tulsa was not a good idea either, but at least no property was burned down, and no police officers were killed.  A critique that is often launched is that Trump does not have a national plan, unlike Biden who promises to give us one.  What exactly would this national plan do?  There are only a few options. Wash your hands. Wear your face mask. Don’t congregate. Don’t leave home unless absolutely necessary.  Various countries, like China, Singapore, Italy, South Korea, and others, imposed fines up to $3000 or jail time for any quarantine violations. The “Never Trump” people point to how good the European death numbers are.  Our bad numbers are again blamed on Trump.  The European numbers were achieved with very strict house arrests.  For example, in Italy, if you were outside of your home without government paperwork permitting you to do so, you were fined with rather stiff penalties and or jail. Some communities marked people with non-removable markers (reminiscent of concentration camp tattooing and Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter) that were supposed to be in self-isolation and, if caught, in the street, were severely punished. Can you imagine the public outcry claiming Nazi tactics? I can almost hear Nancy Pelosi screaming, “Storm Troopers!” We can’t even get everyone to wear masks.  Civil disobedience would have dramatically escalated. So much for the national plan unless you want to invoke the COVID Fairy to sprinkle some fairy dust on us.  Maybe Biden has some.

Perhaps the Socialists will change all that. Socialists have some very clever ways and from historical evidence, painful to make you do things, another reason to think twice before voting Socialist.

Medicare age lowering to 60 will increase the Medicare population.  Most experts think Medicare eligibility age should be increased so that funds will last longer.  As it is, at the current level, it will be out of funds by 2026. Biden’s plan will not help.  Although Roe v. Wade is settled law for almost half a century now, and that first-trimester termination of pregnancy is legal, I think that late-term abortions are barbaric.  There is a difference between a gray ball of cells and a formed body with arms, legs, and a brain that could survive outside the mother, cry, have an audible heartbeat, and feel pain.  Aborting them requires a definitive life terminating act, sort of like drowning, suffocation, injecting a very high concentration of salt into the uterus, or puncturing the skull. Believe me, I know! Infanticide is not something that a civilized person or nation should tolerate. Finally, the question of Biden’s health is an issue. I will refrain from commenting as I have not examined Biden, but I have seen behavior that concerns me. Each person needs to make his/her own honest, unbiased decision.    I do think “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is real.  Socrates was right when he said, “The most hated people are the people that tell the truth.” Everything seems to be Trump’s fault.  No alternative explanation is possible.  Was the Corona pandemic really mishandled and all because of Trump, even though many of the setbacks had complex reasons with multiple inputs from governors, myriads of public health experts, Congress, the media, and above all poor public compliance? What remains undeniable is Trump’s success with the economy.  Of course, that was pre-pandemic, with the lowest unemployment in all sectors, including minority groups. Such numbers have never before achieved by any president including with our recent minority president.  And now even with new spikes of the virus in California, Arizona, Florida, and Texas, we already see the economy roar back. The stock market has made an amazing recovery, just 3%  down from its highs (dramatically better than the 30% loss it was initially), especially the NASDAQ and the S&P 500, both of which have reached new record highs.

Another very important economic index that is spectacular is consumer net worth, which is at an all-time high. The economy has made an unbelievable comeback.  Of course, that couldn’t be due to Trump’s handling of the economy. He just gets the credit for destroying it. The rest of the market is poised to reach higher levels than pre-pandemic levels.  But the economists I listen to are afraid of what higher taxes and open borders will do to our current steadily improving economic trends.  The market is already calculating a democratic sweep into their prediction of an economy that will again suffer if we see all three branches of government under democratic control. According to my financial adviser and bankers, Wallstreet is giving a democratic sweep a better than even chance at present.  It will require new financial strategies, especially for fixed income folks and retired people like me, especially if the more radical left gains control should Biden have to step back for health reasons and allow the VP and “the squad” on his advisory committee more powers.  That is a real possibility!

With Trump, we know what we are going to get, more or less status quo. When Covid is repressed, and a vaccine is available, which is just about to happen, there is no reason why further recovery of the economy and near full employment will happen. We will have the same tax structure, a strong military with less foreign entanglement, more emphasis on managing public disorder, controlled borders, and continued haggling for better deals from China, Europe, and Canada.   And this is supposed to be the bad news that justifies turning the country into a Socialistic one-party government, open borders, socialized medicine, with protesters demanding justice, which apparently means what we see in Portland and Seattle in other cities, maybe in our city. What did I miss? Do we need some adults here?

I am dumbfounded that so many Democrats, independents, and even misguided Republicans are willing to risk having a Socialist president instead if something requires Biden to step back. And make no mistake, Kamala is a Socialist.  By analyzing her voting record, she has been rated the most radical Senator in Washington, outranking Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.  Without question, with a Biden win, we will get fundamental change in our government. Certainly higher taxes, some assets would be taxed at 100% (usually called confiscation), little or no passing on of wealth to children on your demise, no borders, castrate the police, a one-party political system, nationalizing big industry such as medical care, utilities, communications, banks, oil, pharmaceuticals, and whatever else they want to.  Marissa Barrera, a health policy adviser to Bernie Sanders, says, “Nationalize everything.  I don’t even care what it is… y’all lost your capitalist privileges.”  You see, because a pandemic that started in China is obviously Trump’s fault by not closing the borders soon enough, and is furthermore evidence of the failure of capitalism, Socialism needs to take over to fix things just like they did in all those other Socialist countries. Amazon, Google, and Walmart merged with the US Post office that, as we all know, has been so “fiscally successful” would be Bernie’s wish and a triumph of Socialism. The “Never Trumpists” fail to comprehend the grave implications that a Biden win would bring to the political structure of our country. Many of you do not understand that it is not all about Trump! Where is Reagan, Jefferson, and Lincoln when we need them? Last time I looked, they were not running. The greater picture is all the Socialist baggage a Biden win would bring.  I am hoping that the “Never Trumpist” constituencies will convince them of the error of their ways.  The “Never Trumpists” need a quick study of history.  Just as they have allied with Biden and his leftists, there was a group in Russia called the Mensheviks, who thought they could negotiate with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, but they found out differently.  The Great Purge sent the lucky ones to the firing squad and the other ones to a brutal but short Gulag stay before the grave.  They did not get the chance to take back their miscalculations. Once we are a socialist society, we will be one for a long time!

 You will then find out what Democratic Socialism really means. Incidentally, it was with the early show trials of the Mensheviks that Stalin learned all about how to obtain confessions.  Dislocating shoulders was an effective way! Something the Vietcong learned from the Bolsheviks and tried on John McCain when he was a POW in the early 1970s.

We will see a rollback of any accomplished deregulation and certainly no further deregulation, which so far has impacted all business for the better from what I have seen. The oppressive bureaucracy has been pulled back a little by Trump.  The EPA, the Bureau of Land Management, OSHA, Fish and Game, Dodd-Frank, Affordable Housing, and others have overregulated banking, home building, energy, oil and mineral production, agriculture, my current job regulated by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). They are especially concerned about coyotes pooping on my avocados high in the trees, which, judging by their concerns, rival the Covid deaths throughout the country. I have seen a breath of fresh air with governmental agencies that are all just a little less enthusiastic about enforcing unreasonable, unaffordable regulations.  Just a few days ago, I had to report the finding of a dead bear on my property.  Previously Fish and Game would insist on coming out and doing an autopsy on the bear to prove a bullet didn’t kill it. The Fish and Game official wanted to come out, but the bear was already 6 feet under, and he agreed to just let me fill out some forms and send pictures that I had already taken, just a little more common sense.

For the first time in recent history, we are energy self-sufficient.   We do not have to depend on the Middle-East, Russia, or Venezuela for oil.  That is an achievement that all Presidents in my lifetime have had a desire to accomplish. It took Trump to achieve it.  The Islamic terrorist threat has been greatly reduced with the containment of ISIS, and the elimination of leaders like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Qasem Soleimani.  Border security is clearly better despite the open border wishes of Nancy Pelosi, which will come true with a Biden victory. Open borders will influence criminal traffic, drug transport, unemployment numbers, welfare costs, healthcare safety net overloading, demands on schools, terrorist access, but it will not separate children from their parents anymore. Thank God!

I am afraid that meaningful and intelligent discussion is becoming increasingly difficult.  There is so much mindless vitriol on both sides that facts, logic, and proof are substituted by name-calling, ad hominem attacks, and even worse – obscenities. Both sides must realize that in the last election, it was very close to an even split.  That means half the county was for one candidate, and the other half was for the other, for those of you from Peoria. (I know, I came from Peoria too.)  It was our system of the Electoral College that gave the victory to Trump. The Electoral College was critical to the Founders because it prevents the tyranny of the majority (of one), and gives the smaller states a voice.  Without the Electoral College, California and New York would always elect the President. Politics brings out the worst in us. Generally, people follow what their parents believed, i.e., deep-rooted and often not changeable. Keep in mind that calling half the country “morons” is not exactly brilliant either. I would classify it “moronic” as well. 

All of you that intellectually espouse Socialism have the amazing ability to blot out all the evidence against communal property and the incredible blindness of not seeing the countries that have tried it and failed.  Just look at the numbers of people escaping from the Socialists of Cuba, South America, former East Germany, North Korea, etc.  How many defectors went from the US to the USSR? This should be a clue who has a better economic system, a socially more just system, a better human rights record, etc. even for the blindest Socialist.  In 1988 Bolshevik Bernie honeymooned in the USSR and saw a “utopian worker paradise” through his rose-colored glasses instead of what it was, an incredible abortion of human misery that collapsed just three years later. I know you won’t do it, but I dare you to rent the movie Dr. Zhivago where all the homeless are moved into his house, and he gets one room of it.  Boris Pasternak, the author, wrote about his own life’s experiences. It was banned in the USSR. My parents, with similar experiences, could not watch the movie because it brought both of them to tears. The reality of what Socialism is might finally click with you. Believe it!  Socialism is not an idle threat when you have the government with numerous self-proclaimed Socialists already in power. So think twice before you vote in more of them!