THE NEW RED SCARE

     Ronald Reagan put it best when he said, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it.”

     In America today, we see an unnerving and unfortunate rise in the ideology and “political revolution” (as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders puts it) know as socialism. The ideology of socialism is often compared to that of Communism by conservatives and Republicans, while the left and many in the Democratic party like to preach how different and unrelated they are. While, yes, they do have their differences, the similarities between the two are uncanny.

     Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines Communism as, “a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R.” Both communism and socialism are also defined by Merriam-Webster as the “elimination of private property” or “no private property,” and “collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production” or “a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production.” Communism and socialism are one and the same.

     Though anti-communists, the scourge of socialism was ever-present in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers Party, under which 6 million Jews were murdered and nearly 17 million killed, overall. In the Communist Soviet Union, more than 20 million died under Joseph Stalin, likely more when you factor in Lenin before him. Mao Zedong in China, having killed 45 million people, made him the greatest mass murderer ever recorded, according to the Washington Post.

     Today, we have seen this terror around the world. From the hermit-nation of North Korea to the failed state of Venezuela, socialism has destroyed people’s lives and freedoms. Now, we in the United States are at a turning point at which we must choose what we will be: socialist or free. Total governmental control, or liberty and justice for all. The “free stuff” being offered to us by those on the left sounds nice and would be ideal if it worked, but the simple fact is that it doesn’t work. It creates government dependency, a nanny state, where we depend on the government for our schooling, our healthcare, even our food by standing in bread lines. Abraham Lincoln once said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” and that’s exactly what we’ll get if we fall to the lies and the pretty picture that socialism and modern democrats are painting for us- very dangerous.

     In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump said, “Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. ... Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”

     In 2020, the American people need to make a choice. Choose to re-elect President Trump or elect a new president, one who will likely be a self-proclaimed socialist. It will be an election between American independence versus American dependence on the government. Only with our votes and our faith in God can we prevent the scourge of socialism from taking power in America. By this we can, and so help us God we will, keep America great in 2020.

​

​

Mark Angelotti is a weekly columnist for As a Matter of Fact.

You can follow him on Twitter here.