MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Generation Z’

Socialism: A Youthful Passion, A National Problem by Carl Horowitz

Posted by M. C. on April 13, 2021

First, much of our formal education system, especially at “prestige” colleges and universities, is driven by an imprimatur of faculty and administrators who lean far leftward. It’s hard to imagine many Columbia University students and recent graduates, for example, possessed of much enthusiasm for capitalism even if they work for a capitalist enterprise. 

Third, many journalists at leading newspapers, webzines, and cable news outlets are public relations agents for socialism. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., right now just might be the most photographed and quoted woman in America. 

https://townhall.com/columnists/carlhorowitz/2019/05/11/socialism-a-youthful-passion-a-national-problem-n2546176

Carl Horowitz

Carl Horowitz

It is one of modern history’s more famous quotes: “If a man is not a socialist at 20, he has no heart. If he remains one at age 40, he has no head.” These words (and variations thereof) have been attributed to everyone from Disraeli to Clemenceau to Churchill. Whatever the true source, they convey a wisdom that frequently is going unheeded in America. And we risk becoming an ever more controlled and corrupt society. 

Consider recent survey data.

This January, the public relations firm Axios released the results of a SurveyMonkey online poll of nearly 2,800 U.S. adults. Respondents were asked how they felt about capitalism and socialism. Capitalism produced a favorable response among 61 percent of all respondents, yet socialism was well-received among a sizable 39 percent. Fully 58 percent of persons ages 18-24 and 51 percent of persons ages 25-34 viewed socialism in a positive light; a positive view of capitalism among these age brackets, respectively, were 58 percent each.  

This survey was no fluke. A Harris Poll conducted for Axios in February of more than 2,000 U.S. adults revealed very strong support for socialism among Millennials (born 1980-94) and Generation Z (born 1995 and after). These combined cohorts backed universal health care and tuition-free college, respectively, by 73.2 percent and 67.1 percent. Fully 49.6 percent said they would prefer living in a socialist country. Meanwhile, a Gallup Poll released last August showed that 51 percent of adults ages 18-29 had a favorable view of socialism, but only 45 percent felt this way about capitalism. The figure for capitalism, alarmingly, was down from 68 percent in 2010.  CARTOONS | Tom Stiglich View Cartoon

Granted, socialism comes in a variety of forms. Some are more tolerable than others. But even the big bad wolf of socialism – Communism – is getting a reprieve among young adults. According to a survey released in October 2016 by the Victims of Communism Memorial, only 55 percent of respondents born during 1982-2002 believed that Communism is, or ever was, a problem. The respective figures for baby boomers and the elderly were 80 percent and 91 percent.    

It may be that similar views prevailed in prior decades. After all, the impulse to “change the world” reaches full flower during young adulthood. That’s long been the case. Career, marriage, childrearing and homeownership supposedly bring the starry-eyed down to earth. But to what extent? Doubtlessly many young socialists of today will come to support capitalism. But just as likely, many won’t. Callowness can’t explain everything. 

One would think the events of the last 100 years would have rendered support for socialism almost nil by now, with Venezuela the latest casualty. Yet the dream lives on. Quite possibly, the survey numbers reveal not simply a replication of a classic tendency, but the dawn of an era defined by the likes of Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren. 

Why are so many young adults today, to say nothing of their elders, warming up to socialism? I briefly offer some explanations. 

First, much of our formal education system, especially at “prestige” colleges and universities, is driven by an imprimatur of faculty and administrators who lean far leftward. It’s hard to imagine many Columbia University students and recent graduates, for example, possessed of much enthusiasm for capitalism even if they work for a capitalist enterprise. 

Second, radicalism, especially at the national level, is rapidly supplanting the modern liberalism of the New Deal and the Great Society. Radicals, many of whom are seeking the Democratic Party nomination for president, routinely exploit public discontent over certain recent outcomes of capitalism (e.g., the 2008 stock market crash, auto industry bailouts) for the purpose of discrediting capitalism as a whole. And many in their audiences believe them. 

Third, many journalists at leading newspapers, webzines, and cable news outlets are public relations agents for socialism. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., right now just might be the most photographed and quoted woman in America. 

Fourth, large-scale immigration, especially by Asians and Hispanics, is creating a generation of new voters whose resentment of the white majority and capitalism are of a piece. Ethnic identity can’t so easily be disaggregated from ideology.  

If America goes socialist, it will not happen all at once. And it won’t involve five-year industrial plans, farm collectivization, wholesale government takeovers of businesses or other Soviet-era relics. What it would involve is a gradual adoption of populist-Left hobby horses such as “free” college education, health care and day care, plus Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’ scatterbrained Green New Deal. There also would be large-scale transfer payments from whites to “people of color” under the guise of reparations. A better recipe for inefficiency, divisiveness and corruption hardly can be imagined. More than ever, economic success would be determined by political connections and an erosion of the rule of law.    

“We are born free, and we will stay free,” remarked President Trump during his State of the Union address in February. “Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.” Those words caused gnashing of the teeth among those who want Trump out of office. But the debate between capitalism and socialism will be around long after he leaves. For defenders of capitalism, there is much teaching to be done. And for young America, there is much to learn. 

Carl F. Horowitz is senior fellow at National Legal and Policy Center, a Falls Church, Va.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in American public life.  

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Here’s What the Revolution will Look Like

Posted by M. C. on December 19, 2020

Will your son or daughter soldier be fighting you or your neighbor?

Is this what they signed up for?

Will they succumb?

By Joe Jarvis

In 2018, the Pentagon held a “War Game” depicting a scenario where the military would be deployed against the American people.

The Intercept has published documents detailing the background information on the exercise.

The Pentagon imagined a disenfranchised Generation Z, strapped with college debt and no opportunities. They have lost faith in the American Dream, and believe the system is rigged against them. As so they rise up.

To be clear, the scenario is fictitious, and shouldn’t be interpreted as being based on real intelligence. However, the Pentagon tries to make the War Game scenarios realistic.

And it certainly identifies real reasons why people are pissed off at the establishment. “The system”, from the Federal Reserve to the Police State, has kept people under the thumb of the government, and their corporate cronies.

The US military clearly thinks this is along the lines of the threats they will face over the next decade. The exercise material details the scenario:

In early 2025, a cadre of these disaffected Zoomers launch a protest movement. Beginning in “parks, rallies, protests, and coffee shops” — first in Seattle; then New York City; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; and Austin — a group known as Zbellion begins a “global cyber campaign to expose injustice and corruption and to support causes it deem[s] beneficial.”

During face-to-face recruitment, would-be members of Zbellion are given instructions for going to sites on the dark web that allow them to access sophisticated malware to siphon funds from corporations, financial institutions, and nonprofits that support “the establishment.” The gains are then converted to Bitcoin and distributed to “worthy recipients” including fellow Zbellion members who claim financial need…

Gen Z’s most militant members have essentially taken to privately taxing large corporations and other institutions to combat income inequality or, as the war gamers put it, using the “cyber world to spread a call for anarchy.”

Now here we are in 2020, and sadly the military being used against the American people has become a distinct possibility.

And it starts in Seattle.

“Welcome to CHAZ: Capital Hill Autonomous Zone”

Earlier this year, a section of Seattle declared itself a Free Autonomous Zone.

Protesters, who claimed to have the support of the businesses within the area, set up roadblocks, and occupied an abandoned police precinct.

Police and National Guard units pulled out of the area. Police barricades and walls were used by protesters to create a defensive traffic flow through the area. Armed citizens guarded the entrances to the area– a friendly neighborhood drug lord even provided some security and weapons.

The police department sign was altered to read “People Department.”

Socialist City Council-member, Kshama Sawant, jockeyed for control over the movement. She was one of many speakers to address crowds in the “autonomous zone” saying, “What we are seeing now is an uprising. A rebellion of young people. Not just nationwide but globally.”

A few weeks earlier Kshama Sawant tweeted that, “corporations like Amazon need to be taken into democratic public ownership, to be run by workers for social good. We will need militant mass movements, strike actions at workplaces, to begin to fight to win this. Because it will be a political strike against billionaires.”

This is important to understand in the broader context of the opposition facing the federal, as well as state and local governments.

The Bolsheviks are attempting to co-opt the police brutality protests to accomplish their own socialist goals.

I certainly oppose police brutality, and the federal intrusion into my life. And I recognize that certain replacements would be worse– like replacing a Czar with a genocidal Dictator in Soviet Russia.

It is important to pay attention. But the group that starts the revolution is rarely the same one which declares victory.

Take a look at my video about who wins the game of Risk.

It is the people like Joseph Fouche (his story starts at 2:40 in the video above), who work behind the scenes to hold power while others fight.

Fouche participated in the French Revolution, beheaded some aristocrats, survived waves of beheadings himself, and emerged as Minister of Police in France. He stayed in power through the revolutionary government, Napoleon’s rise, the restoration of the monarchy, Napoleon’s 100 day return to power, and another restoration of the monarchy.

French Statesman Talleyrand had a similar story. His power also survived the French Revolution, before he helped Napoleon take power, then helped overthrow Napoleon, and later helped Napoleon escape imprisonment, and regain power for 100 days. Then Talleyrand also worked for the next government.

What is happening now is the very early stages of a serious economic catastrophe, and widespread social unrest.

Many different scenarios could play out. And some of those possibilities involve a revolution or civil war.

But any revolution will be very fragmented. There will not be one organized force opposing the US government.

And each little rebellion will be different. Some will take over police precincts and government buildings. Others will be entirely online, hacking, taking out cyber-infrastructure, and intercepting information.

Sure, at some point larger, cohesive movements will occur. We might even see state government take a stand against the feds.

But this is a large country, which was never really cohesive to begin with. A decentralized rebellion will spark in many places across the nation. City by city, and state by state, the goals, demands, and ideologies of these movements will be unique.

People who are out in the countryside will see a very different revolution.

It is possible that while the military focuses on urban opposition, the countryside fights a defensive war.

Imagine a well-armed, tight-knit group of people in a relatively small proximity. They can grow and hunt their own food. Hell, they might even has stills making alcohol-fuel for their tractors and trucks.

These people exist all throughout America. When the times comes for them to protect themselves, their livelihoods, their land, their loved ones, and their way of life, it will be only in self defense.

These people are not insurgents. And they aren’t the type to allow insurgents into their communities.

The US government has a big problem on its hands. The USA started with a guerrilla uprising, and the modern US Military has never decisively won a war against guerillas.

Let’s hope enough people in power recognize their precarious positions, and opt for a very simple approach (but one that does not come easy for tyrants):

They can leave people alone and let them be free.

To be honest, I don’t really care if the Bolsheviks take over Seattle. I’m much more concerned about them taking over DC, and being able to force their Socialist agenda on the entire USA.

Really, that’s already happened to a large extent, and fragmentation of government would safeguard us in a sense.

When there is no centralized power structure to control, it allows free people, and all the social and economic benefits they create, to flourish.

But individuals do need to prepare for that fragmentation.

Under many scenarios, supply chains will suffer, and food and medicine will need to be sourced locally.

Alternative currencies to the US dollar will be required in order to continue trade.

Personally, I’d be more interested in fulfilling market demands at a local level than participating in any revolution.

You gain more power by serving the demands of a local market– the more beneficial your contribution, the more you are needed, and can set the tone for local governance.

By producing certain tangible goods that work well as a medium of exchange, you essentially become a money printer.

Check out my recent video on currencies in a worst case scenario.

It should be obvious by now: 2020 is the elite’s big move.

We are entering the climax of a long planned crisis. Your family, your community, and your countrymen need honest leaders to guide them out of the elite’s traps.

Learn how to turn the elite’s own tactics against them, divert their attacks, and grow your own sphere of power.

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