March 11, 2026
From the Bottomless Pit
Timothy Birdnow
Maybe America should require kids to live overseas for a year or so in a socialist country, like Mormons require a year of missionary work for all of their kids.
From the article:
In January 2009, when the U.S. economy was mired in the Great Recession, 23 percent of respondents said they believed that would be a "good thing” versus 65 percent who said that would be a "bad thing.”
By July 2010, the portion of registered voters who considered a transition from capitalism to socialism a "good thing” reached an all-time low of 18 percent, while those who considered more socialism a "bad thing” reached an all-time high of 69 percent.
Today, 38 percent of Americans, more than double the number in 2010, think it would be a "good thing” for the United States to move away from capitalism and more toward socialism.
Unsurprisingly, America’s disaffected youth is leading the socialist charge. Incredibly, 53 percent of all voters under 30, and 66 percent of Democrats under 45, want less capitalism and more socialism.
Among all Democrats, a solid majority of 55 percent champion more socialism in America.
The article rightly pins the blame for this on public schools which are now completely in the tank for socialism and fight fiercely any notion of private property or ownership of the means of production by individuals. And of course they do not teach the history of socialism and how it wrings out and impoverishes any society foolish enough to adopt it. Oh, and they never, ever teach that National Socialism was a socialist state.
As Witney Houston so cloyingly but accurately stated "the children are our future" or, as has been attributed to St. Ignacious of Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man." the reality is we have lost the children, and that by design of the Left, who have taken our children away and controlled their environment so as to set in false teachings. This acceptance of socialism is proof that we have lost the younger generation and that is very, very bad because they ARE the future and the precious thing we gifted them - freedom and free enterprise - will be lost in the fiction of a socialist worker's paradise.
And the truly sad thing is that these kids are living better than the most opulent kings of the past. They have everything their little spoiled hearts desire materially. The food is better, they have insane creature comforts (like air conditioning and heat, cold beverages, ice cubes, televisions and computers and smart phones) and they have to work less than anyone in history. They have more square footage to live in than most people in history, and their homes are far more comfortable. Food is cheap compared to the past. They have the best healthcare in human history, and it is cheap compared to what people of the past had to pay when they got sick. Medicines are better. And they are free to leave any job they do not like, and if they lose a job they have unemployment benefits to tide them over. Their parents will be cared for without them if need be.
All of this bounty cometh from capitalism.
Socialism takes what capitalism made and squanders it by giving it to those who did not produce it and who do not value it. People stop making stuff, doing stuff, because your labor is for others and not yourself.
They wrongly conflate democratic socialism and the welfare state and point to places like Sweden as proof democratic socialism works. Not so; Sweden is a very corporate friendly place, in many ways more friendly than the capitalist United States. Corporate taxes are quite low, for instance. And the reality is these places with a huge welfare state are now running down just as Margaret Thatcher said socialism would do "the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money". Few Scandinavians actually start or run their own businesses; they are too lazy, to seduced by the ease of the social safety hammock. That is why places like Sweden are now suffering from all sorts of problems caused by mass immigration; they brought in people to do everything for them and now those people do not see any reason why they shouldn't just take over. That's what happens when you care more for comfort and ease than actually doing anything.
But the youths don't understand this and in fact couldn't define either capitalism or socialism. Socialism is government ownership or control of the means of production. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy both called themselves socialist and rightly so; they didn't outright own all the corporations as in Communist countries but they had complete control over them and the "owners" were mere caretakers. In fact the Communists understood this and were quite approving of Fascism in the early days "first Brown then Red" was their saying; they saw Fascism as the interim state between capitalism and socialism.
I hate the term Capitalism, which was used by Marx as a pejorative and it was in fact coined by socialists. Free markets is better. I would argue that "Capitalism" is not an ism at all; it is the natural state of Man, what he would do if left unmolested. The earliest cave men undoubtedly traded - you give me that spear and I'll give you this fish. That was essentially Capitalism. Freedom to trade as you please. But it's always been under attack by someone who didn't want to have to make or find something to trade. Governments in particular like to steal wealth for their own use and so have long regulated and restricted freedom of trade for their own benefit. Socialism is but the final stage of that.
The actual concept of Socialism as a defined ism goes back to Jean Jacques Rousseau, who advocated it in The Social Contract. Rousseau believed in the Collective Will, a radical democratic notion that what the People want they have a right to take. Interestingly enough Rousseau also invented Fascism at the same time, arguing that Christianity sucked and what was needed was a new religion where the People are god and the State is the Holy Mother Church. The primary difference between Fascism and Socialism is in the religious/spiritual aspects (Socialism makes a god of economic determinism without actually pretending to spirituality) while Fascism deifies the Collective Will. But both ships are sailing in the same direction - placing government at the pinnacle of power over the individual and a totalitarianism, which Mussolini defined as "everything within the state, nothing outside the state". Mussolni wanted a society that was intimately involved in every aspect of life.
That is socialism in a nutshell; a world where society is up in everyone's business no matter the topic. So people who want to do unusual things can't, be it pray the Rosary or dress up as animals for sex; if it isn't approved by the current crop of leaders it is unlawful. Socialism homogenizes everything, turns life into a gray paste. Despite it's appeal to those on the margins in the end it will crush them because nobody dare oppose the Will of the god of the socialist society.
These young dumb kids know nothing of any of this. They just think it is more "fair" as if anything in life is fair.
Their problem is a moral and spiritual vacuum that has left them hungry for something more. The very fact they have a concept of "fair" shows they know there must be more than what they find in this world, and yet they have been told repeatedly there is no God and the material is all. They know this is wrong but having not been allowed to learn anything else they are doing exactly what those who have taught them intended - making a god of Socialism and worshipping that. As has been attributed to Chesterton "when you stop believing in God you will believe in anything" and these kids never actually believed in God in the first place because they were told all their lives God was a superstition, a very dangerous superstition that hurt people and was a huge buzz kill. So in the yawning chasm of their souls a new, strange god has now entered. They have believed it.
Turning this around will be nearly impossible. The only way it could happen is if the young generation suffer horribly to make them question their most fundamental assumptions.
I fear this is not just a bad omen but a horrendous omen. Our society has prospered because we honored God.
Granted, many young people have been swept up in a religious revival and are finding what they need to fill that void in their souls. But many more of them have not and it will be hard to turn them from what they have been taught as children.
All of the political victories, all of the tent revivals, all of that stuff is destined to fail ultimately as our society collapses under the weight of this religious belief in Socialism and nihilism.
At any rate that doesn't mean we don't try. If we can keep America alive for a generation or two past it's expiration date that would be a tremendous victory - so much suffering averted for a time. And we can keep the seeds alive for the future, after the wave of Socialism destroys the nation and then shows it's true face. And who knows? Maybe we'll succeed after all.
It's worth a try.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:11 AM
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But where can we send them to get the full flavor? Only North Korea really is doing it "properly," I would think, and they don't welcome foreigners. Maybe Communist China, although if we send 'rm there, they'll be "turned" and put to work for "the state."
And I don't think Russia is socialist enough anymore, despite what Vlad might like.
And I don't think Russia is socialist enough anymore, despite what Vlad might like.
Posted by: Dana Mathewson at March 12, 2026 11:04 PM (jo816)
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