Me Generation Socialism

So my oldest boys had a sit down dinner with us recently.  With their college and work schedules, that doesn't happen much.  Our third is also getting busier, being active in the Police Explorers program and working, while also searching for a job more akin to a career in law enforcement.

Nonetheless, we're still homeschooling our youngest and use such times to educate through conversation.  Being in fourth grade, we felt it was time for him to learn some things about the different macro-issues and terminology he might hear about on the news, such as what people mean when they say things like Free Market, or Socialism, or Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, Totalitarianism and so forth.

While doing that dinner time lesson, one of my boys brought up an interesting observation.  It's likely not original, but it made me think.  When talking about Socialism, it was mentioned that proponents of a new, Democratic Socialism often object to being linked to old forms of Socialism that led to things like Communism, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.  That was National Socialism, they insist, not to be confused with the brand being peddled today.

My son pointed out that it's really not accurate to call it Democratic either.  It sounds more like 'Individualist Socialism' (not to be confused with Libertarian Socialism) than anything Democratic.  He meant that in a way similar to how Socialism of the 19th and 20th centuries hitched up with the wave of Nationalist fervor of those times, so this Socialism seems to have glommed onto the radical Me Generation/Millennial individualism of today.

Whereas the old socialists linked to nationalism, patriotism, love of country, devotion to the Fatherland, all for Mother Russia, and similar sentiments, today it seems to be about promising the world to Me.  I get everything free.  I get sex, money, smartphones, legal drugs; I get free college, housing, healthcare; I get to have more opportunities to eliminate people who are inconvenient through such things as euthanasia, assisted suicide and abortion/infanticide; and if I want to be Napoleon, no more trips to the funny farm, they'll just see to it that the definition of Napoleon is changed.

Is this done for a greater social or national ideal?  Is it for the Fatherland?  Is it for our good old Uncle Sam?  No, it's for me.  Me alone.  And if others fall through the cracks or have to be hurt because they're challenging my right to have whatever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want, free of charge?  Well, that's were getting rid of pesky things like due process is concerned.  And those who are hurt or fall through the cracks?  Screw'em.

I've said how, when I first went to Patheos, I blogged that many Americans were still being left behind Obama's great economic recovery.  I said there were plenty out there hurting, and being lost in the dust.  The overwhelming response from the majority progressive/millennial readers?  Screw'em, I'm fine.  I'm making money.  I'm doing just swell.  What do I care?  And when I tried to point out that my parents' generation in the 70s, even if they personally were doing well, still had a link to other Americans and didn't like the fact that others, and the country, were still struggling?  The Patheos reader response:  Screw the past.  Who cares?

That's the modern attitude, and it's not confined to economics or Patheos.  Terrorism, falling behind in the rush to globalization, eradicating due process and presumption of innocence, suppressing free speech, AIDS and overdosing through sex and drugs - are all of it is based on the idea that as long as it happens to others, it's the sacrifice I'm willing to make.  Because Me.  Martyrdom by proxy and all. It's why Europeans just shrug their shoulders when the prospect of their civilization's inevitable death is brought up, but the first mention of austerity measures causes them to go batshit and riot and destroy and attack and burn.

And that's the mentality, the generational distinctive, that this new incarnation of Socialism is trying to appeal to.  Don't worry about your neighbor (heck, fear and despise your neighbor, depending on his gender, religion, national origin, skin color or politics).  Whatever happens, happens.  Omelets and broken eggs after all.  But you'll be fine, awesome and always have enough for the next smartphone.  After all, we gave you trophies when you lost and let you take tests over and over until you passed.

Socialist Individualism maybe?  Me Socialism? Selfish Socialism?  Whatever we call it, no more National, and certainly not sounding overly Democratic.  A new Socialism to appeal to the radical self-serving individualism sweeping our country, and the West, today.

Hmmmm.  I'll think on that.  As I've said many times, I'm no economist or economic theorist, but I believe he might be onto something.  He is coming from the vantage point of his own Facebook and post-Millennial generations after all.  Again, I'm sure he didn't come up with that out of the blue.  But it seems credible to me, especially given what we've seen here and across the ocean in Europe.  It also seems, just based on what we're witnessing, every bit as deadly as the National brand of Socialism from all those years ago.

The murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family

Is remembered by Donald McClarey.  Americans are blessed, and spoiled, and forgetful.  Because our revolution ended with our Founding Fathers working to keep their promise, we assume all revolutions are like that.  In fact, in a strange twist of dumb, ours is the one revolution that progressives will likely trash above all others.  And yet even a one minute glance at the historical record will show that ours was a fluke, while the bloodshed and barbarism resulting from the Communists, Nazis and other political upheaval over the last couple centuries is more often the norm.

The almost automated devotion to State above all things that could lead to an entire family lined up and sadistically gunned down was a portent of things to come.  It would define the Communist way, and the way in which so many Socialist experiments would end up, for many generations.  That so many today are mindlessly enthralled of Socialism and all it brings just shows how such blank devotion to a cause can infect even the most educated among us.

UPDATE: Rod Dreher has some info as well, including grizzly details about the murders themselves.  Truly a horrible crime, but all too common in what Rod calls the 'hellish 20th century', or the century that more than prove the existence of Satan and the demonic.

To make America Socialist

Remember how liberals used to mock conservatives who said there was a desire to push America toward Socialism?  I give you this story.  The joy and euphoria in the article are palpable.

Young people in America, by greater numbers than ever, are embracing Socialism as the wave of the future.  That's because of a couple things.  First, it's what they've been taught in schools, colleges, in the media, or society in general.  Second, let's face it, the Market hasn't exactly been kind to everyone over the last few decades.  Those who are 'middle class' today are nowhere near as well off as those who were considered 'middle class' forty years ago.  And combined with the poorer segments of society, that's an awfully big hunk of Americans who can no longer take their kids to Disneyland or even buy a new car, much less afford things like major medical expenses and retirement.

Back in the day, a local father could work in the meat counter at an independent grocery store, and the mother could work as a secretary, while affording a spacious three bedroom ranch on about a 3/4 acre plot of land, and also send their two kids to college, and happily retire.  I have news for you.  Today, a father working at a grocery store with a wife who is a secretary (administrative assistant) will likely not be living in a spacious three bedroom ranch on 3/4 of an acre, much less sending their kids to college or coming close to having a decent retirement.

Unfortunately, for some conservatives that became the Law of the Market.  Sorry about your luck.  The Market is as the Market is.  Even as some necessary expenses, like healthcare, became debilitating and almost assured that a growing segment of the population would likely experience bankruptcy, even if they had insurance, from a major health crisis, 'the Market is as the Market is' was the mantra.  Other expenses have followed in the healthcare costs footsteps.  Not to mention that many of the corporate leaders themselves are far from 'Capitalist/Free Market' advocates.  One can almost believe that they purposefully used their station to torpedo the market by making it look bad.

But for whatever reason, a growing segment of the population came into America where healthcare costs were through the roof, prices far outpaced wages, quality and quantity were declining in kind, and necessities like college and retirement were becoming a pipe dream.  The Left seized upon this to blame everything on Satan's economic theory (Capitalism), while,  unfortunately, you had loud advocates  of the Market continue with 'We're sorry, but it's the Law of the Market, you should have striven for the acquisition of financial gain to the exclusion of any other conceivable priority.  As it is, you don't got it, you don't get it.'

It's a little like someone telling you your father is a horrible person, and your father answering by hitting you with a club while insisting it's not true.  Therefore, we have this:

Once again the Left is proud and ecstatic about what it once said would never happen.  Just like it said it would never punish people over gay rights.  Your best bet?  If the Left says 'We'll never do such a thing in a million years', understand what they really mean is that they have every intention of doing it within ten years or less.