Liberal vs. Socialist

George Washington was a liberal. Thomas Jefferson was a liberal. James Madison was a liberal. The Constitution of the United States sets up a government based on liberal principles. This country was founded by liberals to conduct an experiment in liberalism. Then, in the mid-nineteenth century, along came socialism. It appealed to the unintelligent masses. It is based on flawed social science. Everywhere it has been tried it has failed.

Then, Eugene V. Debs ran for President of the United States. He was arrested under the Espionage Act during World War I and socialists fled underground. When they reemerged, they had co-opted the term liberal and set out to rebrand the Democratic Party. But, there was nothing liberal about the reemerging socialists.

According to Ludwig von Mises, Austrian economist and philosopher, liberalism promotes free enterprise, limited government and individual freedom as the path to social justice and world peace. Everything the socialists believe is anathema to liberals. Socialists decry capitalism as exploitative; liberals see capitalism as the catalyst for uplifting every sector of society. Socialists see government as the answer to every problem; liberals see government as a necessary evil to be limited in scope and power. Socialists see true individual freedom as the path to anarchy; liberals see it as the path to self expression and self enlightenment. Socialists see debate as a threat; liberals see debate as vital to democracy. Socialists see the accumulation of wealth as immoral; liberals see the accumulation of wealth as a reward for peace.

Ask yourself if Democrats sound like socialists or liberals. The answer is clear. The Democrat Party as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson was liberal. That party was insinuated with socialists in the early twentieth century and was taken over completely by 1932 when the socialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the Party's nominee. Roosevelt's answer to the Depression was to push through Congress the most sweeping socialist agenda ever attempted in history. We are living with the consequences of that policy today. Social Security is going bankrupt and the socialist health care policies of the sixties are threatening to bankrupt the treasury. This country enjoyed its most prosperous and explosive growth under liberalism. Socialism took almost a century to kill it.

The Libertarian Party, today, is the last vestige of true liberalism in the world. It is time we reclaimed our rightful title and returned this country to its liberal founding principles. Fascism under the neo-conservative Republicans has given us a world filled with hate and resentment and socialism has given us an economy and treasury teetering on the edge of disaster. Capitalism under the control of fascists in America exists only to enrich the wealthy and powerful. Socialism has mollified the masses of poor Americans with empty promises that can't be fulfilled. It is time for true liberalism to reemerge in American politics and save the world from destruction as it tried to do in the eighteenth and nineteenth century before it was highjacked by leftwing lunatics.

Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and John Edwards are not liberals, they are socialists. Until we start calling them what they are, this country will continue to decline until there is nothing left but the remnants of a once flourishing civilization.