When Will Socialists Ever Learn?

Why don’t bad ideas just die a peaceful death? Why do they insist on dragging people down with them? So asks Roger Kimball, and the point is well taken? (via Maggie’s Farm).

Kimball is astonished to see that socialism, an idea that has produced an extraordinary amount of misery and nothing good, is making a comeback. The idiot left, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now promising free everything for everything. The idea appeals to brainwashed young people, but especially to people who despair at competing against their peers from other parts of the world. Socialism coddles people who are afraid to compete, or who do not know how to compete.

Someone should drive a stake through socialism’s heart, but we know that that will not happen. Kimball explains it with Nietzsche’s theory of the eternal return:

Socialism really is like Nietzsche’s eternal return: a horrible idea that is never finally destroyed, that keeps coming back to haunt the dreams and blight the lives of freedom-loving men and women. Exactly why this happens is a deep question. It involves a demonic synergy between credulousness and apathy among the mass of mankind and a different sort of credulousness combined with infernal energy among the commissariat.

On the other hand, the return of socialism shows the power of true belief. If we lived in a world where pragmatism ruled, we would all accept the verdict of reality: socialism has always failed. And yet, the wide-eyed dreamers who yearn for the coming socialist paradise are not rational thinkers. They reject reality checks. When socialism fails, they see it as a test of their faith. If you can believe in a theory that has always, when put into practice, produced calamity, you have transcended profane reality and are living on a higher spiritual plane.

Thus, socialists are really religious fanatics, unless, of course, they are simply imbeciles.

Kimball notes the absurdity of the current Democratic socialist slogan: Medicare for all. It would mean, he notes, that everyone would lose their health insurance and that a giant federal bureaucracy would take over health care. It would damage Medicare and would bankrupt the nation. But, don't let that worry you.

I don’t recall who said it, but a wise commentator once noted that there are three sides to the health care equation: we all want high quality, affordable and universal health care. Fine. The commentator noted that, by which laws I am not sure, you can have any two of the three. But you cannot have all three. You can have high quality, affordable health care, but it will not be universal. You can have affordable, universal health care, but it will not be high quality. Etc.

Of course, socialists believe that you can have all three. They are lying to you, the better to dupe you into empowering them.

Socialists want to emulate the European model, which rations health care. The Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning about the cost of medication in America and in Europe. In the midst of its comments, it described the socialist system:

Of 74 cancer drugs launched between 2011 and 2018, 70 (95%) are available in the United States. Compare that with 74% in the U.K., 49% in Japan, and 8% in Greece. This should cure anyone of the delusion that these countries will simply start to pay more for drugs. They’re willing to deny treatments if it saves money.

Drugs that are approved in foreign countries are often delayed in reaching patients—on average 17 months across 16 industrialized nations, by one analysis. Other countries have lengthy fights about how much the health system will pay, whereas in the U.S. drugs are available almost immediately after approval. Better quality care in the U.S. is why America outpaces 10 European countries on cancer survival rates—a fact the White House mentioned in a report last week on the costs of socialism. Maybe Mr. Trump should read that report.

As the old saying goes, there is no free lunch. And there is no free, high quality, universal health care. Someone is going to pay for it, either through higher taxes or with your life.