For the past week or two I have been digesting the summary of the Green New Deal published (and then pulled back) by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The GND is basically the New Deal (as if that was a success the first time around!) injected with steroids and bathed in envirofriendly psychobabble. It's crazy. It's, like, literally insane. Listing all the reasons why is beyond the scope of this post, so I'll just let you read it here. I wanted to post the summary released by AOC, but I can no longer find it online. Her summary was so far left that even her party was afraid to be associated with it. It basically distilled all the most shocking concepts of the GND into bite-size, honest little nuggets. You can find several assessments of it on various websites.
After consideration, here are my observations about AOC and the Green New Deal.
First of all, it is clear that AOC believes that nothing good can be done if the government doesn't do it. Now, AOC is a card-carrying Socialist, so this is no surprise (she can call it Democratic Socialism all she wants, but she's a Socialist through and through, as demonstrated by the GND). This is the fundamental presupposition of Socialism. If you want something done, they think, the State must do it! If you oppose the State's involvement in something, you must oppose whatever activity is being proposed. If you oppose government welfare, you want poor people to starve. If you oppose government education, you support the illiteracy of minorities. If you don't want the government to meddle with the economy, you must support economic inequality and want to see "the rich get richer" on the backs of the shrinking middle class. AOC cannot fathom a world where private industry accomplishes many, if not most, of the functions that the government performs (and much more efficiently, by the way). For her, the government is the single most important institution in any society.
Secondly, AOC, along with the entirety of her generation of "woke" Socialists, does not live in the real world. The ideas set forth in this proposal are cartoonish and outrageous. The ideas of eliminating air travel and retrofitting/rebuilding every single building in the U.S. within 10 years leaves the thinking man incredulous. Maybe it is designed to be outrageous. Maybe they're shooting for the stars and hoping to end up somewhere in the stratosphere. Who knows? What is obvious, though, is that this new brand of Green Socialists are totally out of touch with reality (if they weren't, they probably wouldn't be Socialists).
Thirdly, AOC is ignorant of history. She is educated, relatively speaking, but every word that proceeds from her ostentatious mouth makes it apparent that she was fed more propaganda than knowledge. The fundamental principles of Socialism, merely dressed up in environmentalist language in the GND, have been tried before. They didn't work. Perhaps the most egregious case is her insistence that the jobs created by the GND (read: taxpayers footing the bill for more inefficient expenditures) being unionized. If you look back at the 19th and 20th centuries and think that unionizing labor will solve any of America's economic problems, you are, to put it mildly, economically and historically illiterate. The GND is full of impractical ignorance, not only of economics and reality, but of history.
Fourthly, AOC has no concept of the limits of government or the liberties of the people. Concepts like private property are utterly foreign to her worldview. Individual citizens and their concerns exist to serve the collective. She and her cohort know better than you, so you should probably just let them dictate how you live your life. Again, this is one of the fundamental principles of Socialism. The many, in their view, is more important than the one. To the Socialist, eminent domain is a fundamental principle of a successful society. The individual's worth is based on how they can help the society as a whole. A person's rights flow from his/her role in society, with visionaries like AOC sitting luxuriously atop the food chain.
Fifthly, the GND would be the death knell of the United States as we know it. This is no exercise in hyperbole. The GND would literally end the United States reign as the most prosperous nation in the world. The economic policies being proposed would turn the United States of America into just one more of the has-been powers of Western Civilization. American Socialists often idealize
European nations as Europe has always been a few decades ahead when it comes to implementing such "progressive" policies, but they seem to be unaware of the effects of those policies. The United States should look to Europe when creating economic policies, but not with a mind to imitate them. The economic woes of Europe provide a powerful opportunity to avoid the detrimental policies that led to the downfall of so many once-powerful nations. The GND would condemn us to follow Europe down the road to ruin.
If you couldn't tell, I'm not a real big fan of the GND. It is an absolute nightmare, rife with demagoguery, incorrect assumptions, and opportunities for corruption. If there is a silver lining, it's that maybe the radicality of AOC and the GND may scare people and help to stop our incremental descent into Socialism.
After consideration, here are my observations about AOC and the Green New Deal.
First of all, it is clear that AOC believes that nothing good can be done if the government doesn't do it. Now, AOC is a card-carrying Socialist, so this is no surprise (she can call it Democratic Socialism all she wants, but she's a Socialist through and through, as demonstrated by the GND). This is the fundamental presupposition of Socialism. If you want something done, they think, the State must do it! If you oppose the State's involvement in something, you must oppose whatever activity is being proposed. If you oppose government welfare, you want poor people to starve. If you oppose government education, you support the illiteracy of minorities. If you don't want the government to meddle with the economy, you must support economic inequality and want to see "the rich get richer" on the backs of the shrinking middle class. AOC cannot fathom a world where private industry accomplishes many, if not most, of the functions that the government performs (and much more efficiently, by the way). For her, the government is the single most important institution in any society.
Secondly, AOC, along with the entirety of her generation of "woke" Socialists, does not live in the real world. The ideas set forth in this proposal are cartoonish and outrageous. The ideas of eliminating air travel and retrofitting/rebuilding every single building in the U.S. within 10 years leaves the thinking man incredulous. Maybe it is designed to be outrageous. Maybe they're shooting for the stars and hoping to end up somewhere in the stratosphere. Who knows? What is obvious, though, is that this new brand of Green Socialists are totally out of touch with reality (if they weren't, they probably wouldn't be Socialists).
Thirdly, AOC is ignorant of history. She is educated, relatively speaking, but every word that proceeds from her ostentatious mouth makes it apparent that she was fed more propaganda than knowledge. The fundamental principles of Socialism, merely dressed up in environmentalist language in the GND, have been tried before. They didn't work. Perhaps the most egregious case is her insistence that the jobs created by the GND (read: taxpayers footing the bill for more inefficient expenditures) being unionized. If you look back at the 19th and 20th centuries and think that unionizing labor will solve any of America's economic problems, you are, to put it mildly, economically and historically illiterate. The GND is full of impractical ignorance, not only of economics and reality, but of history.
Fourthly, AOC has no concept of the limits of government or the liberties of the people. Concepts like private property are utterly foreign to her worldview. Individual citizens and their concerns exist to serve the collective. She and her cohort know better than you, so you should probably just let them dictate how you live your life. Again, this is one of the fundamental principles of Socialism. The many, in their view, is more important than the one. To the Socialist, eminent domain is a fundamental principle of a successful society. The individual's worth is based on how they can help the society as a whole. A person's rights flow from his/her role in society, with visionaries like AOC sitting luxuriously atop the food chain.
Fifthly, the GND would be the death knell of the United States as we know it. This is no exercise in hyperbole. The GND would literally end the United States reign as the most prosperous nation in the world. The economic policies being proposed would turn the United States of America into just one more of the has-been powers of Western Civilization. American Socialists often idealize
European nations as Europe has always been a few decades ahead when it comes to implementing such "progressive" policies, but they seem to be unaware of the effects of those policies. The United States should look to Europe when creating economic policies, but not with a mind to imitate them. The economic woes of Europe provide a powerful opportunity to avoid the detrimental policies that led to the downfall of so many once-powerful nations. The GND would condemn us to follow Europe down the road to ruin.
If you couldn't tell, I'm not a real big fan of the GND. It is an absolute nightmare, rife with demagoguery, incorrect assumptions, and opportunities for corruption. If there is a silver lining, it's that maybe the radicality of AOC and the GND may scare people and help to stop our incremental descent into Socialism.
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