According to Kamala, It's Everyone Else's Fault
What This FL State Attorney Said About Indecent Exposure Is Beyond Baffling
What This C-SPAN Host Did on Live TV Regarding James Comey's Indictment Deserves...
North Korea Is Only One Step Away From Developing Nukes That Could Hit...
Wisconsin Beer Company Keeps Brewing Up Partisan Hatred
Vice President Vance Skewers Bud Light Troll: Conservatives Boycott, The Left Excuses Viol...
Republican Bill Berrien Drops Out of the Race for Wisconsin Governor
It Gets Worse: What We Know About the Drunk Driver Who Hit Idaho...
WI State Senate Hearing Devolves Into Chaos As Tim Carpenter Demands Healthcare for...
Liberal College Professor Sponsors TPUSA Chapter, Defends Free Marketplace of Ideas
Secret Service Seized 16 Skimmers in Boston, Halted $16.7M of EBT Fraud
California Man Sentenced to Nearly 20 Years for Firebombing UC Berkeley, Federal Building
Woman Defrauded Autism Program of $14M, Bought Real Estate in Kenya With Taxpayer...
6-3 Supreme Court Ruling Backs Trump, Halts Billions in Foreign Spending
This Texas Pharmacy Pushed 500,000 Opioid Pills—Now They're Going to Prison
OPINION

Ye Shall Know Them By Their Fruits

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
AP Photo/Leslie Priest, File

“Beware of false prophets , which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7:15

One of the great tricks the American Left seeks to play is bait and switch. This old con man trick lures the unsuspecting mark with an attractive label or description. Once they sell you the item, you realize that you didn’t get what was advertised. All too often a person deceived in this way ends up paying too much for a shoddy product.

Advertisement

The Left’s bait and switch lure is the phrase “democratic socialism” and the trick is nothing new. Historically, the “German Democratic Republic” was not the side with free elections and markets, but that with walls, barbed wire, and the Stasi.

Most American Leftists prefer to cite Western Europe as their model of what they want to impose upon the United States. On the issue of health care, for example, they love to reference the shortage plagued British National Health Service as what the United States should aspire toward, oblivious of the fact that the US has the second largest single payer system on Earth already. And no one sees the VA hospital system as a model of efficient or effective care. 

Others profess adoration for the welfare states of Sweden or Denmark.

Conservatives make a mistake when trying to argue against European style welfare systems because much of the American Left has no intention to follow their model.

What should lead us to this conclusion?  “Know them by their fruits.”

The Gospel according to St. Matthew advises us to remain wary of false prophets. “Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?”

The Left does.  All the proof you need is seen on the clothes they wear.

Ask yourself (or a Leftist not wearing a mask and hitting you with an umbrella) some questions.

First, why does your shirt have a bloodthirsty, gay-murdering communist like Che Guevara on it instead of Clement Attlee?

Advertisement

Attlee serves as the best example of a true democratic socialist “hero.”  If one truly loves the idea of democratic socialism, this man’s unassuming, bald, smiling, mustachioed countenance complete with a grey flannel suit should be gracing your shirts and posters.

From Attlee came the welfare state mess that has helped to force Britain into a slow and steady decline since World War II.  His shocking victory derailed the Churchill train that would have done a much better job of restoring British prominence and prosperity through free markets after the devastation visited on Britain by the war. 

No one, least of all Attlee, foresaw his Labour Party’s win over Churchill’s Tories. And when he did, he changed the course of British history.

Attlee inspired contempt from both Conservatives and the radical Left as he introduced socialist economic policies. Stalin quipped that if a democracy could replace a figure like Churchill with one like Attlee, then it deserved all the contempt he always heaped upon it. Attlee may have brought bad policy to his country, but he also understood the evil of Communism. 

In other words, he understood that “a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.”

American Leftists historically have not made figures such as Attlee their role models. Bernie Sanders in his youth did not hobnob with little known Western European Cabinet officials to discuss their efforts to reconcile an unfree economic ideal with a society that valued freedoms. Michael Moore made millions extolling the virtues of Castro, not Copenhagen style mixed capitalism.

Advertisement

The American Left has always gathered corrupt fruits from the bitter ideological tree. From the early efforts of Whittaker Chambers and John Reed through their later affinity for figures like Stalin, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh, the American Left has always held up murderous totalitarians as their heroes.

Their heroes tell us exactly who they are and what they want to do. It’s not merely the expanded welfare state and labor union prerogatives dreamed of by William Jennings Bryan or Harry Truman, either.

So next time a Leftist starts talking “democratic socialism,” ask him or her to show you a picture of the Clement Attlee poster on their wall. Their answer will let you know how “democratic” their socialism truly is. 

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement