Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Individual Freedom For Everyone

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The Rubin Report: Dave Rubin- Socialism Isn't Cool

Source: The Rubin Report-
Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

Dave Rubin makes one mistake about socialism up front which is common for people on the Right especially, but sometimes on the Left as well, which is to lump all Socialists into one political box. As if all Democrats fit into one political box, or all Republicans fit into one political box, or even all Libertarians fit into one political box. There are Socialists and then there are Socialists. The Democratic Socialists and Social Democrats, the democratic wing of socialism and then there are Communists, which make up the authoritarian wing of socialism.

Where Dave Rubin is right is that all Socialists have one thing in common. Which is what they view as the greater good and collective, is more important than the individual. That individual freedom is somehow bad and perhaps even racist, if it means that there are people who do very well economically and live well in society, when there are poor people who's struggle just to survive. Perhaps skip meals so their kids can at least have something to eat that day. That is what Socialists believe that what you should do instead is to see that all the recourses in the country are divided up equally so no one is rich and no one is poor. Even if that means putting strict limits on individual economic freedom and even individual personal freedom.

The title of Dave Rubin's video is "Socialism Isn't Cool" and yet he doesn't mention why socialism is not cool, but instead just mentions the negative aspects of socialism and socialist countries like Venezuela. Tell that to the millions if not tens of millions of Millennial's who voted for Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries for President and the perhaps hundreds of thousands of voters who voted for Jill Stein for President during the 2016 general election. To them, socialism is the new awesome or whatever and anyone who is not a Socialist to them, must be a racist or a bigot or someone working to protect the man and keep women and minorities down. To them socialism is like totally awesome or whatever and anyone who is not a Socialist is not awesome.

My issues with socialism gets to what Dave Rubin laid out which is the collectivist nature of it. That it's somehow unfair and selfish for individuals to get a good education and then take those skills to the private market and imply them and be rewarded handsomely for them. But what they may never understand is that once you discourage wealth, opportunity, success, and individualism, you get a hell of a lot less of it and leave yourself less resources to help people who for whatever reasons aren't doing well in society. And you also leave yourself with a lot less innovation and creativity, because people are left to wonder why they should do well in school and at work, when big government is just going to take most of their resources from then to subsidize people who aren't doing well.

You want a free developed society with as many people as possible doing well in life, then you have to subsidize and promote the things that make freedom and success possible. Which is education, opportunity, equality under law, equal rights, success, and yes wealth. Which is what you don't get in a socialist society whether it's a communist society like Cuba and now Venezuela which essentially functions as a one-party unitarian communist state, or a social democratic society like Britain where even when the Conservatives are in charge individualism and individual freedom, is discouraged and even punished for the sake of the collective.
The Rubin Report: Dave Rubin- Socialism Isn't Cool