There is a revolution brewing in Congress, and it is very close to boiling over. It is a revolution unlike any we have faced in the 242 years of American history. It is a revolution against America as we have known it, and it has the power to destroy the American dream.

America was built on the vision and hope of the original patriots, who fought and died in the American Revolution, and who argued vigorously for a Constitution that was original and unique in a world full of dictators, kings, and autocrats. It was a Constitution that would ensure that this government would answer to the people, instead of the other way around. That idea, as well as the war itself, was revolutionary and the Constitution that protected it held up well for over two hundred years.

That Constitution and the union that it represented was challenged only once in two and a half centuries. That was in 1861, when the southern states and the northern states went to war with each other to protect their regional interests and to decide on the morality of slavery. More than 625,000 lives were lost during that war, but the future of the nation was decided, and a unified nation won over the secession of the south, and abolished the institution of slavery in this country forever. 

From where we sit today, there is little to debate on the issue of slavery. In today’s America, the ownership of another human being is obscene and immoral, as well as illegal. Although slavery is still accepted in Islamic and other societies around the world, freedom in America is protected by our Constitution, and freedom from slavery is enshrined in the Thirteenth Amendment, adopted in 1865: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The debate that is dividing the nation today is on another issue, and it threatens to tear this country apart, because it is being carried on within our Congress itself. It revolves around the core of America’s soul, our individual freedom to choose how we live, where we live, where we work, and how we raise our families.

All these things are now at risk as the Democrats in Congress wrestle with a new choice, being promoted by new faces in Congress:  the new choice between the democratic system of free enterprise that has made America a leader among nations, and Socialism, that has destroyed every nation that has attempted to adopt and enforce it.

The division in America has been growing since before the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, and the machinations of the Deep State have been attacking him ever since. But it was with the 2018 election of the new Congress that an even more dangerous division began to grow. The introduction of Socialism into the national conversation has divided Congress, challenged its leadership, and threatened the future of the nation as never before. It claws at the very foundation of the American dream.

The leadership of this movement came from a surprising source. It is traditional for new members of Congress to take some time to learn the ropes, the customs, and protocols before raising their voices and initiating legislation. But members of this new freshman class refused to take a back seat and they refused to wait. They also refused to learn, to study, to acknowledge that there is much they have yet to learn.

For example, within days after she was sworn in, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez jumped into the headlines with her self-designed socialist agenda that she called the “Green New Deal”, a set of ideas that she demanded was necessary or the world would be destroyed in twelve years. Ocasio-Cortez, who may go down in history as one of the most ignorant and ill-informed representatives who was ever elected to Congress, told an interviewer, “The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?”

And her antidote, the “Green New Deal”, was fanciful, utopian, incredibly expensive, and totally unrealistic.

The “Green New Deal” encompasses a host of bad ideas that have largely failed whenever they have been tried. They include guaranteed wages for everyone (whether or not they want to work!), free health care, free college, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security. It also calls for the end of the use of fossil fuels and the construction of a national high-speed train network, which would eliminate the need for airplanes (she claims). It calls for the curtailing of “factory farming”, which includes eliminating cows (whose flatulence puts methane into the air), and the total rehab of every single building in the U.S. to meet green standards.

All this needs to be accomplished in the next ten years (before the planet dies). If passed into law, this project could cost the nation as much as $100 trillion. That’s more than five times the national debt. It’s just not going to happen.

But the principle, the concept of socialism and the political sentiments behind it, represents a total takeover of our lives by the federal government, and that is what is on the table. According to Ocasio-Cortez’ plan, the government will supply jobs, decide which industries survive and which will disappear, where we will live and how we will build our homes, how we will travel, and what we will teach our children.

Astonishingly, despite the plan’s total disregard for either reality or feasibility, and despite the naivté and inexperience of its author, a majority of Democrats in the House jumped on the Ocasio-Cortez bandwagon and passed the plan as a non-binding resolution in February.

Happily, this resolution cannot be enacted into law, but it sets the stage by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, to carry out what Barack Obama once promised:  to fundamentally change America.

In this case, it would be with a shockingly irresponsible set of programs that would take away many of the freedoms of choice that define life in America. It is Socialism at its worse.

One only has to look at Socialism as it has come down to us in modern history. The Soviet Union (gone), and the countries of eastern Europe (now functioning democracies with free elections). Cuba (impoverished). And Venezuela, the latest, and maybe the most dramatic, of all the failures of socialism. In a short twenty years after adopting Socialism as its form of government, the country went from being the richest nation in South America, to being one of the poorest. Millions of Venezuelans are now sick and starving, because the government has failed to provide them with the food and medicine that they used to be able to provide for themselves in a vibrant free market. Now, only the elite have access to food and medicine and the finer things that money can buy, while the majority of Venezuelans are now forced to dig through garbage to find their food. The country is in chaos and about to implode. 

In an interview on 60 Minutes in January, Ocasio-Cortez clarified her position that Venezuela is not her model. It is the countries of Europe that are what her plan is based on, she said:

“What we have in mind, and what of my — and my policies most closely re— resemble what we see in the U.K., in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.”

Not for the first time, Ocasio-Cortez has gotten it wrong. Because the countries she mentioned are not socialist. The UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark are, to be sure, economically successful, but they are what are known as ‘welfare states’, which are a far cry from being socialist.

Here’s the difference:  The welfare states of Europe have largely free market economies. While it is true that their extensive welfare systems provide a host of subsidized services and benefits that provide a ‘safety net’ for their citizens, including free health and medical care, their economies are based on free market principles, not government control, and the generous government subsidies are paid for with taxes that are collected on the wealth generated by their free market economies.

Where the U.S. has just lowered taxes for most Americans and Americans are free to choose their own healthcare, education, jobs, etc., Europeans pay higher taxes to cover the cost of the large distribution of welfare funding that underwrites the subsidized programs provided by the government. Europe’s models focus on inexpensive, subsidized childcare, health care, child bonus payments, and housing. Sweden has even opted for school vouchers, enabling parents to choose whether to send their children to regular public schools, charter schools run by the government, or for-profit private schools. This system is as far cry from Socialism, which would force children to attend government schools, period.

As far as government controls on the economy are concerned, the countries Ocasio-Cortez referred to exercise a laisez-faire policy on business. For example, none of these countries have a minimum wage. It is up to the private sector to decide what fair wages are, based not on what the government thinks is fair, but on the value of the work and the worker who does it.

Ocasio-Cortez’ plan has little resemblance to the countries of Western Europe. Her plan calls for total government control of virtually every aspect of American life. Her plan is Socialism in its worst form, one that stifles individuality, creative initiative, and the creation of personal wealth. It would control industry, healthcare, where you live, what school you will go to, what jobs you can have, which industries will live and which will die.

Under her plan, America as we know it is in danger of disappearing in a world that totally depends on the government for sustenance and support in every aspect of our lives.

Would this Socialist model work in the U.S., where our values dictate an open society, where free choice is key to almost every aspect of our lives? The answer is a resounding “NO!”. The individualism that has been a hallmark of the American people since before the early days when Alexis De Tocqueville first wrote about it in 1835, has been drilled into the American psyche for over two hundred years.

The selfie generation, who was raised to feel ‘entitled’ to the things that the rest of us worked so hard for, continue to demand the things to which they feel ‘entitled’. They are content to be present rather than to contribute. They are deep into the culture of imitation, rather than imaginative and creative innovation. They are happy with the concept of socialism, because it means they don’t have to work for success. It’s enough to just “be there” and they are ‘entitled’ to have it.

It will take all of our considerable resources to fight back this ill-conceived drive toward Socialism and entitlement that seems to have mesmerized the left. America’s free market system, for all its faults, is the best in the world and has been responsible for technological and other innovations that have made this world a better place for everyone. That is what we need to protect and preserve.

Our Congress has lost its way and is leading the country into disaster. The vibrant economy, the hope that the Trump presidency has brought to millions of people with new and better jobs, lower taxes, and new opportunity, is under attack by the left, who are set to destroy all the gains America has made since January 2016. Instead of trying to undo all the good that the last two years have brought, despite their best efforts to resist them, their job should be to work together to support the economy with intelligent laws that will move our economy forward, not backward.

Their intent to destroy the economy with a Socialist agenda will hurt all Americans in the long run.

How can that be their job? And what must we do to stop them?