The Problem with Socialism Is That It Is Socialism

By Allen B. West (Original source CNS News)

“I must ask, how many of you ever thought you would hear an American president, while speaking at a State of the Union Address, assert that “America will never be a socialist country”? I tend to believe that none of us would have ever believed that would be a necessary statement to profess in our constitutional republic. However, as Thomas Paine once quipped in his December 23, 1776 Revolutionary War pamphlet, “The Crisis,”“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

And now it appears that we have indeed come upon “THESE” times once again. At the time, we had a new nation, struggling for its independence against a tyrannical monarchy, King George III of England. The question at that time was whether free men and women could govern themselves, and not be subject to a ruler, far away. Was it possible that British political philosopher, father of classical liberalism, John Locke got it right with his natural rights theory? Locke claimed that our unalienable rights were naturally endowed to us by our Creator, and these were life, liberty, and property. Of course, Thomas Jefferson studied Locke, but thanks to the wise counsel of Benjamin Franklin, our Declaration of Independence chose the words, “life,” “liberty,” and “the pursuit of happiness.”’

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