– Something about this week makes me focus on the things I’m thankful for: my wife, my kids, a
warm hat, and of course, our constitutional republic. Our system of government is something that we should never take for granted, especially since, according
to some in our society, it’s doomed to fail. I’m James Gottry, vice
president of public policy for the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I’m not sure if you’ve realized this, but some Americans think that it’s time that we ditched democracy
in favor of socialism. A full 47% of Americans
say that they would vote for a socialist presidential candidate, and nearly 20% of
millennials surveyed think that the Communist Manifesto
better guarantees freedom and equality for all than the
Declaration of Independence. Yeah, we’re talking about socialism, the political and economic theory that along with its
close relative communism has killed at least 100 million people. Why would anyone embrace socialism? Well, maybe they agree
with Shawn Rosenberg, a professor at UC Irvine. This summer he stood before
the International Society of Political Psychologists’ annual meeting and delivered some bad news:
democracy is doomed to fail. Here’s Rosenberg’s theory. Humans aren’t built for democracy. Sure, our constitutional
republic has lasted for 200-plus years, but
only because the elites have maintained firm control of key social and government institutions. Now think about that for a second. Left to our own devices
we, the people, will drift into a deadly mix of xenophobia, racism, and authoritarianism, at least that’s what Rosenberg thinks. In other words, the dimwitted
commoners need a ruling class to police our democratic actions. If that isn’t a great
argument for socialism, I don’t what is. But isn’t it possible that
our current struggles are due not to the shortcomings of we, the people, but rather a drift away from
this nation’s first principles of inherent rights,
government by the people, and separation of powers? Isn’t it possible that we don’t
need elites to shepherd us, but instead, we need to faithfully preserve
the constitutional system of checks and balances that our founders thoughtfully designed to keep us on course? We have two choices. We can embrace Rosenberg’s theory and hand over our
government, our property, and our minds to elites. But haven’t we had enough turkey? Or we can return to our first principles and demand that our
representatives govern, legislate, and adjudicate in accordance with the structure set
forth by the Constitution. Now that would give us
something to be thankful for. I’m James Gottry, and that’s
today’s policy update.
A love for socialism is a true failure of public schools in America. Communism worked in the early church but people who lied in that system literally dropped dead. Only God could make communism work. The pilgrims starved under a socialist style of governing resources.