Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 10, 2019


Ep 135 ｜ Socialism


Episode Stats

Length

56 minutes

Words per Minute

182.8925

Word Count

10,395

Sentence Count

516

Misogynist Sentences

8

Hate Speech Sentences

25


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.200 Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Relatable. I am so excited about today's episode. I have
00:00:07.600 gotten lots of emails, messages, comments over the past year asking me to talk about
00:00:13.600 socialism. We have talked about socialism in the past and a lot of you who already listen
00:00:19.440 to other political podcasts or you read political books or you've been involved in politics
00:00:24.120 for any amount of time, you probably already know a lot about socialism and probably know
00:00:29.600 a lot of the things that I'm going to cover today. I certainly am not a socialist expert
00:00:35.000 and then I haven't been studying the history of Soviet Russia for the past 13 years of my
00:00:41.740 life or anything like that. But I have been studying this, of course, especially since
00:00:46.960 Bernie Sanders came on the scene and it seemed like socialism was going to be the big new
00:00:52.420 thing, especially among our generations. And the fact of the matter is there are a lot
00:00:57.860 of people who follow me and follow this podcast that don't know about socialism and don't
00:01:02.700 know about socialist policies. What's the difference in socialism and welfare? Is there any biblical
00:01:07.860 aspect to socialism that we should be okay with, that we as Christians should get on board
00:01:12.880 with? These are perfectly wonderful and appropriate questions. It's okay if you don't know everything
00:01:17.840 about socialism. It's okay if you don't know anything about socialism. But at least you've
00:01:22.060 realized if you've messaged me or reached out to me, this is probably something that we need
00:01:26.240 to discuss and that we need to know about, at least in some kind of basic way. And that's
00:01:32.140 what we are going to do today. So you already know how I feel about socialism. Like I'm not
00:01:38.560 coming at this from an approach of like, I don't really know how I feel about this kind
00:01:42.680 of stuff. You know that I'm anti-socialism. You know that I don't think that socialism is
00:01:47.080 good. Nevertheless, I am going to do my very best to give you only factual information, of course,
00:01:52.500 coupled with my analysis, as this podcast always is. And I'm not just going to give you this kind
00:01:57.880 of one-sided story and not just what I want you to hear. I'm going to give you the facts. Now,
00:02:03.540 like I said, I already have an opinion about it. You are going to get my analysis throughout this.
00:02:07.780 So don't expect this kind of like middle of the road on maybe socialism is not that bad after all.
00:02:14.160 That's not what this podcast is. So I don't want any reviews from y'all saying,
00:02:17.960 oh, you didn't give socialism a chance. Well, Venezuela gave socialism a chance and we saw
00:02:23.980 how that turned out. OK, first of all, what is socialism? According to Encyclopedia Britannica,
00:02:31.060 socialism is a social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership
00:02:36.080 or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do
00:02:40.680 not live or work in isolation, but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore,
00:02:45.220 everything that people produce is in some sense a social product and everyone who contributes to
00:02:50.220 the production of good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at
00:02:55.900 least control property for the benefit of all of its members. So that's that's according to
00:03:01.180 Encyclopedia Britannica. So let us break that down. In America, whether you are on the right or the left,
00:03:06.960 we are all more familiar with capitalists or capitalism because it is the economy that we currently have
00:03:13.520 and that we have had. So I think socialism is probably easier understood from our perspective
00:03:20.320 through the lens of capitalism. Capitalism believes in private property and private earnings. You make
00:03:26.600 a profit. You use that profit for the most part to feed yourself, feed your family, give to charity.
00:03:31.900 You do with it what you see fit. Of course, you do pay taxes in the capitalist society,
00:03:36.360 but the profit that you earn is for you and you have your own property that you are entitled to
00:03:43.060 as socialism believes for the most part in shared property or collective ownership. A socialist would
00:03:48.740 say that all work is done for the good of the whole, not just of the individual, not just for
00:03:53.700 the good of your family, not just for the good of a corporation or a business, but for the good of
00:03:57.720 everyone. That's what a socialist would say that they stand for. Now you might be thinking, well,
00:04:02.660 what is wrong with that? It sounds very generous to me. It sounds really good. Maybe even sounds like
00:04:07.080 the early church a little bit. Everyone working together in cooperation for the common good.
00:04:11.820 That sounds awesome. It sounds like the opposite of greed. And isn't that what we want, especially as
00:04:18.100 Christians? Don't we want the opposite of greed? Don't we want some kind of generosity among our
00:04:22.860 communities? But hang on just a second. So here is what the definitions of socialism, if you noticed in
00:04:30.140 the Encyclopedia Britannica, if you noticed in, uh, the generous definition of socialism that I gave
00:04:35.840 you here is, here is what is missing in the pitches for a socialist economy or a socialist country,
00:04:43.220 the how, how, how do we go from private ownership, which is what we have now to public ownership,
00:04:51.120 or as they say, democratic ownership or collective ownership. Uh, socialists will say that in a socialist
00:04:59.320 society, the people are in charge. There is no, uh, real hierarchy. There are no oppressive power
00:05:05.680 systems. The people control, the people are leading, the people are cooperating together to meet the
00:05:11.220 needs of those around them. No one is getting exploited by profit driven corporations, they would
00:05:15.980 say. But how, who puts the means of production in the hands of, of the people and making sure that
00:05:23.600 they're in the hands of the people rather than what they would say, uh, in the hands of these
00:05:27.860 corporations who makes sure that this is all democratically owned and collectively owned.
00:05:33.060 What if someone wants to keep, uh, her private property? What, what if I want to keep my private
00:05:38.400 property? What if I want to keep my profits to provide for myself and to provide for my family
00:05:43.880 who makes sure that my profits and my property are collectively owned rather than individually
00:05:49.160 owned? What happens then? Uh, that's what socialists don't want to say. That's what they don't
00:05:55.080 want to talk about is the how, how we go from personal private property to collective ownership
00:06:00.840 of the means of production. All of that. The truth is that all of that is impossible without
00:06:07.420 government coercion. If I don't want to give up 95% of my profits or however much it is,
00:06:13.080 if I don't want to give up a private property or private ownership, there has to be an authority
00:06:18.380 to come along and to make me do it. Uh, someone has to take the money that I make and the
00:06:24.260 property that I have away from me, away from my family and force me to give it to the community.
00:06:29.400 But here's the other thing, uh, my money, even if it's given up, say, I say, I want that, say,
00:06:35.780 I want my money to go to the socialist cause. I don't get to, I don't get to give my money directly
00:06:41.920 to the people that I want to give it to. I don't get to give my money directly to the causes that I
00:06:46.220 care about. I give it to the government. Uh, and so in a socialist society, we're talking to
00:06:52.160 anywhere from 60 to 90% of the paycheck. It just kind of depends, uh, depends on how much you make.
00:06:57.600 It depends on how much you live and what the policies are. Uh, a large majority of my profit,
00:07:02.800 my paycheck is given to the government to redistribute to the country and to the community,
00:07:07.540 how the government sees fit. So not how I see fit. So when we hear about socialism,
00:07:12.540 meaning generosity, well, you don't, you don't see really where that money goes. Uh, you don't get
00:07:19.080 to decide where the money goes. The government decides where the money goes. Uh, socialists,
00:07:24.100 a lot of times you'll hear them decry the evils of corporations, how corporations exploit their
00:07:28.700 employees and corporations are greedy and they're immoral, uh, which we can talk about that as a
00:07:34.540 problem. I do think that that's a problem. We can talk about that. We can work to solve that problem,
00:07:38.660 but the solution to that problem, to the greed of corporations or the exploitation of some
00:07:43.660 corporations is not shifting power from a corporation, which is an organization that takes
00:07:48.440 your time, your money, and your energy, uh, on a voluntary basis, shifting the power away from
00:07:53.480 them to the government who takes your time, money, money, and energy away from you on a coercive
00:07:58.660 basis. So at least corporations who you could argue have too much power, you could argue exploit their
00:08:04.020 employees. You could argue you have too much greed. Well, we can decide whether or not we want to buy
00:08:07.920 from those corporations. We can decide whether or not we want to work for those, uh, corporations.
00:08:11.880 We cannot decide, uh, in a socialist society, whether or not we give our money to the
00:08:17.840 government and whether or not we are under the rule of the government. We just are, or else we're
00:08:21.980 considered lawless. And that is exactly why, uh, in order to accomplish a socialist society, it takes
00:08:28.220 a strong government to make you hand over your money, your property, your time, your energy, whatever
00:08:33.320 it is in order to cooperate. It all sounds well and good until you ask the how, how does socialism come
00:08:39.800 about? So I just want to be clear upfront, uh, that this is not some happy go lucky time where we're all
00:08:46.640 linking arms and saying, yeah, governments take everything that I have and distribute it for the
00:08:52.100 good of those around me, uh, without really my saying it now, democratic socialists will say,
00:08:57.520 well, you do have a say in it, but of course they also believe in a pure democracy where you have
00:09:02.200 the tyranny of the majority and you have mob rule. And so if someone like me doesn't believe in
00:09:07.280 socialism or giving up my private property, well, the government's going to make you do that anyway,
00:09:11.360 because the majority, um, ruled against you. Now, of course this already happens in the sense that I
00:09:17.540 might pay taxes to something that I don't want to pay taxes to. There are plenty of things that my
00:09:21.740 federal tax dollars go to that I, uh, that I don't agree with, but it's a little bit different than
00:09:28.820 in a socialist society to where you don't get to keep hardly any of your profits and you don't keep
00:09:33.420 any of your private property. Uh, so like I said, you cannot have socialism without big
00:09:39.420 government. Do not let them lie to you about that. So when you hear the terms socially controlled or
00:09:44.860 democratically controlled, understand that this means government controlled because you have to ask
00:09:50.240 how things, uh, things go from privately owned to collectively owned. Um, an authority has to force
00:09:57.720 people to give up their money and their property so that authority can redistribute those resources,
00:10:01.740 how they see fit. If everyone were already giving their money and their property on a voluntary basis,
00:10:08.100 socialism wouldn't be necessary. We wouldn't even be having this conversation, but because human
00:10:12.480 beings have this crazy desire to own property, which we will talk about as a natural desire,
00:10:17.480 a desire to keep their, to earn their keep and to keep what they earn, uh, big government is necessary
00:10:23.860 for seizing the means of production and ensuring in theory that everyone is cared for because a lot of
00:10:29.080 people aren't going to voluntarily get on board with this. Uh, they don't want to say this because
00:10:33.580 they realize that people don't really like the sound, especially people in the West and in the United States.
00:10:37.600 They don't like the sound of their freedom being trampled on, uh, but socialists. And I think this
00:10:42.700 is, uh, an honest way to describe them. Socialists see individual freedom as a worthy thing to give
00:10:49.020 up or a worthy exchange for the meeting, uh, meeting of the needs of the poor, how they would
00:10:53.980 describe it. Uh, that's the transaction that they see happening that if people simply give up their
00:10:59.420 right to private ownership or their right to earn a profit and hand these things over to our
00:11:03.360 oh so benevolent, uh, bureaucrats that reign above us, these bureaucrats will ensure that everyone
00:11:08.260 is taken care of, that no one is marginalized, that no one is oppressed, no one is trampled on.
00:11:12.440 Uh, socialists see themselves as the enemy to what they call the elite. They typically depict the elite
00:11:17.920 as these rich CEOs who are wielding their wealth to push those at the bottom further down. Uh, they don't
00:11:24.040 believe there is any reality, at least anymore to the American dream. The idea that someone can go,
00:11:29.040 anyone can go from, uh, nothing to something can pull themselves up, uh, buy the bootstraps,
00:11:35.220 make something of themselves. They believe that for the most part, that the poor are inescapably
00:11:39.840 oppressed by big business, which of course is silly considering the economic mobility that exists
00:11:45.100 in this country, even for the most poor. But regardless, uh, they don't believe that the free
00:11:51.040 market is truly free, but rather is being manipulated by those with the most money. So they see capitalism
00:11:56.740 as a tool to hurt the poor, uh, not to give, uh, poor people the ability to lift themselves up.
00:12:02.760 Uh, this is why you hear people like Bernie Sanders talking about the 1%, how the 1% is hoarding all of
00:12:10.260 the wealth in this country. Uh, you will also hear the term fair share. This is something that we have
00:12:14.900 heard from all the democratic presidential candidates so far that the rich need to pay their fair share.
00:12:20.120 Well, what they won't tell you is that the top 50% of earners in this country already account for
00:12:26.900 almost 100% of the tax revenue. Uh, the people at the bottom hardly pay anything in taxes. If at all,
00:12:32.680 some of them make money from the government, um, which begs the question, what is fair share?
00:12:40.200 They can't really, what is rich? What is fair share? Well, they can't really say, uh, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
00:12:45.580 who of course calls herself a socialist or a democratic socialist, which there's really not much of a
00:12:49.300 difference there. It's just socialism that you choose, um, has said that 70% would probably be
00:12:55.720 what she picks for the very rich. I think she kind of just said that arbitrarily in her 60 minutes
00:13:00.540 interview with Anderson Cooper. Uh, but who are the very rich? Well, AOC said in a tweet, only the
00:13:06.100 really rich, she's talking about the really rich. She said like Betsy DeVos rich, uh, that only includes,
00:13:12.480 she said like 10 people. Uh, no, it doesn't. You realize that the majority of your comrades in Hollywood
00:13:19.120 probably fall into this category, right? Um, so they can't really say what a fair share is and
00:13:25.520 they can't really say who the really rich are. They don't want to put an exact number on it because
00:13:31.180 they know what's going to change if they actually ever got the power to do this because fair and
00:13:36.080 fairness is a very arbitrary term in this sense, unless you mean a truly fair tax, which would mean
00:13:42.640 that everyone gets taxed the same rate, a flat tax rate, uh, in a truly fair system, the wealthy, uh,
00:13:49.380 pay still a good deal more. So if everything, or if everyone pays, for example, a 10% income tax,
00:13:55.840 uh, the millionaire is obviously going to be paying a lot more amount wise than the person who makes
00:14:00.740 $25,000 a year. Uh, right now we have an unfair progressive tax system, um, in which the more you make,
00:14:08.980 uh, the larger percentage you pay in taxes. I don't really understand how that equals the rich
00:14:14.920 paying their fair share. They're already paying not just a more in an amount, which would make sense,
00:14:19.700 but a more percentage wise, uh, than poor people do or than middle-class people do or anyone who is
00:14:27.160 below them. Uh, that is inherently unfair. And yet those on the left insist that the rich need to be
00:14:32.320 paying even more that, uh, to them, that would be fair. I don't know how you decide what is more fair
00:14:38.000 in a progressive tax system. Uh, but that is how socialists believe that they will fund socialism
00:14:43.700 by taxing the rich almost in totality. So that will go to pay for everyone's healthcare,
00:14:49.180 everyone's education, uh, the large government that is necessary to maintain and enforce socialism.
00:14:55.680 Now, what happens? The question is what happens when there are no more rich people because you've
00:15:00.720 taxed them all into oblivion. Uh, they don't have an answer for that. Socialism, uh, both demonizes
00:15:06.120 and depends on billionaires. So if you demonize to the rich into non-existence, uh, where do you go
00:15:13.100 for the money that you need to maintain socialism? That's what Margaret Thatcher said is the problem
00:15:19.300 with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. That's just common sense.
00:15:23.420 That's just true. You don't create more money. I know a lot of people on the socialist left believe
00:15:27.700 that you just create more money. Um, but that's not how it works. Uh, heavy taxation of the rich
00:15:33.880 to accomplish wealth redistribution to take power out of the hands of the people at the top
00:15:38.380 of the economic food chain, uh, is central to socialism. That's what socialism really runs on.
00:15:44.960 And to understand, uh, why we, to, to understand why this is, we have to understand something. Uh,
00:15:53.780 you cannot separate socialism and social justice. Uh, social justice today, if we, as we have discussed
00:16:00.820 many times on this podcast is based on the desire for equal outcomes, not equal opportunity, equal
00:16:07.720 outcomes. So that is what socialists see as true equality. And now this is very different
00:16:14.160 from the equality recognized and say the declaration of independence, which says all men are created
00:16:19.400 equal and were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among them being life,
00:16:23.920 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This equal means equal in the one in the declaration means
00:16:28.820 equal in value, equal in worth, equal in the eyes of the law, equally made, uh, in the image of God.
00:16:35.180 Now it is important to know, it's important to know that this equality of worth recognized in the
00:16:39.560 founding documents has of course been demonstrated completely and perfectly throughout, uh, America's
00:16:44.700 history. When you look at slavery, uh, when you look at, uh, Chinese railroads, when you look at
00:16:49.580 Japanese internment camps, Jim Crow, but, uh, it's an idea that is correct. It is an idea that will
00:16:56.460 properly recognize legally, uh, leads to human flourishing as it recognizes the worth and the
00:17:01.780 potential of the human being. But the equality that socialists believe in, uh, is not just equality
00:17:07.580 of worth, though. They would probably agree on that. They'd probably say that all people are created
00:17:11.980 equal, but they believe in equality of outcome. Socialists see any gap in success or any gap in
00:17:19.720 earnings as inherently unjust in a product of an oppressive system. So for example, and this is a lot of
00:17:25.940 people on the left, not just socialists, but they would see, uh, the gender wage gap, which has far
00:17:31.460 more to do with choices and what women choose to do with their lives than it does any kind of, uh,
00:17:38.180 system whatsoever. They would say, well, that is, uh, indicative of some kind of oppression when that's
00:17:43.380 not actually true, but they see any and all gaps as, uh, indicative of some kind of oppressive system.
00:17:49.980 Rarely, rarely will you hear a socialist account for individual choices or chance.
00:17:54.160 Uh, if one group is on average poorer than another group, it is not because according to a socialist
00:18:00.760 of irresponsibility, but because of an unjust system, uh, that is keeping them down. So that is always
00:18:07.200 their thought. That's always their go-to. Uh, this is why, uh, socialists want to eliminate hierarchy
00:18:13.600 as much as possible, which is why they say they want power in the hands of the people, in the hands of
00:18:18.220 democracy, in the hands of, uh, who they call workers, which is, uh, a Marxist term. They believe that heavy
00:18:24.860 taxation, wealth redistribution, the elimination of profit and private property, uh, will accomplish
00:18:30.540 that because in order to have equality of outcome, uh, which they believe is perfect social justice
00:18:36.040 accomplished, uh, you have to take away from the haves and give it to the have-nots so that everyone has the
00:18:42.920 same amount. Equal mediocrity. They're, they would rather have equal mediocrity, uh, than have these
00:18:50.100 large disparities between some people doing really well and some people not doing well at all. Uh, but
00:18:55.000 as we've already discussed, that idea is inherently unjust. The idea of taking almost all of what someone
00:19:01.160 has earned and giving it to those who have not earned it is theft. And the reality is, again, equality
00:19:08.040 of outcome can only be accomplished through severe government regulation to ensure that all those who
00:19:13.340 work harder than those who do, and all those who work harder than those who don't work very hard at
00:19:19.460 all, uh, have their profits taken away from them and, and used to take care of the people who are not
00:19:27.040 working as effectively and as efficiently as they are. Uh, this is one of the ways, this is one of the many
00:19:33.560 ways that socialism does not account for human nature. Uh, humans are naturally competitive. We have
00:19:39.900 this natural bent towards, uh, reaping what we sow. This is not a Western social construct. This has been
00:19:46.440 true in every society throughout all of history. We feel entitled to the fruit of our labor and we do not
00:19:53.040 take well to people stealing the fruit of our labor, all of it almost, and giving it to those who did not
00:19:59.060 work for it. Humans and Christians especially have shown a great capacity for voluntary generosity
00:20:05.140 towards those who need it. But whenever our profits and property are confiscated in the name of forced
00:20:10.440 compassion, which by definition is not compassion at all, we don't react well, which is precisely why,
00:20:15.660 as we'll get to, socialism has been such a horrific failure every time it has been tried. And yet, uh,
00:20:23.220 this idea of equal outcomes by repressing those who have in favor of those who don't have is the
00:20:29.660 keystone of socialism. And here's why. Uh, so socialism, most of you probably know is the brainchild
00:20:36.340 of Karl Marx. He was a German philosopher in the 19th century. He wrote a book called the communist
00:20:41.660 manifesto, which outlined the problems with the bourgeoisie, which is the elite and the evils of
00:20:46.920 capitalism. This is by far the most praised piece of literature among socialists. So whenever
00:20:53.080 they, uh, mock you or scoff at you for comparing socialism to communism or observing that socialism
00:20:59.740 leads to communism, uh, remind them that their favorite political book is literally called the
00:21:05.960 communist manifesto. Okay. So there's really not much of a separation between socialism and communism.
00:21:13.740 Socialism is always supposed to lead to communism. Uh, if you read any part of the communist manifesto,
00:21:20.140 even if you just read some of the quotes online, you will see that this is exactly where the
00:21:24.340 socialists of today, where the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs, and even the Elizabeth Warrens of today
00:21:28.780 are getting their ideas and inspiration. So here's how Karl Marx saw history in his modern world.
00:21:33.800 He says the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,
00:21:39.280 free man and slave, patrician and plebeian, Lord and serve guild master and journeyman,
00:21:43.980 and a word oppressor and oppressed stood in constant opposition to one another carried on an uninterrupted,
00:21:50.040 now hidden, now open fight that each time ended either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society
00:21:55.680 at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes. Everything in Marx's mind was about the
00:22:03.340 oppressor versus the oppressed. That's how he saw society organized. And he believed that communism
00:22:08.640 would bring an end to that. Uh, he hated capital, capitalism. He hated free trade. He hated private
00:22:14.940 property. He saw all of this as evil, as turning men into greedy scrooges who stomped on his fellow
00:22:20.460 man. And you can also see, if you listen to my, I think it's episode 99, if you listen to that episode
00:22:24.980 about, um, about black liberation theology, you can see where they get a lot of their ideas. It's from
00:22:31.800 Karl Marx and these collectivist, uh, ideologies. Uh, everything in Marx's mind was, uh, was about
00:22:41.180 this dichotomy. Everything was viewed through the lens of oppression. Um, and this is where, again,
00:22:47.900 we have to note that socialism and today's version of social justice cannot be separated. They go
00:22:54.200 hand in hand. It is all about the elimination of differences between groups by pushing down,
00:22:59.640 uh, those whom the left sees as the oppressor and lifting up the ones the left sees as the oppressed
00:23:07.040 primarily through an economic system that taxes the wealthy into obscurity, but also through social
00:23:12.640 constructs like intersectionality that invade our public discourse and the messages that we see in
00:23:17.920 the media, et cetera. Um, we have discussed this many times, this idea of intersectionality that people
00:23:24.000 are defined by their various intersection points, uh, which are skin color, religion, gender,
00:23:29.080 sexual orientation, et cetera, and how, uh, those points correspond to a particular level of
00:23:35.360 oppression. According to the left, uh, the more intersection points you have, they say, uh, the
00:23:40.600 more credibility and value that you have. So any opinion that you have or view that you hold is
00:23:45.680 weighed against how intersectional you are. Too many people on the left, uh, straight white men,
00:23:50.700 of course, are the least intersectional. Uh, thus they are the least oppressed. So if a white man is a
00:23:56.300 conservative, for example, it is because he is a straight white man, not because he has those
00:24:01.580 ideas. If a white woman is conservative, it's because she is white, not because she really has
00:24:06.300 those ideas. Oh, and also because she's a woman who is a conservative, it's probably also because
00:24:12.360 she is oppressed and brainwashed by the patriarchy. Uh, same goes for black conservatives or immigrant
00:24:19.100 conservatives or Muslim conservatives. It's because they say you have been oppressed. And so you have
00:24:24.540 been brainwashed by white people, not because you think your own thoughts or have your own values,
00:24:29.200 because if you really thought for yourself, they would say you would be a socialist and a communist,
00:24:34.320 um, because these people believe that it is not conservative versus liberal, uh, just like Karl Marx,
00:24:42.580 they believe that it is the oppressed versus the oppressor. They see anyone who disagrees with them as,
00:24:50.320 as on the side of the oppressor. So it doesn't make sense to them when someone who is
00:24:54.380 black or someone who is gay or someone who is an immigrant or someone who is Muslim would be on
00:24:58.780 the conservative side, would be against them. They see those people as on the side of the oppressor.
00:25:02.840 And the only reason an oppressed person in their mind would be on the side of the oppressor is if
00:25:07.040 they are brainwashed. And so that's why they just can't deal with people who are minorities who don't
00:25:12.720 agree with them. People like me are, you know, a white person, a white woman, a white man, they can just
00:25:18.100 brush off as just being racist, of just being as a part of the, uh, of, of oppressive, what oppressive
00:25:24.860 white supremacy. That's why they disagree with them. So they don't actually have to contend with
00:25:28.920 any ideas. Uh, and you see that a lot in our debates and our discussions today. Um, just like
00:25:34.600 Karl Marx, they believe that the only way for the oppressed to be free is through socialism and or
00:25:39.180 communism. So, uh, if you're against socialism, uh, then again, you are on the side of those who
00:25:46.680 want to oppress people. So how do they decide you ask who is being oppressed? Uh, typically in a very
00:25:54.140 superficial way, uh, who has been the most poor and, or who has been the most discriminated against.
00:26:01.760 And I say, and, or, because this is complicated on the intersectionality scale. If you haven't noticed,
00:26:07.440 uh, everything is extremely subjective, uh, because it's not just who has been the most discriminated
00:26:12.340 against. For example, uh, the Jewish people have been discriminated against and marginalized.
00:26:16.680 And brutalized throughout history. And the left does not have a high view of Jews. Uh, you'll
00:26:22.180 notice they really only care about violence against Jews when it's done, um, at the hands of a white
00:26:26.980 supremacist. If it's a Palestinian terror group like Hamas, they don't really have anything to say about
00:26:31.580 it. And in fact, they're going to stand up for Palestine. Uh, that's because to the left Jews rank
00:26:35.880 lower than non-Jewish white people. Um, even, or even though Jews rank lower than non-Jewish white
00:26:42.920 people on the intersectionality scale, they still, uh, rank higher than Muslims in Palestine. Why?
00:26:49.540 Because traditionally the Jewish people have been successful. They have pulled themselves up by their
00:26:56.060 bootstraps. They have in general been, uh, well-educated. They have been financially successful.
00:27:02.580 They have refused to bow down to victimhood. So even though they have been traditionally oppressed
00:27:07.940 throughout history, uh, to the intersectional and even socialist left, they are not given as much
00:27:14.740 credit. They are not given as much compassion and as much sympathy as Muslims because, uh, Jewish
00:27:20.300 people probably to a lot of people on the left are just too white. They are just too successful
00:27:26.740 to have a lot of compassion for, which is why they always will go against Jews. If it's Jews versus
00:27:33.800 Muslims, but not a Jew versus a Christian white person, it's just crazy. It's really hard to grapple
00:27:41.220 with. But once you realize that this is how they think, a lot of the things that they say and do
00:27:45.780 make a lot of sense, or they don't make a lot of sense, but at least, you know, where they're coming
00:27:50.040 from. Um, so American leftists who buy into this oppressed versus oppressor dynamic claim to be,
00:27:56.060 uh, woke, but the reality is they actually see things through a very narrow Western lens. Um,
00:28:02.900 they look exclusively really, uh, on how, how groups have fared in the United States and not on a global
00:28:10.560 scale. So for example, they count Christians as privileged in America as mostly white when the
00:28:16.660 reality is, uh, Christians are persecuted, uh, far more than any other religious group in the world.
00:28:22.840 And most Christians are not whites and Christianity did not start in the West. It most certainly did not
00:28:28.060 start in the United States. But this again, reflects the ideology of Karl Marx. He hated
00:28:33.960 Christianity. He called Jews hucksters. He really actually loathed most religions, uh, but primarily
00:28:39.800 loathed any group that he saw as an oppressor. Uh, when you realize that this is how that a lot of
00:28:46.200 these leftists, not all, but a lot of these leftists see the world stemming from Karl Marx and
00:28:50.600 his collaborator, Friedrich Ingels, uh, a lot of what they do. Uh, like I said, it doesn't make sense,
00:28:56.480 but it does. Uh, everything is viewed and not through the lens of what is true and what is not,
00:29:01.080 but, uh, what group is this person a part of and how oppressed have they been? And that's how I'm
00:29:07.820 going to figure out who is to blame or how much sympathy or credit to give. Um, that is why, uh,
00:29:14.040 anyone, when anyone criticizes, for example, Ilhan Omar for saying that Israel has hypnotized the
00:29:20.640 world or that Republicans only support for Israel is because of the Benjamins, uh, or that,
00:29:26.480 that AIPAC is controlling Republican politicians or for sympathizing with and defending men from
00:29:31.820 Minnesota who tried to join ISIS or defending Hamas or trivializing 9-11. If we criticize her
00:29:36.460 for any of this stuff, it's because we are Islamophobic. So if we criticize a Muslim person
00:29:41.760 for saying something derogatory towards Jewish people, it is because we are Islamophobic, not
00:29:46.720 because they are antisemitic. Why? Because of this crazy intersectionality scale and who they see as
00:29:51.400 more oppressed and more privileged. So if you criticize Rashida Tlaib for saying that she feels a
00:29:56.080 calming feeling when she thinks about the Holocaust because of her erroneous belief that
00:30:00.580 Palestinians were the savior of the Jewish people rather than aiding and abetting Nazis,
00:30:06.500 it's because you're an Islamophobe, not because her comments were ridiculous and antisemitic.
00:30:11.720 If you criticize AOC for the many, many uneducated comments that she has made, it's because you are a
00:30:18.440 racist, sexist, uh, and you hate women of color. That's why. It's not because she has anything wrong to
00:30:25.420 say. Uh, this is also why personal responsibility is really not something that's ever going to be
00:30:30.900 emphasized by the socialist left because every group who has not succeeded, uh, is seen as
00:30:37.080 systemically oppressed, not irresponsible as we've already covered. So now we see how this social
00:30:42.520 aspect of socialism really goes hand in hand with the economic aspect of socialism. Socialism sees
00:30:47.900 poverty as never, never the fault of people who are poor, but a consequence of oppression from the
00:30:53.480 people at the top, which is why they think it necessary to take the power and the wealth and
00:30:58.300 the property of the haves and hand it to the have not. So they do not see someone, for example,
00:31:03.420 like my parents who, uh, were raised poor, who were very poor when they got married, had to work
00:31:08.560 themselves, uh, through college, had to really pull themselves up and to make it work. And who couldn't
00:31:14.200 even afford a new pair of shoes when they first got married for my dad to wear to work. They don't see a
00:31:19.940 story like that. And then my dad, you know, both of them becoming successful entrepreneurs and being
00:31:24.940 able to make a good life for my brothers and me, they don't see that as a story of personal
00:31:29.220 responsibility. They see that as a story of privilege. They see that as a story of benefiting
00:31:33.960 from certain systems that are kinder to white people than to people who are in other groups.
00:31:39.160 They don't see that as the consequence of choices. They see that as the consequence of a system.
00:31:43.820 And the same thing goes with poverty. Now we do know just from a logical experiential perspective,
00:31:49.420 like we do understand that bad luck happens or maybe not luck from a theological term,
00:31:55.900 but bad things happen. Bad circumstances happen that are outside of people's control. Not everyone
00:32:00.720 who is poor, it hasn't always been a product of bad choices. Sometimes you are born into extremely
00:32:07.160 unfortunate circumstances in which you could not crawl out of because you were 14 years old and you
00:32:12.440 were left without parents, whatever it is. Not everyone who is poor is because is a product of
00:32:17.240 bad choices or is a product of your own bad choices anyway. And not everyone who is rich has had to go
00:32:22.840 from nothing to something. We know that that's true. There is chance there are circumstances that
00:32:27.880 people are born into that are inherently more privileged than the circumstances that other people
00:32:32.020 are born into. That of course is true. But the socialist doesn't take that kind of nuanced look.
00:32:37.540 They see every kind of discrepancy, not as a consequence of choices, but as a consequence of some
00:32:42.340 kind of systemic oppression, which is why they justify saying, well, the government's got to step in and
00:32:48.200 do something about this to make sure that all outcomes are equal because anyone at the top
00:32:52.540 has exploited people at the bottom to get there. When of course that is not always true.
00:32:58.220 So let us talk about a little bit more about the background of socialism. There are two main
00:33:03.620 branches of thought within the socialist ideology. First is the belief that everything except personal
00:33:08.820 items such as clothing should be public property. So an example of this would be that of Sir Thomas
00:33:14.340 Moore writing in 1516, Utopia. Other socialists would believe that the only way that society is
00:33:21.540 supposed to control the economy is through property and other resources. So maybe not quite as extreme.
00:33:27.680 In this case, centralists in socialism would say that the state should be a central authority
00:33:33.380 but it should be in control of the resources of that specific society. This was the case in the
00:33:41.520 Soviet Union. And then you have people in the more decentralized camp of socialism that believe that
00:33:46.940 these decisions should be made at the lowest possible level of government. So state or local,
00:33:52.400 ultimately, these decisions would be made by a populist decision. So that's what one side of this
00:33:57.600 of the socialist spectrum believes. But it's important to note that this kind of revolution or transition
00:34:02.140 would still take a powerful central government to force it to make it happen, even if it were to
00:34:08.360 be more of a populist socialist movement, which is part of why socialism has never really worked long
00:34:15.620 term. Marxism, Leninism tried in the Soviet Union, but failed. People were starving, were persecuted,
00:34:21.700 were oppressed by the tyranny of the Soviet government. India tried state socialism as well as Sweden with
00:34:26.900 democratic socialism. And in Germany, we all know how national socialism went with the Nazi movement.
00:34:33.120 Of course, you probably know Nazi stands for national socialist. Chinese, the Chinese have
00:34:39.220 employed communism and still employs communism today. North Korea is a socialist regime. And I think we can
00:34:44.900 deduce how that's working out for people who have died from parasites after being forced to use human
00:34:49.420 manure to fertilize their crops. Venezuela has been under socialist rule. And people are, of course,
00:34:55.500 as you probably know, are dying of hunger and are still fighting to officially get out from under
00:35:01.860 Maduro's tyrannical rule. Socialism has had loud dissidents over the years who have pushed back against
00:35:08.820 the tyranny of socialism. So you've got Hungary, you've got Czechoslovakia, you've got Poland, you have China,
00:35:15.800 you have Cuba. That is why many countries who tried socialism realized that they had to adopt at least
00:35:22.820 characteristics of capitalism in order to survive or characteristics of the free market to survive.
00:35:29.380 Socialism in Sweden failed. So now they have a welfare state that A, has a fair flat tax rate of 60%
00:35:36.320 and B, is funded by the free market. So everyone is taxed at a high flat rate. They get free health
00:35:43.900 care, they get free education, but there is a low corporate tax rate so that businesses and individuals
00:35:48.820 are still able to make a significant profit. In fact, the leaders of the Scandinavian countries have
00:35:54.580 publicly corrected Bernie Sanders, who claimed that they are socialist countries. They've said,
00:36:00.520 no, we're actually not socialist countries. So the means of production in these Scandinavian countries
00:36:05.840 are mostly in the hands of the citizens and the businesses that they work for. Denmark, for example,
00:36:13.300 doesn't even have a minimum wage law. They are consistently ranked as one of the top free market
00:36:17.940 economies in the world. So these Scandinavian countries are not socialist. And even in using
00:36:23.600 the free market, but having a welfare state, a lot of these countries are still under significant
00:36:27.940 pressure. A lot of people say that even where they are using the free market, but taxing people so high
00:36:33.060 and providing for so many people who are dependent on the state, millions of people who are dependent on
00:36:37.800 the federal government, that it's not going to last very long, that it's eventually going to crash and
00:36:43.300 burn. So even that they're not a socialist state, but their welfare state, even that probably won't
00:36:48.640 last forever. China also realized that they weren't going to become an economic superpower without
00:36:53.420 capitalism. That's why they have special economic zones. These are zones where foreign and domestic
00:36:58.280 trade and investments are done without interference from the central government. They offer tax and
00:37:04.200 business incentives to attract foreign investment in technology. There was even an attempt kind of at
00:37:09.960 socialism in the 19th century. There was an English, uh, English philanthropist named Robert Owen, who
00:37:15.520 launched a new harmony on the banks of the Wabash river in, uh, Indiana. Not too long after the
00:37:22.520 experiment, harmony collapsed and Owen went home. So it doesn't have a great track record. Socialism,
00:37:29.600 bottom line, it just doesn't work. Now, if you talk to a socialist, they'll say it's never truly been
00:37:34.080 tried. Or they will say that, uh, while it's happening in the Scandinavian countries, well,
00:37:41.080 one, socialism has been tried many times and it has failed. And socialism does not characterize the
00:37:48.420 Scandinavian countries. Like I said, they are welfare seats. So let's discuss the difference
00:37:52.360 in welfare and socialism. So the idea of welfare existed long before the idea of socialism. Um, in 1601,
00:37:59.200 the parliament of England enacted something called the Elizabethan, uh, poor law of 1601. It authorized
00:38:04.900 government provision for the poor residing in local parishes, established a system of obligatory
00:38:10.400 financing outside the church. Uh, early America instilled this kind of principle as well. There
00:38:16.280 was a form of welfare set up only for those who were young and vulnerable or old and vulnerable,
00:38:21.220 or who were disabled. No able bodied person qualified for public assistance during this time.
00:38:26.700 Uh, there was a big shift in welfare during the great depression. FDR implemented his new deal,
00:38:32.720 uh, which were of course, a set of economic programs meant to provide relief for families
00:38:38.200 who were hit hard by the depression. Uh, in 1935, the social security act established a national system
00:38:43.980 of old age insurance for retired workers, benefits for victims of industrial accidents,
00:38:49.700 unemployment insurance, aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind, the physically handicapped.
00:38:54.880 Um, and then you probably know about the 1960s when LBJ launched the great society. This had an aim
00:39:01.040 to eliminate poverty and also racial injustice. And during this period, a new spinning programs were
00:39:07.040 launched that also addressed education, medical care, urban problems, uh, rural poverty and
00:39:12.020 transportation, Medicare and Medicaid were products of this time. Uh, the great society really looked to
00:39:18.860 expand FDR's new deal, but the new deal was in response to a severe economic crisis. And so the great
00:39:24.420 society was something different. The great society occurred when the American economy was actually
00:39:28.860 booming. Uh, everything was growing and flourishing due to what, by the way, due to Kennedy's, uh, tax
00:39:35.680 cuts, which slashed the top marginal tax rate by 20%. This resulted in the GNP rising, the unemployment
00:39:42.200 rate falling dramatically and the average income increasing. So that was from the tax cuts. Just want to
00:39:47.160 make that clear. Uh, this was an effort to end poverty, to end injustice. Uh, but even if the
00:39:54.320 intentions were good, uh, the results were not very good. So since then we have spent over 20 trillion,
00:40:01.380 20 trillion dollars on these entitlement programs. So even if you spend a million dollars a day
00:40:06.560 for 2000 years, you still wouldn't be out of 20 trillion dollars. Uh, that is how much money that
00:40:13.500 is. We have spent more than 20 trillion dollars on welfare programs, uh, that were originally meant
00:40:18.300 to create a level playing field and ensure people had opportunity, but it didn't really solve anything.
00:40:23.580 It didn't actually change the poverty rate. It didn't stop disparity. Um, and many of these programs
00:40:30.140 just kept growing. Uh, in 2016 alone, uh, we spent 2.7 trillion dollars on various welfare systems.
00:40:38.440 Uh, these specifically include social security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment compensation,
00:40:43.620 and veterans benefits. Um, according to Pew, more than two thirds of our yearly spending goes
00:40:49.000 to welfare or entitlement programs. That's in comparison to 15.3% of total spending for national
00:40:54.760 defense net spending to government debts, uh, 6.1% and education aid at 3%. That means that around 6%
00:41:03.140 goes towards things like infrastructure, national parks, uh, foreign aid, and various other items.
00:41:09.280 So that's a large portion of our tax money. Now, all of this welfare, like I said, different than
00:41:16.060 socialism, but certainly over the past half century, a little bit more than that has primed the pump for
00:41:21.400 socialism. Uh, economically people have come to expect to be taken care of, uh, from the great
00:41:27.600 depression to now welfare has gone from relief to people who absolutely need it, who are getting back
00:41:32.720 on their feet to entitlement, whether or not you're going to work ever. Uh, people feel entitled to
00:41:39.640 their social security, to their Medicare, to their metal Medicaid, to their unemployment benefits. And
00:41:44.940 in many cases, uh, it's more lucrative not to work than to work because of just how much the government
00:41:51.060 will take care of you. Uh, so Bernie Sanders being able to run and almost win the democratic nomination
00:41:56.960 in 2016 tells you just how far we have come and just how far we have shifted really just within the
00:42:03.600 past 10 years. Even, uh, welfare wasn't thought of as socialism originally, uh, because in the case of
00:42:10.440 the new deal, it was a desperate measure called for by a desperate time. Uh, and it was meant to help
00:42:16.960 people who were trying to work in the case of the great society. Welfare was fueled by American wealth
00:42:21.460 by that hard work. Uh, but socialism and how we view welfare today, uh, negates the need for
00:42:29.320 individualism. It negates the need for entrepreneurship, for hard work, because everyone
00:42:33.980 is going to be taking care of no matter what. Uh, that was never the intention of the American
00:42:38.580 welfare program. Uh, but it has been unintended consequence of thinking people can be freed from
00:42:45.160 oppression and freed from poverty by just giving them more money without really any expectations.
00:42:50.580 Um, but it wasn't just economic. They weren't just economic policies, uh, like the welfare programs
00:42:56.500 that made the way for the popularity of socialism. Because remember a major part of socialism is its
00:43:02.220 social aspect is social justice. And this idea of social justice, this, uh, desire for equal
00:43:09.140 outcomes across socioeconomic classes, races, genders was championed by none other than Barack Obama.
00:43:15.060 Uh, we saw this in his domestic dealings as he pitted all white cops against all, uh,
00:43:20.160 black kids as he belittled business owners by insisting that they, uh, didn't build what they
00:43:25.320 had when he demonized the wealthy by saying that at some point you've just, you just got enough money,
00:43:30.660 uh, by targeting Christian conservatives using the IRS. We saw this in his foreign dealings,
00:43:35.940 his well-known apology tour, uh, for how American strength, American strength he, he purported has
00:43:43.380 negatively manifested itself throughout the world. Uh, Barack Obama's worldview
00:43:47.660 is that of the oppressed versus the oppressor. And those who have in the leftist mindset,
00:43:53.160 uh, been the subject of oppression need to be lifted up. Those who have traditionally been
00:43:58.440 oppressed need to be brought low. And we know that some of his, uh, mentors were affected by,
00:44:04.600 well, I don't really want to go throughout this whole lineage because it's a long story. So if you
00:44:08.120 listen to episode 99, you will also see how Barack Obama was, uh, affected by Marxism as well.
00:44:14.080 Uh, he demonstrated this through the vehicle of identity politics, which says that if you are this
00:44:19.220 race, you have to vote this way or believe this. If you are that gender, you have to, uh, vote that
00:44:24.500 way or believe that this creates tribalism, which stokes resentment, all of which is fueled by
00:44:29.920 intersectionality, which all come part and parcel with socialism. As we see in the work of Karl Marx,
00:44:36.860 uh, it is all about pinning the perceived oppressed versus the perceived oppressor. Uh, during Barack Obama's
00:44:43.420 presidency, we see in a 2017 Pew research study, uh, called polarization and politics that Republicans
00:44:49.500 and Democrats became more divided than they've ever been, uh, with Democrats moving to the left on
00:44:53.800 almost every issue, uh, for racism to immigration, to welfare and Republicans views changing much less.
00:45:00.780 Um, as of 2017, there were fewer people in the middle than had ever been, uh, a dramatic shift away
00:45:07.480 from the middle and especially to the far left came while Barack Obama was in office. This study
00:45:11.700 was in 2017. You could not blame this on Donald Trump. I'm not saying Donald Trump is the great
00:45:16.140 reconciler, but you cannot blame the level of division that we have and that we have had for
00:45:22.480 the past few years on Donald Trump. This started happening for the most part under Barack Obama.
00:45:27.720 Yes, there was always division. We've always had division in our country. I mean, we fought a war
00:45:31.900 North versus the South. Uh, there was a lot of division in the 1960s, but the modern division,
00:45:37.760 the division that we now have began cultivating and really festering under Barack Obama, uh,
00:45:43.720 leftist economic policies that have lingered for at least the past half century, coupled with the
00:45:49.180 social shift, uh, to the left over the last, uh, at least two decades, uh, has created the climate for
00:45:56.000 the embracing of socialism in the United States, especially among young people who just don't know
00:46:01.280 better. And quite frankly, are fed this postmodern garbage, uh, from their professors, uh, more
00:46:08.220 millennials and generation Z identify as socialists or at least view socialism positively than any other
00:46:14.540 generation. Uh, more millennials voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries and voted for Trump
00:46:19.860 or Clinton combined. Uh, most millennials, quite frankly, I think I just said quite frankly, I just said
00:46:26.420 it again, uh, don't know what socialism is. What they usually mean is that they want more welfare.
00:46:32.500 They think they want to be more like the Scandinavian countries, but they have no idea
00:46:36.820 what the difference is between the free market and, uh, the free market economy with, uh, a high tax
00:46:44.120 rate and a free healthcare system and that in socialism. Uh, so if we tried to make our economy
00:46:51.180 function the way Scandinavian countries do, uh, most of those on the socialist left would freak
00:46:56.220 out. Like if we implemented a flat tax rate, if we eliminated the minimum wage laws, the way that
00:47:01.440 they have in Denmark, they would say that's absolutely heartless. They wouldn't let us do that.
00:47:05.620 Also, if we cracked down on immigration, the way that these Scandinavian countries do,
00:47:10.620 if we encouraged a sense of nationalist pride, the way that they do, they would be against it.
00:47:15.400 So I don't think that they really want to be like Scandinavia. These people who say the
00:47:19.000 Scandinavian countries are these beacons of socialism. So really, I think that a lot of
00:47:23.320 millennials who say that they want socialism don't really know what they want. Uh, they think that
00:47:27.480 these offers by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for free healthcare, for free college,
00:47:31.620 of course, that affects the younger generations more than millennials. They say, yes, that sounds fair.
00:47:36.720 That sounds good. Uh, let's get that 1%. Let's stick it to the man and get his stuff. What they don't
00:47:42.760 realize is that Bernie Sanders and, uh, Elizabeth Warren are both part of the 1%. They spent so much
00:47:49.860 time demonizing the 1%. They are a part of the 1%. Uh, you would think that Bernie Sanders would be
00:47:54.960 able to give up at least two of his three houses or one of his three houses and give a little bit
00:47:59.900 more to the government than what he does right now, or give a little bit more to charity than he does
00:48:04.680 right now. If he really thought the 1% was so evil, no one's forcing him to be in the 1%. He can give
00:48:10.020 away enough money so that he's no longer in it. But of course they want socialism for thee, uh, but not
00:48:15.800 for me or socialism for thee, but not for them. Um, same goes for AOC, of course, who, though she in many
00:48:23.760 ways embodies the American dream going from being a bartender, uh, to a congresswoman in the matter of
00:48:29.920 a couple of years, she doesn't think that other people can make it like she does. They don't, she doesn't
00:48:33.820 think that other people can make the same choices that she has. Um, and in fact, if you look at AOC's
00:48:39.100 Green New Deal, it's clear that she doesn't think anyone, uh, should have to take responsibility.
00:48:43.660 Her deal promises economic security for those who are unable or unwilling to work. Uh, and that's
00:48:50.540 another key part of socialism, one that is unfortunately really attractive to a lot of
00:48:55.140 young people. Uh, the belief that there is no inherent morality or value in you working. You should not be
00:49:02.940 forced to work if you don't want to. That is why many on the side of the left are pushing this
00:49:07.300 universal basic income and are pushing for programs that would totally take care of all of your needs.
00:49:12.900 You should be provided for whether you work or not. Um, that of course is the goal of socialism to
00:49:19.620 force people into equal mediocrity and allow the government to take care of you. Remember that the
00:49:25.100 government does not give you provision without taking freedom in return. Uh, so the more provision the
00:49:31.700 government gives, the bigger it gets and the less free all of us are, which explains the revolutions
00:49:37.120 that happen consistently against socialism, like the one going on right now in Venezuela.
00:49:41.680 So I know this is a long podcast. We're almost done. Um, as Christians, how should we think of this?
00:49:48.280 Uh, there are a lot of people who say, I've seen a lot of people say this on Twitter,
00:49:52.840 that the early church embraced socialism. No, the early church did not embrace socialism. Uh,
00:50:00.860 the early church is described in acts to engaged in voluntary distribution of their goods to meet
00:50:07.480 the needs of their community. Uh, their giving was out of a willing, cheerful heart, which the Bible says,
00:50:12.760 uh, is the only kind of giving that God loves. This was not forced redistribution. This was charity
00:50:20.320 and it was given, uh, to meet the needs of their own community, emphasis on needs and their own
00:50:28.520 community. So they weren't helping those who didn't just, who just didn't want to work. They
00:50:33.240 weren't helping those who were unwilling to work. Uh, they were helping those who needed it in their
00:50:38.360 local church out of the love of Christ, which compelled them to such kindness. Uh, this kind of love
00:50:44.980 must be uncoerced, especially, uh, it shouldn't be coerced by bureaucrats who don't
00:50:50.320 have the needs of the church in mind at all. Uh, usually by bureaucrats who don't even see the
00:50:56.120 need to protect the vulnerable, like unborn babies, uh, they are not to be the stewards of all of our
00:51:02.120 money. Uh, this does not mean of course, that we don't pay taxes. Uh, we do. The Bible says render
00:51:07.500 to Caesar, what is Caesar's, but what follows that we render to God, what is God. So render to Caesar,
00:51:14.320 what is Caesar's and render to God's, what is God's, uh, to God belongs our full generosity to God
00:51:20.920 belongs our profit and our property. Also rendering to Caesar, what is Caesar's is not approval of
00:51:28.620 tyranny. Uh, we should ask the question, what is Caesar's? What should be Caesar's? And in a
00:51:35.080 democratic Republic in which we now live, we have a say in what should be Caesar's and what should not
00:51:40.780 be Caesar's. And we should, uh, we should not say we would be stupid to say that the majority of our
00:51:47.500 profits and our property belongs to Caesar. Why? Because Caesar is not a good steward of our money
00:51:54.320 and Caesar is not a good caretaker of our people. Uh, look no further than the VA for that. I I'm just
00:52:00.340 going to say, when I was saying that little monologue just then, I reminded myself of Gretchen
00:52:04.280 Wieners from Mean Girls when she goes off about Caesar. I won't get into that. Some of you,
00:52:09.260 maybe not even, you might not even get that reference anyway. Uh, so the Bible speaks to
00:52:15.100 the legitimacy of private property as early as the 10 commandments, uh, through thou shall not steal
00:52:21.340 and thou shall not covet. You shall not steal because what someone else has is not yours and
00:52:27.680 you should not covet because what someone else has, uh, isn't supposed to be yours. And even wanting it to
00:52:33.820 be yours according to God is a sin. So the Bible legitimizes private property early on. The Bible
00:52:40.900 also makes clear in the creation account that work is expected of and necessary of the, uh, for the
00:52:47.480 flourishing of the individual work existed before the fall, before center sin entered the world. Uh,
00:52:54.780 it was not a consequence of the fall. I think a lot of people think that work was a consequence of
00:52:58.620 the fall. It was not, uh, in a sinless world before the fruit was tasted, the forbidden fruit
00:53:04.080 before Adam and Eve hid themselves from God, Adam was given a job. He was given responsibility. Work is
00:53:10.480 inherently good. It is inherently moral. That is precisely why when people do not work, they become
00:53:17.280 purposeless. They become despondent, often depressed and suicidal their mind and their character atrophies.
00:53:24.720 Uh, this is part of why unlimited welfare is immoral and unbiblical. That is part of why
00:53:30.160 socialism is immoral and unbiblical. So here's a really good quote from John Piper on socialism that
00:53:37.420 I think sums this all up. Socialism borrows the compassionate aims of Christianity and meeting
00:53:44.220 people's needs while rejecting the Christian expectation that this compassion not be forced
00:53:49.140 or coerced. Socialism therefore gets his attractiveness at certain points in history where
00:53:54.560 people are drawn to the entitlements that socialism brings and where people are ignorant or forgetful of
00:54:00.000 the coercion and the force required to implement it and whether or not that coercion might in fact
00:54:05.260 backfire and result in greater poverty or drab uniformity or worse, the abuse of the coercion as we
00:54:12.560 saw in the murderous states like USSR and Cambodia. So I think that he summarizes the problems with
00:54:20.500 socialism from a Christian perspective, from a biblical perspective really well. So to conclude all of this,
00:54:27.140 a socialism is at best a well-intentioned ideology aimed at economic and social equality. And at worst,
00:54:37.000 which is the only end of the spectrum that we've actually seen manifested throughout history and in
00:54:41.560 the modern day is a coercive, unjust and unbiblical system that disincentivizes work, eliminates generosity
00:54:51.920 and controls every aspect of the populace. And it is the exact opposite of what needs to happen in the
00:54:59.060 United States. Every aspect of your life will be controlled. If you think free speech, if you think
00:55:04.320 freedom of religious expression, if you think the sanctity of life, if you think any of the rights that
00:55:09.580 are recognized in the bill of rights, in the constitution, if you think any of those are
00:55:14.980 protected in a socialist society, you are crazy. When we give the government the full power to take
00:55:21.560 care of us, we also give the government full authority to take over our lives. And that's exactly
00:55:28.340 what happens in a socialist society. Do you think Christians, do you think the church is going to fare
00:55:33.580 well in a socialist society? Well, of course, the gospel is going to thrive no matter what. The true
00:55:38.220 church thrives on the margins. It's going to be okay when we are persecuted. But do you actually
00:55:44.120 think that that's better for the least of these? Do you actually think that it's better for your
00:55:49.600 community to be completely controlled and coerced by a central government through socialism in the name
00:55:55.520 of forced compassion, which, as I've already said in this podcast, by definition is not compassion at all?
00:56:00.560 Remember, we are the last hope. And as Ronald Reagan said, we are always one generation away
00:56:07.760 from eliminating liberty. That's a paraphrase. We are always one generation away from giving up our
00:56:14.340 freedom. Socialism might be attracted to a bunch of lazy people, and I'll give them the benefit of
00:56:19.120 the doubt, maybe some empathetic people too, but it doesn't work. It leads to suffering. It leads to
00:56:24.060 mediocrity. And it is not the future I want or you should want for your children. So like I said,
00:56:33.300 this is not going to be an unbiased podcast episode. I have quite a few thoughts about
00:56:37.360 socialism, but I hope you learned something. If you have any thoughts you would like to send me,
00:56:41.360 please feel free to email me. Leave me a five star review. If you like my podcast, subscribe on
00:56:46.560 YouTube and on social media if you so desire. And I will see you soon.