Ep. 81 - Why My Generation Loves Socialism
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Summary
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has caught on with the younger generations. Why is it that so many millennials are so attracted to socialism? Is it because they are being left behind by their parents? Or is it because their parents are failing them?
Transcript
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Well, I'm sure you've heard quite a bit about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently, probably more
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than, probably more than you should, probably way too much. You've heard way too much about her. And
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she is right now riding a wave of, well, she's riding two waves. The first wave is a wave of
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attention from conservatives, like myself, like the attention that I'm giving her right now as we
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speak. And that's the way, you'll notice that it goes like this a lot. Like the two sides,
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conservatives, liberals, they kind of pick out stars for each other because the star on one side
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is going to be the person that the other side has decided to pay a lot of attention to. So
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conservatives did that with David Hogg. Now they're doing that with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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It's, you know, I'd say 95% easily of the coverage that I've heard about this woman
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has come from conservatives. The same thing with David Hogg. And, you know, and you could make the
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argument that Donald Trump is a, is a, probably the prime example of that on, on the right side
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of the spectrum. But anyway, so she's got that wave. And then she's also got the wave of socialist
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enthusiasm among the younger generations. And that's why she's caught on because she's a democratic
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socialist. The fact that young people are so attracted to socialism is, I think, a topic worth
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inspecting, especially because many people have inspected it and talked about it, analyzed it.
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And I just, I think that the, uh, the analysis and the conclusions that are drawn are often very,
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very wrong. Um, now different surveys give you different figures, but they all seem to agree that
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around half of all millennials at this point find socialism appealing on some level, which is,
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which is really concerning. That's, I mean, that's a lot. A half is a lot. Okay.
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And, uh, according to a recent survey that I read, one in 10 millennials believe that Joseph Stalin,
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who killed 20 million people as a conservative estimate was a hero. One in 10. Again, that is,
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that's, that's, that's an enormous figure for people to admire Joseph Stalin. And then much higher
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numbers admire, um, other characters like the killer and terrorist Che Guevara and others. So how do we
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explain this affinity for socialism among, uh, and communism among America's youth? Well, I don't
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think it's that hard to understand really. I think the explanation is, is, is really pretty simple. It's,
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it's kind of a matter of arithmetic. It's, it's sort of a, a mathematical equation and the equation goes
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like this. Okay. It's failed parenting plus fail, plus failed education system equals socialist.
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That's how you make socialist. And so let's talk about parents. First of all, it's the, it's the job
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of a parent to raise their children into independent and self-sufficient adults. And so someone who,
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a newly minted adult, someone who's just become an adult should, they should want nothing more than to
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break out of the protective cocoon of childhood and, and go out into the world untethered, free,
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able to do whatever they want. Energy, ambition, boldness, vision. These are the things, these are
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the marks of youth, or at least they used to be. They used to be the primary characteristics of youth.
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But, uh, what we find today is that many young people are, they have no desire to leave the cocoon
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at all. They, they, or else they, they desire to leave one cocoon and then promptly enter into another
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one. So they want to leave the cocoon of the home and their parents, and then they want to go into
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the cocoon of the welfare state, the nanny state. They want daddy in Washington to supplant daddy at
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home. That's what they're looking for. And it cannot be overstated just how unnatural this is. And you see
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it reflected in a lot of, in a lot of ways. Uh, I think one symptom of this is you, you read these,
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uh, reports now about how young people, teenagers are getting their driver's licenses at later and
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later ages. They're waiting. I think on average now, what I read is that, well, I don't know if
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it's on average, but there's a great many, um, teenagers who now they don't get their, they don't
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get their driver's license until after they turn 18, until after they graduate high school.
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And there are several reasons for that. One, one is just the kids are at home on, on the internet
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all the time or playing video games. So they feel like there's no need to drive, but that's related
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to this lack of, this lack of, of energy and, and boldness. And one, I remember when I was a kid,
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I wanted nothing more than to get my driver's license just so I could leave. And I didn't even
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care where I went to. I remember the first, when I got my driver's license, the first place I went to,
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I went to, uh, I went to Rite Aid pharmacy and I got like a pack of gum or something, but it didn't
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matter. I, because I, I, I was able to go myself. It's one of the great moments of my life is that I
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was able to go myself to a store and get something. And that was amazing. And that again, used to be a
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common thing among young people is that you, you wanted the license. You could get out on the highway,
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be on your own, have freedom. And, uh, it seems like kids increasingly don't really desire that
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they're fine being at home with their parents and having no freedom and depending on, I guess they
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have developed this. They've gotten used to dependence and they have no desire to break free
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from it. And that is a very concerning sign, I think. And this is what lies at the, at the root of the
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socialist inclination in the younger generations. It's, it's more than anything. It's a failure of,
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uh, it's a, it's a, it is a failure of personal formation of moral formation. And I don't think
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it's fair to blame this entirely on parents. I mean, it is theoretically possible that you could have
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a kid who turns into a socialist, even though he had great parents, seems unlikely it could happen,
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but there is a link that's obviously hard to ignore. That's parenting. Then you have the
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education system and the education system has contributed enormously to this problem. Um,
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because you only need to have a really basic knowledge of, of, of recent world history.
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We're not even going back. We're not talking about ancient Rome. Okay. We're not going back
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hundreds of, of, of years. We're not going back centuries. You simply need to have an understanding
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understanding of what has happened in the world over the last century. If you have that
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understanding, then there is no way that socialism and communism would seem appealing to you.
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These, these regimes murdered 100 million people, if not more over the course of a century,
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leaving many millions more starving, destitute. Um, the 20th century was the deadliest and most
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miserable 10 decades in human history by far without any competition for the title, by the way. And,
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uh, this is not exclusively, but largely thanks to the systems of government that now half of my
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generation want to establish here. And so that is an incredible amount of ignorance
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that, that, that you, that you, you, you must place at the feet of the school system.
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Do you think the average socialist millennial even realizes that when he says Nazi, he's referring to
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the national, uh, socialist German workers party. Do you think he understands that Nazis are national
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socialists? I assume he doesn't know. Um, but, but how, how, how, how could that be? How could you
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make it through 13 years of formal schooling or 17 years, including college, or even more than that,
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and then come away still ignorant of the fundamental facts of recent history? How is that possible?
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It's almost impressive. You almost have to be impressed with how ineffective our school system
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is, because you would think that all you have to do is just throw kids into an environment and have a
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few books around. And if they're in that environment for 13 to 17 years, they're, they're, they're
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inevitably going to absorb some information. You think you wouldn't even be able to stop them.
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But our school system has somehow managed to prevent, uh, kids from developing even the basic
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fundamental understandings of, of, of history. It is an incredible thing. And again, we're not talking
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about events from ancient times. We're talking about events that many people walking the earth now today
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actually lived through and are still living through in places like Venezuela. Yet the Democrat party has
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managed to tap into this very large supply of supposedly educated people who possess almost
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no functional knowledge whatsoever. At least they possess no functional knowledge when it comes to
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history. And I would submit when it comes to many other subjects as well. So with that in mind,
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how can we call our education system, anything other than a cataclysmic disaster that it has produced
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ignorance and intellectual laziness and idiocy on a, on a, on an unprecedented scale. And it has somehow
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managed this feat at precisely the moment when knowledge and information have never been more readily
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available. This is, this is what's happened. I know people don't like it when I, when I blame the
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education system. And I always hear from teachers and who say, I, I, I'm, I'm, I care about my kids.
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I'm educating my kids. I'm not, I know that there are good teachers out there. I don't deny that,
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but, but, and if you're a good teacher, then good for you because you're, you are working against the tide.
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You've got everything stacked against you. And at the end of the day, even if you're the best teacher
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in the world, in most high school environments, you're only going to have your kid for the kids,
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any, any particular kid, you're only going to have for 45 minutes a day, if not like 45 minutes a week
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or every couple of, or every, you know, a couple of times every week. And there's, it's, there's only so
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much you can do in that time. But I think even if you're in the system and you work for the system,
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you can't deny, I mean, look, look around you at the incredible ignorance that people are displaying.
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And remember, we are, this is ignorance in a time when there is no excuse for it at all.
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Because as I've pointed out many times before, we, we all carry around in our pockets
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all of the knowledge that you could possibly need. It's all here.
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And then in school, it's supposed to be presented to you in a, in a, in a, in a kind of systematic way
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that you can absorb and understand. Um, so the, the, the rise of socialism is an enormous failure on
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the part of schools and the part of parents. The crop of, um, the young crop has been, I guess
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you could say fertilized by bad education, bad parenting. And now it's really no trouble for
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socialists to just kind of come along and pick the fruits. And there's no real way to stop them
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either, unless we make drastic changes to our homes and, and to our schools. So if you're wondering why
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people are socialists, that's why it's not because the socialist program is really that appealing.
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It's only appealing. Well, I should say it is appealing to ignorant people who have not been
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properly formed personally and morally. That's who it's appealing to, but to rational, intelligent
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people who have been educated and who have been properly formed as human beings. Um, it isn't,
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it is the most unappealing thing in the world, especially at this point. Now that we have a hundred
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years of history, we can look back and see all the bloodshed, misery, and death and say, wow. Yeah,
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no thanks. Alexandria, um, is, is having a wonderful time tapping into that.
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All right. We're going to cut it off there, but, uh, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.
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Everybody have a great weekend and, um, I'll talk to you next week.