Can we vote our way out of this?

The western world has been going the wrong direction for a very long time.  The reason is simple western voters adopted left wing socialist ideas and voted for politicians that promised to look after them from Cradle to grave.  Socialism/communism is a very attractive ideology for lazy thinkers.  On the surface it sounds like a utopia.  No one is left behind.  Everyone is cared for.  With socialism the devil is in the details.

Socialist politicians promise to make everyone equal.  Exactly how do you do that?  How do you make people born with different abilities equal?  The task is impossible.  Just look at your own family.  All your siblings started from the same place.  Are they in the same place now?  I doubt it.  Some will have more than others.  Everyone has different skills and makes different decisions.  If you can’t make people in the same family equal, how do you make everyone equal?

Socialists say the solution is easy.  Everyone works for the government and the government divides the wealth equally.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

Karl Marx

This sounds nice but has 2 serious fundamental problems.  First it denies human behavior.  People are hardwired for survival.  That means we will always place our own interests first.  People will put in extra effort to better their own position but will not go the extra mile to benefit someone else.  Socialist systems produce economic lethargy.  Hard work has no reward, so people default to a lower standard.

The second reason is that even under enforced equality there must be systematic inequality.  Look at that statement again and ask yourself, who decides?  Who decides what your needs are and how much the state should expect from your abilities?  The statement from Marx tells you there will not be equality.  There will be someone or some organization that sits in judgement over everyone.  By definition, those people will be superior.

This was certainly evident in eastern Europe under communism.  In those countries people in the government always had more than everyone else.  We see that now in the west.  As our governments become increasingly socialist the only people who get ahead are those associated with Government.  In Trudeau’s Canada, government employees make far more than the average person without ever doing a day of productive labor.  People connected to the highest levels of government do even better.  If you are a friend of Justin Trudeau making money is easy.  Just form a shell company and start sending the government invoices for work that is not required and no one will ever do.  The government is gobbling up a disproportionate share and, just as in the Soviet Union, ordinary people struggle to pay for necessities.

And without a trace of irony, our prime minister since 2015 added, “There is something fundamentally shifted in our economy that young people don’t have the kinds of opportunity they had before.”

There is a shift in attitudes starting in the west.  People have finally woken to the fact that this socialist polices did not make their life better.  Voters are now voting for more right-wing candidates.  The latest example was Marine Le Pen in France.  She has seen a surge in support, but she was stymied by left wing collusion in the latest French election.  Le Pen fell short, but it is worth asking, would it have made any difference?  It didn’t in Italy.

Giorgia Meloni rose to popularity in Italy for promising to stop illegal migration but since she took office in 2022 illegal migration has gone right back to where it was previously.

She was going to stop the boats, but the boats kept coming and she did nothing.  Voting for a “right wing candidate did not produce right wing policies.  Will that be the case everywhere?  Are the right-wing candidates right-wing?

In Britian Nigel Farage has returned and immediately won support.  Farage, like many right-wing candidates promises freedom.  Does he mean it or is freedom just a convenient campaign slogan?  I fear it is the latter.  As James Delingpole points out Farage was all in on stripping everyone of their freedom during COVID.

Covid was a test which Farage – and many others – failed and failed utterly. You do not redeem yourself from such disgrace by shrugging your shoulders, muttering that mistakes were made and sighing ‘Ah. Next time, eh?’

Either you acknowledge that Covid was the largest scale assault on human freedoms in the history of the world – or you are part of the problem. You can’t redeem yourself by being quite sound on other stuff like immigration and the environment. It’s like being pro human sacrifice but expecting some leeway because you once gave some money to a lovely rehabilitation centre for injured capybaras.

I agree with Delingpole.  COVID should be the litmus test.  Any politician who did not oppose the lockdowns should not be trusted when they speak about freedom.  This is exactly why I am skeptical of Pierre Poilievre.  Poilievre likes to say he wants to make Canada the freest country on earth but during the lockdowns Poilievre was quiet as a church mouse.

The more I think about it the more convinced I am that even though we voted our way in to this mess we can’t vote our way out.  Voters are turning away from socialism.  They have finally figured out the more free things the government offers the more expensive life gets.  But as they turn away from socialism what do they turn towards?  There are plenty of politicians promising freedom and accountability.  I doubt there are any who will deliver what they promise.