An Economist Explains Why America Is Moving Toward Totalitarianism

Rob Bluey

May 05, 2016

PHILADELPHIA—“We’re heading toward totalitarianism,” economist Walter Williams tells The Daily Signal in an interview at The Heritage Foundation’s annual Resource Bank meeting. The famed George Mason University professor says the government is gradually gaining more control over the lives of the American people.

What can be done about it?

(Answer:  America needs a leader who has the values of the American people and works toward the good of the people instead of against the country and the people.  Our current leader has worked against the country and the people. by immigrating people whose values do not match the American people – they are not assimilated – they are from socialist countries where they are not educated – when they immigrate to the U.S. they cannot pull their load and are a burden on the American people  This leader also has pilfered our money and resources.  The government is working against the young people to drive them toward socialism rather than capitalism – all part of the Bush I’s One World Order and distribution of  U..S.’s wealth to the world.  We have to take our country back from this intrusive government.)

Williams explains why it’s hard to change course, especially in regards to young people who embrace socialist ideas.

Chris Evans in a scene of the film “Captain America: Civil War,” directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.

The Conservative Lessons of ‘Captain America’

Daniel Woltornist

Chris Evans in a scene of the film “Captain America: Civil War,” directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.

Warning: Spoilers

Loki, Ultron, Red Skull, and Hydra—moviegoers might be familiar by now with the list of Marvel Comics’ villains. But in “Captain America: Civil War,” the latest film in the Avengers series, Marvel introduces perhaps the most dangerous of them all—the United Nations.

While the Avengers are well versed in handling enemies with powers like super strength, shape shifting, and power beams, the United Nations’ powers of regulation and sovereignty usurpation represents their toughest foe yet.

Here’s the gist of the movie—the free market does something well and the government comes in to “fix” it. And—shockingly—the government wrecks everything.

Despite the best attempts of villains in previous Avengers movies, the film begins with Earth in one piece. The world isn’t occupied by Loki or an alien army—thanks to the Avengers. (In a universe of super-powered baddies, that’s not a short order.)

Does this mean that the bad guys aren’t doing bad things? Certainly not, the Avengers have consistent hero housekeeping tasks to maintain the status quo, which sometimes proves messy.

But before you know it—the U.N. is knocking at the Avengers’ front door telling them that they aren’t doing a good enough job staving off world catastrophes like alien invasions and complete annihilation.

To force the Avengers to do their job better, the “Sokovia Accords” are signed by 117 countries to put the Avengers under U.N. jurisdiction. This is a great idea because when aliens invade next, let’s have the U.N. debate if the Avengers should fight the alien invasion.

If it turns out anything like regular U.N. deliberations, the Avengers would never be used again because Russia or China negotiated a backroom deal with the aliens so that they would be global governors in the new alien world order.

Presented with the Sokovia Accords, the Avengers are split between those who want to maintain the status quo and those who wish to effectively handcuff the organization with regulation.

Suddenly, the accords are ratified and the Avengers who don’t “go along to get along” are made fugitives or imprisoned against their will.

As usual, big business and big government team up to advance their collective interest. Tony Stark, who made his billions off government contracts (he was what some would call a crony capitalist before becoming Iron Man), assembles his team with a being created by his company (named Vision), a pilot to whom Stark Industries gave a super suit (War Machine), a kid who was given a new costume courtesy of Stark Industries (Spider-Man), and the head of one of the nations who brokered the Sokovia Accords (Black Panther).

What’s the first thing the crony capitalist-U.N. Avengers do to bring about their promise to stop mass destruction of cities? They destroy an entire airport, forcing the Avengers in resistance to comply. After they are quickly dispatched, the Avengers in resistance who lose are then imprisoned in an underwater base.

While all of this seems like whatever is the superhero equivalent of “First World problems,” these issues of sovereignty and crony capitalism are familiar to most Americans.

Most recently, Secretary of State John Kerry came back from Paris and told Congress that it could not vote on a U.N. climate treaty. The U.S. will be subject to a U.N. climate panel that will dictate U.S. climate policy even though it received no prior consent. As The Heritage Foundation’s Nick Loris has argued:
The [U.N.] Green Climate Fund is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded wealth transfer from developed countries to developing ones. The fund will do little to promote economic growth in these countries but instead connect politically-connected companies with taxpayer dollars.

As with both the Paris climate treaty and the fictional Sokovia Accords, everyone loses out when crony capitalists and government bureaucrats win.

As sovereignty is eroded, forces for good like the Avengers are hampered and frustrated. Freedom fighters with supernatural powers become as ineffective and dysfunctional as the bureaucracies that try to control them.

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Young People More Likely To Favor Socialism Than Capitalism: Pew
Alexander Eichler

Young people — the collegiate and post-college crowd, who have served as the most visible face of the Occupy Wall Street movement — might be getting more comfortable with socialism. That’s the surprising result from a Pew Research Center poll that aims to measure American sentiments toward different political labels.

(All of this is caused by the brain-washing of foreign socialist professors who bashes America on a regular basis.  We must rid the colleges of these foreigners.)

Following are some comments made:

SANDERS: With free college and free health care.

KAWASHIMA-GINSBERG: Whereas older generation, you know, thought straight to Soviet Union, where things were really tough and, you know, the idea of socialism really wasn’t at all about raising the bottom.

SANDERS: Think people waiting in bread lines. Kawashima-Ginsberg says young people will most likely become more conservative. And several students at George Mason, like Marina Vianello, Jamie Dresser and Taylor Pasqual, they agreed.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I just feel like I haven’t been on Earth long enough to really know what socialism, like, is in its entirety.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: I also haven’t had a job or had to raise a family.

SANDERS: So you think you might evolve on that issue as you grow older?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I don’t think even grow older, I think mature more. Like, I don’t think it’s as much age but, like, experience more.

SANDERS: Sam Sanders, NPR News.

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That word — socialist — means many different things to different people. And often a lot changes in the meaning of that word based on how old — or young — you are.
The poll, published Wednesday, found that while Americans overall tend to oppose socialism by a strong margin — 60 percent say they have a negative view of it, versus just 31 percent who say they have a positive view — socialism has more fans than opponents among the 18-29 crowd. Forty-nine percent of people in that age bracket say they have a positive view of socialism; only 43 percent say they have a negative view.
And while those numbers aren’t very far apart, it’s noteworthy that they were reversed just 20 months ago, when Pew conducted a similar poll. In that survey, published May 2010, 43 percent of people age 18-29 said they had a positive view of socialism, and 49 percent said their opinion was negative.
It’s not clear why young people have evidently begun to change their thinking on socialism. In the past several years, the poor economy has had any number of effects on young adults — keeping them at home with their parents, making it difficult for them to get jobs, and likely depressing their earning potential for years to come — that might have dampened enthusiasm for the free market among this crowd.
Indeed, the Pew poll also found that just 46 percent of people age 18-29 have positive views of capitalism, and 47 percent have negative views — making this the only age group where support for socialism outweighs support for capitalism.
Young people have also been among the most involved in the nationwide Occupy movement, whose members have leveled pointed criticism at the capitalist ethos and often called for a more equal distribution of American wealth.
In general, income inequality — which a Congressional Budget Office report recently pointed out is at historic levels — has received more and more attention in politics and the media since the Occupy movement launched in mid-September. Usage of the term rose dramatically in news coverage following the start of the protests, and politicians from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to President Barack Obama have used the movement’s language to describe divisions in the American public.
Still, the nationwide Occupy demonstrations notwithstanding, socialism doesn’t score very well in other age groups in the Pew poll, or across other demographic categories.
Pew broke down its results by age, race, income and political affiliation, as well as support for the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements. There were only two other groups among whom socialism’s positives outweighed its negatives — blacks, who say they favor socialism 55 to 36 percent, and liberal Democrats, who say they favor socialism 59 to 39 percent. These were also the only two groups to show net favor for socialism in the 2010 poll.

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