Colorado is the latest state to attempt to use the 14th Amendment to remove Trump from the ballot. Others working to that end are: Alaska, California, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Rhode Island—all but one are blue states. Without a conviction the Amendment cannot remove Trump from the ballot. Amendment 14 does not apply to him without considerable distortion and Amendment 5 violations. The Supreme Court will oppose.
Sadly Democrats and RINOS are miss-using the 14th Amendment language to keep Trump off the ballot in 2024 denying their people their right to choose their president. Due process required of the Constitution, even of this Amendment, must precede punishment. Ballot removal is punishment.
Most constitutional scholars have voiced that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis, standing, or historical perspective relative to the upcoming 2024 presidential election I join them. It is a post Civil War Amendment dealing with those involved in armed conflict where armies clashed for four long years resulting in 620,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands more injured.
Ironically it was open rebellion of the then Democrat Party against the then Republican Party. The Democrats then removed from the ballot the Republican candidate for president, Abraham Lincoln. The South called themselves rebels and the North called them traitors for decades thereafter. The North did not want any of those who brought the nation to war to be reelected to office to do the same again. Human slavery, supported by the Democrats, had to be removed from the nation entirely and permanently. The Democrat South reacted to the loss of their slaves by creating the KuKlux Klan which attempted to keep their black population subservient and suppressed with terror for the next 50 years.
How dare Democrats today compare their Civil War insurrection (rebellion) then, with the crowd gathered to encourage the Electoral College to function as it was designed in finishing the election of November 3, 2020 and a speech given by President Donald Trump asking his MAGA supporters to express themselves “peacefully and patriotically;” and when the College function was thwarted, to “go home in peace.” No firearms were present other than those of the police and the only person killed was Ashli Babbitt by a capitol police officer firing into the crowd.
Section 3 of the Amendment, the part they wish to use to remove Trump from the ballot, reads: ”No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
The parts we embolden are those challenged by those who wish to disqualify Trump from elected office. Yes, he took an oath to defend and preserve the Constitution which is why the group gathered to encourage Vice President Mike Pence to send back to the states their votes when they did not come from the legislative branch of the states as constitutionally required. “In such manner as the legislature thereof may direct” (Artifice II, Section 1, Clause 2).
The words insurrection or rebellion are center piece in their argument. MAGA’s part of the demonstration at the Capitol January 6 was minuscule next to the Civil War from which Amendment 14 was derived; certainly more so when the side accused of insurrection had no weapons. It constitutes stretching the amendment beyond reason. And certainly MAGA participation was not against the Constitution as required by the language of the Amendment “against the same”—the Constitution. There exists no evidence that MAGA is, or has been, an enemy of the Constitution. They instead, were giving “aid and comfort” to preserving the Electoral College vote required of Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2-4. This was nullified by Nancy Pelosi as we have previously reported. Thus far, Trump hasn’t even been charged with insurrection under 18 U.S. C. Section 2383 (X22 Reports, Ep. 3157b, Sept. 6, 2023, 1:01:56).
Using the 14th Amendment to disqualify Trump violates Amendment V of the Constitution in two places, one due process requiring conviction first as mentioned, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;”— Due process must precede punishment. This is even repeated in Amendment 14 Section I of the same Amendment being politicized and twisted by the Deep State Democrats to get Trump, such is the ignorance or contempt for the Constitution by the Left.
In Trump’s 2nd Impeachment he was tried in the U.S. Senate and acquitted for precisely the same charges that Jack Smith and Georgia are recharging him for now. Double Jeopardy is a clear violation of Amendment 5 of the Constitution.
The other violation of the 5th Amendment is double jeopardy, “nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” On January 13, 2021, precisely one week before his term was to end, January 20, Trump’s second impeachment trial began. Why impeach him when he had only seven days left in his term? Their purpose was to disqualify him from ever running again—same as now—so emphatic were they then, and now, to destroy him. His impeachment trial was for “Incitement of Insurrection” with three specific charges 1) “Attempts to overturn the 2020 Presidential election,” 2) “Trump-Raffensperger phone call,” and 3) “January 6, United States Capitol attack.” In all three he was acquitted (Wikipedia, Second impeachment of Donald Trump ). These are precisely the same charges as Jack Smith and Georgia are recharging now—definitely double jeopardy and unconstitutional.
Finally, all documentation collected and used by the January 6 Select Committee provided the basis for Trump’s second impeachment, the supposed MAGA insurrection of January 6, and now in Georgia with Trump’s 4th indictment were destroyed by the Committee itself. Why? Almost all intelligence on January 6 coming forth the last two and a half years show the insurrection to be a “fedsurrection” formed and executed by the intelligence community themselves to set up MAGA and Trump as insurrectionists and the Select Committee was complicit in it.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org Column # 731.
Subscribe now for free columns at this address. Help preserve our Republic while we still can.
Biden’s record the past year has been that of total failure. In mere weeks we went from energy independence and an energy exporter to energy dependence on others. With 9.6% inflation in 11 months, Americans lost 10% of the value of their money and inflation is now at a 40 year high. It is increasingly difficult to avoid the thought that the Democrats seek to destroy the economy and bring us into the Great Reset and world government. Our supply chain is falling apart and empty shelves prove it. Odds are, even the most incompetent person in government, would make a decision in our favor once in a while. On Biden we still wait.
Biden’s Food Chain Crisis
We no longer have a southern border and therefore not a secure country. Daily thousands invade us at will—from at least 125 countries of the world. Because of the Democrat’s Afghanistan debacle, Americans decry our leaving our own behind enemy lines and our allies have lost confidence in us—especially Israel and Taiwan. Our enemies do not fear Biden. Actually China nearly owns us. When was the last time you saw the label “made in America” on anything?
Biden’s vaccine mandates had to be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court before he, and his party, destroyed most of the Bill of Rights. The vaccines don’t prevent COVID infection or spread anywhere and a majority of the new infections are in those already double or triple vaccinated. Nor do his boosters or anything else he sought to force upon us.
Biden’s FBI now targets as domestic terrorists parents who confront school board mask policies or Critical Race Theory (white racism). This, on the direction of Biden to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Americans (63%) want parents to have the final say on what kids are taught.
The January 6th “insurrection” narrative is falling apart. Turns out it was led by unindicted government agents posing as Donald Trump supporters—a Deep State operation—and after a year not one person has been convicted of insurrection. A recent CBS poll shows no one believes the Jan. 6 hype. A whopping 76% believe that this was a protest that went too far—not an insurrection. This, while hundreds remain in The Washington D.C. Gulag as political prisoners in a state of indefinite detention, a violation of Constitutional Amendments 4-6 & 8.
Biden is rushing this country into fascism, world government and the Great Reset as fast as he can. In twelve months he, and his political party, have managed to make themselves the greatest internal threat in our history to liberty, the Constitution, and our republic. Biden’s approval rating, at 33%, is the lowest of any president in U.S. history, and Kamala Harris’s is even lower.
Americans no longer trust the mainstream media which most believe became the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party long before the 2016 presidential race and since. CNN viewership has collapse by 73% and the percentage change in news consumption habits for 2020-2021—the social media interaction with news articles—dropped 65%. People no longer are really engaging the fake reporting. Deep State censorship of almost everything negative to the election, the pandemic, and Biden Jr. and Sr. China connections, amplified the peoples’ distain for this man and his government.
The people now know that everything the Deep State (Democrat) press called conspiracy theories is instead the truth. This is what happens when 97% of the media is controlled by corporations. These include coverage on: Nicholas Sandmann, Jussie Smollett, Kyle Rittenhouse, Russian Collusion, The Steele dossier, kids in cages, hydroxychoriquin and Ivermectin as known COVID cures, a politicalized border wall and pandemic, even, it appears, Biden’s fraudulent election. Everything they said about these people or issues was fake, phony, and false.
America is no longer with Joe Biden and most now believe his “election” was fraudulent. Democrats have nothing to run on in 2022, except the same thing they used since 2016, “We hate Trump and so should you!!” But that gig is over! Almost no one reveres Biden. If the presidential election were held today Trump would win all five battleground states.
So how does this translate to “the people are winning?” What I have just written most Americans now believe—but didn’t a year ago. This despite the massive censorship and fake press. The people had to be shown. Had Trump not vacated the White House, he would have remained the only target with virtually all the media against him. Let him effectively disappear for a short while. Let the Democrats and Biden occupy the White House, feel in charge, and let the Deep State, the invisible government, expose themselves as has happened the past year.
Everything is now in the open even despite media control and severe censorship: election fraud, open borders, CRT, open war on the Constitution especially The Bill of Rights, destruction of the economy, vaccine crimes against children and humanity, the China connection with both Biden Jr. and Sr, the successful coup of November 3, 2020—even treason. Durham will continue dripping out indictments on both the Clintons and possibly Barack Obama, and Ghislaine Maxwell will yet “sing” on many high profile politicians. The Industrial Pharma Complex will come into light. States will continue dripping out serious election fraud and decertifications will follow. This is all part of Devolution. The people are awakening, thus winning.
Trump asked August 13, 2021, “DO YOU MISS ME YET?” Put simply: liberty misses you, the Constitution misses you, the economy—our savings and food supply chain—miss you, our borders miss you, our allies—especially Israel and Taiwan—miss you, and those who do not want world government miss you. Under Democrat governors and a socialist president, we have seen what tyranny looks like and we abhor it. President Trump, most of us welcome and await you.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Since 2008 half of America was lured into voting socialist despite the harsh lessons of our socialist beginnings. Plymouth and Jamestown rejected socialism and so MUST we to provide the level of universal prosperity America has provided its citizens for centuries.
This Thanksgiving Day we think of the Pilgrims enjoying abundant food, but this was not their real reality. To few note the starving times their first year in 1620 when half died of starvation. Harvests were not bountiful the first year nor the next. Plymouth was beset by laziness and thievery. William Bradford, the governor of the colony, in his History of Plymouth Plantation reported that “much was stolen both by night and day” to alleviate the prevailing condition of hunger. The somewhat mythical “feast” of the first Thanksgiving did fill their bellies, he reported, and they were grateful, but abundance had been anything but common. Why? Because they had fallen victim to the socialistic lure of “share the wealth.” This dis-incentivized the productive base of society.
Then suddenly, as though night changed to day, the crop of 1623 was bounteous, and those thereafter as well, and it had nothing to do with the weather. Bradford wrote, “Instead of famine now God gave them plenty and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God.” He concluded later, “any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.” They ended universal poverty.
One variable alone made the difference and ended the famine. They abandoned the notion of government (or corporation) owning the means of production and distribution in favor of the individual having property and being responsible to take care of himself. Every family was issued its own land. Before, no one benefited by working for the common store because he received the same compensation as those who did not. After the change everyone retained the benefits of his labor. Those who chose not to work basically chose also to be poor and the government (corporation) no longer confiscated from those who produced to give to those who did not. No government food stamps here.
Ironically all this could have been avoided had Plymouth consulted history and communicated with their neighboring colony, some distance south of it, who had previously been down the same trail. Jamestown too was first a socialist society where each produced according to his ability and received according to his need, which, of course, affected supply. One cannot divide what does not exist. Our textbooks tell us that only one of twelve survived the first two years for precisely the same reason, starvation. The problem, as noted by Tom Bethel in his work The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages, was identified by an unnamed participant as “want of providence, industrie and government, and not the bareness and defect of the Countrie.”
Captain John Smith is credited with having saved the floundering colony by his “no workie, no eatie” government program (the Virginia Company was the government) and was hated for it. Addicted to the promise of getting something for nothing, even if it is always less than promised, the receiving part of the population will always oppose their not getting their “fair share.” Sound familiar? Captain Smith was eventually carted off to England in chains as fast as the parasitic population could do so. Once again, why? Philip A. Bruce in his Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, p. 121 called it agricultural socialism. “The settlers did not have even a modified interest in the soil…. Everything produced by them went into the store, in which they had no proprietorship.” When settlers finally were allowed to own their own property, and keep what they produced, things changed overnight.
Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote of incoming prosperity, beginning in 1614, after ownership of land was allowed. “When our people were fed out of the common store, and labored jointly together, glad was he [who] could slip from his labor, or slumber over his tasks he cared not how, nay, the most honest among them would hardly take so much true pains in a week, as now for themselves they will do in a day, neither cared they for the increase, presuming that however the harvest prospered, the general store must maintain them, so that we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty as now three or four do provide for themselves.”
This Thanksgiving let us be grateful for the prosperity that we have—even the poorest among us. Jamestown and Plymouth set us upon a course that recognized that prosperity requires incentive to flourish and that the profit motive stimulates industry. We are so grateful that, having recognized the poison of the “share the wealth” philosophy, they purged it from their midst and proceeded to make, what later became America, the most prosperous country on earth.
On January 20, 2021, Democratic Socialists took over the White House and both branches of Congress. In ten short months of socialist rule, food prices have skyrocketed and shelves are emptying. Once totally energy independent, we now see fuel prices soar and severe shortages are predicted this winter; some economist even see an economic collapse. Joe Biden’s prediction of a “dark winter” appears on the horizon under Biden—not Trump. Socialism kills incentive to produce— it always has and always will.
Plymouth and Jamestown rejected socialism and so MUST we. Will we be as smart as they? Let us share this message at the table as we feast upon turkey and pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving Day so that our children will know how prosperity is really produced.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
An amazing event happened September 8, 2020 in a Donald Trump campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The huge crowd broke into spontaneous “We love you” chants for the president. He was noticeably affected.
It happened again two days later in Freeland, Michigan, Sept. 10. Ten chants in a row broke out 30 minuets into the speech after his comments about helping stop the violence in Minneapolis and his threat to use federal agents in Seattle if violence did not stop there. He thanked the crowd after the first two chants but they would not stop until after another eight—“We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you.” He interrupted, “Don’t say that, I’ll start to cry [pause] and that wouldn’t be good for my image. You don’t want to see me cry. I’ll start to cry.” This tender moment was followed by another five “We love you” chants before he was permitted to continue.
Why is this a big story, two reasons? First, because I do not recall any politician getting that chant in the history of this country. Not even George Washington, Andrew Jackson, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presidents said to be among the most popular. Second, in almost five years, I have yet to hear one favorable comment from Democrat news outlets. Because of this I am certain half of America, so influenced by the constant “hate Trump” spew, will never know that they lived through the administration of perhaps America’s most popular president. No public office holder has drawn the crowd sizes he consistently gets.
Remember this is the same presidential candidate who just four years ago was “piled on” seemingly by everyone: the establishment media, establishment Democrats, establishment Republicans, establishment bankers and corporations. Added to this was the globalist establishment special interest groups the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers. No president has endured more opposition than he—perhaps all put together. Imagine thousands now chanting “We love you” in unison to a politician in appreciation. This has never happened.
So why is he so popular with the American people? I’ll not dwell on the greatest economy in over a century, the highest employment rate for Africans, Hispanics, Asians, women and youth in my lifetime. The lowest taxes for the middle class in decades. These are not even disputed by the left in the 2020 election.
He is loved because he took on the globalists who were turning this country into the military arm of what they call the New World Order. He started no new wars, ended nation building in foreign lands, and is pulling out of the no-win wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Our soldiers will no longer dye in foreign lands for globalist causes.
Veterans love him because he treated them with dignity. He signed the VA Choice Act and VA Accountability Act, expanded VA health services, walk-in-clinics, and same-day urgent primary and mental health care.
Until the Chinese Wuhan Virus he lifted nearly 4 million Americans off food stamps. Against the advice of his opponents he shut down immigration from China early in the virus. He teamed with the CDC with daily reports and projected confidence by not overreacting to the virus by a nation-wide shut-down of the economy. He is viewed as most likely to restore his previous booming economy.
He gave America energy independence by encouraging fracking, opening ANWR and approving the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines. These blocked by his predecessor.
Border law enforcement agents love him because he is finally building a wall to stop illegal immigration that undermines the salaries of the American worker. It also slows drug trafficking that is killing Americans and greatly restricts the activities of drug gangs like MS-13 and other criminals. Trump has done more than any other president to stop wide spread sex trafficking, especially with underaged girls.
Those who value the Constitution love him because he protects it as written, with two appointments to the Supreme Court and 214 Article III judge confirmations. He is viewed as most likely to hold to the restraints of the Constitution, especially the 2nd Amendment and 1st Amendment rights of free speech, assembly, and religion. Also he is most likely to do away with the double standard in justice including the probability of treason in high places.
Most Christians love him because, more than any predecessor for a lifetime, he values and protects religion. He is the most “Right to Life” president in American history. Stopping the annual killing of hundreds of thousands of America’s unborn babies is widely supported by Christians.
Americans love him because he is perceived as being the most likely to stop the spread of socialism in the United States now fully embraced by the Democrat Party. Historically it has brought only universal poverty and misery.
Americans love him because he is most likely to deal with anarchists in our cities and arsonists in our forests. Most view these as insurrectionist attempting to remove their president and destroy the greatest most prosperous, for those willing to work, nation on earth. Safety is a human right.
But mostly he is loved because they trust him and believe that he really cares about them. He is the only second term president in decades that can run on “Promises Made, Promises Kept.”
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
This is my 551st column on liberty and the Constitution, I know no-one more published on this topic. I lived under 13 presidents of the United States, all gave lip service to the Constitution but none followed it closely. Of these I voted for only two Republicans. Those who least followed it were Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama. I spent a lifetime lecturing on these and the presidents before them. I dislike political factions (parties) as did George Washington. Readers know I call things as they are and defend the Constitution as written.
So with this background I am qualified to say, “Trump haters,” (Bushites, Clintonites, Romneyites, Holywood misfits, secret combinations in both majors political parties, coup conspirators in the FBI and CIA and finally fake news outlets notably MSNBC, NBC, New York Times and the Washington Post) who have conspired to take out Donald Trump. “Isn’t is time to lay down your arms?”
Four Congressional investigations, the Mueller and Horowitz Reports, and the US Senate Impeachment trial exonerated and indeed acquitted this man. Trump has endured more unjustified opposition/persecution than all presidents combined.
In the upcoming 2020 presidential election you offer only hate Trump rhetoric and freedom and prosperity destroying socialism. You are destroying the Democratic Party, perhaps America. You make Democratic President John F. Kennedy look far right. You offer nothing to build, strengthen or edify this country. Republicans before Trump were awful but you are much worse.
Please cease inspiring the crazies in our society to intimidate MAGA haters, innocent Catholic high school kids visiting DC, or worse, driving vehicles into tents housing Republican campaigners or shooting Congressman Steve Scalise while playing baseball with fellow congressmen and staffers. Cease supporting Antifa and MS-13 gang violence by not condemning them.
So what has Trump done for you that should command your respect? The list is extensive but let me identify in order my favorite six.
He defends the Constitution as written. Unfortunately Trump is a conservative, not a constitutionalist, but he follows the Constitution more closely than any president since Calvin Coolidge. He adamantly defends the 1st (religious and free speech freedoms), 2nd (freedom to protect oneself and neighbors—even from the government), and 10th amendments (states’ rights). No president has defended the rights of the unborn more than he. He nominated two supreme court justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, that appear to follow it and has placed, with Senate confirmation, 187 judicial nominees on the Federal bench who attest that they too will follow the Constitution as written. This is monumental as the Constitution is the reason we are free.
He opposes the globalist plan to first create regional governments of all nations, through trade deals that transfer economic, then political sovereignty, such as the European Union, then merge them into world government. He has made speeches to that end, on the campaign trail and even in the United Nations, which are never covered by the establishment (globalist) medias. His opposition to world government is, and always has been, why he is so hated by them. We have published on this before. Finally, the U.S. is first consideration in his “America First” pledge.. We are no longer nation builders or the world’s policemen. He wants to cut foreign aid (foreign welfare) spending it in the U.S. instead.
He stimulated the economy as no president has in decades. Manufacturing companies have and are returning to America. Almost 4 million new jobs have been created since his election. Reportedly, unemployment claims have now hit a 49-year low. African, Hispanic, and Asian American unemployment are at the lowest rates for decades or ever recorded, as are women and youth unemployment. He promised to dump two regulations for every new regulation but instead dumped eight. This returned companies to America, freed and stimulated the economy as never before resulting in an energy boom placing the U.S. as number one oil and natural gas producer in the world. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say they are better off financially since Trump took office.
He is securing our southern border. New agreements with Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras required them to stop the flood of illegal immigration through their countries, or face higher tariffs. Now deadly drugs and violent criminals are not flowing as easily across our borders and into our communities. According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics 976 alien gang members were apprehended at the border in FY 2019, including 464 aliens affiliated with MS-13. ICE arrested 143,099 aliens in FY 2019, 86 percent of whom had criminal records.
He has done more than all presidents combined to expose and stop child sex trafficking. By executive order Trump declared it a national emergency Dec. 21, 2017. Just last year ICE arrested 2,197 criminals associated with human trafficking and freed 428 victims. To encourage other countries to meet more strident standards eliminating trafficking, he signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. He destroyed 100% of ISIS caliphate.
So Trump haters, you have been wrong on most everything the last three years. I too criticize Trump in print occasionally but isn’t it time to notice that he has been one of our best presidents and lay down your hate and arms? Others think so, his rallies now comprise 20% Democrats.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
Under the traditional definition of socialism that requires government ownership and distribution of the means of production, the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are not socialist as Democratic presidential contenders insist.
All are free market economies. None have government mandated minimum wage laws. These are set by unions. The Fraser Institute which ranks countries of the world on economic freedom based upon limited government, property rights, and sound money value, not socialist attributes, ranked Denmark 14, Finland 20, Norway 26 and Sweden 19. The United States was12. Socialist countries normally take the bottom of the 180 countries ranked (Economic Freedom of the World Index).
As to rankings with respect to the ease of doing business, all four countries ranked in the top 17 countries out of 191on the planet: (Denmark 3, Norway 7, Sweden 12 and Finland 17). The United States is ranked 8 (The World Bank, DoingBusiness Measuring Business Regulations). Socialist countries do not rank high on this index either.
Yes these countries, after becoming comparatively wealthy through the free market system at the end of the 19th Century and most of the 20th, did become welfare states in the 1970’s. As Nima Sanandaji, the Swedish author of Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism, wrote in 2015: “Many of the desirable features of Scandinavian societies, such as low income inequality, low levels of poverty and high levels of economic growth predated the development of the welfare state. These and other indicators began to deteriorate after the expansion of the welfare state and the increase in taxes to fund it” (Jim Geraghty, “Ten Reasons We Can’t, and Shouldn’t, Be Nordic,” National Review, March 12, 2018).
By the definition above defining socialism, it may be possible to be a welfare country without the government ownership of the means of production—the Nordic Model. But if they gather the wealth through confiscatory taxes and redistribute it through gift-giving to those who had not created the wealth, how can they escape the charge of socialism?
In the seventies the Swedish government “instituted a scheme to confiscate corporate profits and hand them over to labor union.” The socialist “golden years” of the next two decades “weren’t so golden for economic performance. Entrepreneurship plummeted. Job creation and wages sputtered” (Rich Lowry, “Sorry, Bernie — Scandinavia is no socialist paradise after all,” New York Post, Oct. 19, 2015). The Nordic model crushed startups and the growth of new companies. As of 2000, Johan Norberg wrote: “just one of the 50 biggest Swedish companies had been founded after 1970” (“Ten Reasons We Can’t, and Shouldn’t, Be Nordic”).
The Scandinavian story since the late eighties “has been a turn against socialism. Taxes have fallen and markets liberalized.” A backlash “against welfare dependency in Denmark” followed (“Sorry, Bernie — Scandinavia is no socialist paradise after all”).
In countries which already have wealth because of a free market philosophy, evidence of which is the existence of a the middle class which spawns economic equality for all who choose to work for it. They can afford the free college, healthcare, welfare and etc. so long as immigration, also wanting everything for free, is very limited.
These four countries, because of the presence of the free market socialists seek to destroy, apparently could afford to expanded their “free” offerings. Because they did, and entitlements and free stuff is a favorite lure for reeling in the industrialized world, made rich through the capitalist philosophy, socialists world-wide look to the “Nordic Model” to emulate. But socialists ignore how they got their wealth. This did not happen by nationalizing industries (like General Motors) and subsidizing favored ones (like Solyndra) as we did under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. So the lessons of the Scandinavian countries is to keep the government out of managing the economy—thus away from socialism.
While Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are pushing America to embrace socialism these four countries are pulling back from the free stuff philosophy. In the 1990’s Sweden adopted a universal school choice system “allowing families to use public funds, in the form of vouchers, to finance their child’s education at a private school, including schools run by the dreaded for-profit corporation” (Corey Iacono, “The Myth of Scandinavian Socialism,” Foundation for Economic Education, February 25, 2016).
Nima Sanandaji, observed: “In recent years, they’ve tempered the damage of their big-government policies by scaling back their welfare states and setting limits on their fiscal burdens. Their governments have adopted more work incentives, lowered taxes and allowed for more flexibility when hiring and firing workers. They’ve opened their public schools and health care to more competition, and Sweden partially privatized its pension system. They may not be free market quite yet, but they’re no socialist—or even liberal—utopia, either” (Veronique De Rugy, “Does Socialism Work for Sweden? That’s the Wrong Question,” Reason, Sept. 1, 2016).
The welfare state is not sustainable over time, in any country in any time. Inevitably it will attract immigrants who also want the free stuff without having contributed to the foundation that made this possible before implemented, as had the Scandinavians. It is impossible to have open borders and a welfare state without eventually impoverishing all. This is what all the leading democratic presidential contenders offer in the election of 2020.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org
