What life in quasi-socialist Europe is like:
After spending years living in socialist Germany and exploring all over Europe, what is striking is that, even in one of the wealthiest non-U.S. places on Earth, it is all about learning to do without.
Let's examine the facts:
-There is a crushing 20% sales tax on everything. There is also a TV tax, a radio tax, a dog tax, a death tax of up to 50%, and every other kind of tax you could possibly imagine...for a grand total of about 60-65% of your income (unless you have already been brutalized into poverty by this system, in which case you get welfare).
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." --Ronald Reagan
-There is no such thing as Central Air...people just suffer through the heat, and freeze in the Winter with these dinky little radiator-heaters (which is all most people can afford, due to staggering government utility costs).
-Gasoline is usually $7-10 per gallon (about 1.50 Euros per liter as I write this), due to the government's insanely aggressive taxes on fuel.
-People usually cannot afford 15 or even 30-year mortgages...they often must get 50-year mortgages to purchase a home (government makes housing astronomically expensive).
-Consumers are 100% disregarded, given total crap for options, and complaints over terrible service are completely ignored.
-It takes six hours to do half a load of laundry (government forces people to use these tiny, 'environmentally-friendly' laundry machines).
-Showers are the size of phone booths, water heaters are often woefully inadequate, and all water services cost an absolute fortune.
-Closets do not exist. The only thing you can do to store and organize your clothing is to purchase a huge, bulky piece of furniture called a "wardrobe" for every bedroom, which leaves you with very little actual living space in the already incredibly tiny homes Europeans must deal with.
-You can't wash your own car in your own driveway. That might hurt the environment, so you must take your vehicle to a government-approved car wash and wildly overpay someone else to do it for you.
-Even the "big," "Americanized" trash bins hold no more than a wastebasket of garbage...for two weeks of waste (no matter how many people live in your home). If the can is overflowing, they will not take your garbage, and every single item is required by law to be organized into separate color-coded recycling bags.
-You cannot even name your own child without government approval. There is literally an agency you must register with upon giving birth that decides whether or not your child's name is acceptable to the government.
-Gun rights do not exist. The only way to get access to any firearms whatsoever is through a jaw-droppingly extreme permit/licensing process that involves taking elaborate tests, paying fees, and proving to the government you have a "legitimate" reason for wanting a gun (hunting, target shooting, etc.).
And even if you do manage to jump through all the hoops required to get a gun, you can still only keep it if you regularly verify to the government that you are actively using it for the purpose you listed, or it will be confiscated.
-Hunting and fishing also require an insane process of government-mandated training, tests, fees, licenses, permits and endless other restrictions.
-Having extreme views is illegal. Being a Neo-Nazi is a crime, as is questioning the Holocaust, or anything that could possibly be construed as "hate speech" by the left. Flipping someone off is also a criminal offense.
-It costs thousands of dollars to get a license, own a car, and pay for the more than $1 million of auto insurance you are forced to carry...and there are speed cameras everywhere, and there is no gray area (my boss couldn't even get out of a ticket from when he sped his wife to the hospital to give birth).
-Nearly two-thirds of YouTube’s top 1,000 videos have been banned in Germany due to the fanatical German Journalists’ Union (DJV) absurdly demanding that artists be paid for each and every video that in any way uses any part of their music--even if it is just some random user having part of some random song on in the background of their video.
-Company web sites are usually primitive and have inaccurate / outdated information, while almost no one answers their phone and you are forced to show up repeatedly during (often ridiculously narrow) operating hours to get the simplest product or service. Germans only work 36-39 hours per week, and the French have a 35-hour work week.
It goes on and on, and on.
Democrats, who used to absolutely crucify people for pointing out their socialist ideas and beliefs, now openly defend this disastrous, time-disproven ideology (see deregulation and lower taxes in China in the 1980s, in India in the 1990s, in Ireland in the early 2000s, and the left's class warfare insanity that destroyed the US economy in 2008) as it punishes success, rewards failure, and lures self-reliant individuals into total nanny state dependence through handouts.
Usually, they try to justify it by arguing that Europe has superior, more affordable education and health care (as if freedom were irrelevant and all that mattered was being better-maintained cattle). But when you actually live there, you can't help but notice that there is more to the story...as when you discover that you have to pay a small fortune to get your kids through grade school. Or that you still have to pay through the nose for insurance every month, cover all your own prescription costs, and sit on waiting lists to see a "free" doctor.
Compare this with the
Venezuelan account:
"The first time I couldn’t buy food at the grocery store, I was 15 years old. It was 2014 in Caracas, Venezuela, and I had spent more than an hour in line waiting. When I got to the register, I noticed I had forgotten my ID that day. Without the ID, the government rationing system would not let the supermarket sell my family the full quota of food we needed. It was four days until the government allowed me to buy more.
This was fairly normal for me. All my life, I lived under socialism in Venezuela until I left and came to the United States as a student in 2016. Because the regime in charge imposed price controls and nationalized the most important private industries, production plummeted. No wonder I had to wait hours in lines to buy simple products such as toothpaste or flour.
And the shortages went far beyond the supermarket.
My family and I suffered from blackouts and lack of water. The regime nationalized electricity in 2007 in an effort to make electricity “free.” Unsurprisingly, this resulted in underinvestment in the electrical grid. By 2016, my home lost power roughly once a week.
Maduro is consolidating power in Venezuela. The international community must intervene.
Venezuela's mafia state under Nicolas Maduro is almost over. We can finally push him and his thugs out.
Our water situation was even worse. Initially, my family didn’t have running water for only about one day per month, but as the years passed we sometimes went several weeks straight without it.
For all these problems, the regime has blamed an iguana, right-wing sabotage and even the weather.
A rich country, wasted resources
The excuses for these shortages were hollow: In reality, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world to use for electricity, and three times more fresh water resources per person than the United States. The real reason my family went without water and electricity was the socialist economy instituted by dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.
The welfare programs, many minimum-wage hikes and nationalizations implemented by their regimes resulted in a colossal government deficit that the central bank covered by simply printing more money — leading to rampant inflation. Now, prices double every few weeks, and the standard of living continues to plummet."
Conclusion: Socialism tyrannically oppresses everyone, and the more thoroughly it is implemented, the more devastatingly it bankrupts, impoverishes, and enslaves people, no matter where it is tried, every time. Here is a step-by-step of how this Venezuelan who has watched it all play out says socialism will destroy America:
"Imagine: It’s January 20, 2021. The Democratic base showed up in droves for the 2020 election, and Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or one of their socialist cohorts has snagged the key to the Oval Office. Within the next four years, they pass their trademark proposals.
Democrats kick everyone off their private insurance and cover them under Medicare. But Medicare-for-all turns out to be Medicare-for-none — older Americans suffer from increased wait times for surgeries and emergency room visits as more people flood the system. The lack of copayments means the number of people who go to the doctor and emergency room without a serious reason skyrocket, crowding out the truly needy. Moreover, Medicare-for-All cuts payments to hospitals by about 40 percent, relative to private insurance. Like in Venezuela, price controls like these force businesses to close. In America’s case, many hospitals in rural and low-income areas can’t make a profit under the new system, so they either go bankrupt or stop accepting Medicare, forcing folks to pay out of pocket or travel to a hospital that does.
The Democrats have to pay for this program somehow, so they increase payroll and income taxes for all workers. Americans suddenly lose, on average, over $5,600 of income per year. And the millennial voters who were so eager to elect a socialist now suffer the most from this. After all, millennials represent the bulk of the workforce, so they bear the brunt of additional taxation while using healthcare less than any other group.
The corporate tax rate that Trump had cut is brought back to life, and there’s a new wealth tax on millionaires and billionaires. China, Mexico, and the Europeans will rejoice as hundreds of thousands of American jobs disappear or move offshore to avoid the higher corporate tax. Businesses borrow more from China since wealthy Chinese investors — many of them tied to China’s brutal regime — aren’t subject to the wealth tax American investors must pay.
Under the new $15 per hour minimum wage, small businesses close shop, and millions of jobs dissipate. Youth and minority unemployment, which reached record-lows during Trump’s presidency, rise dramatically. Venezuela used a similar tactic with a similar, sorry end. After countless minimum wage increases of this kind in Venezuela, they have fewer jobs and more inflation.
High taxes, the minimum wage, and regulations hit the youth especially hard. Despite getting their student debt “forgiven” and going to college tuition-free, once they graduate, young people find out that their college degrees are worthless. Similar to the job market in Southern Europe, more than 1 in 3millennials are now unemployed.
After all of this, America’s economy predictably plunges into a deep recession. Do the Democrats turn back now? No. They pass the Green New Deal and start an expensive transition to renewable energy.
By this point, America boasts an unsustainable budget deficit of many trillions of dollars per year — on top of the trillions of debt, it’s buried under now. In 2024, Americans have learned that “free” things come at a high price, and this massive expansion of government doesn’t end well.
Given full power, Democratic-Socialists would thrust America into an economic nightmare from which it might never escape — not into some Nordic paradise. Venezuelans learned this the hard way. In 2020, Americans can avoid our fate by remembering that free markets, not socialism, lead to prosperity."
What Would a Democratic Socialist America Would Look Like? I Can Tell You—I’m Venezuelan
1992: Venezuela became the 3rd richest country in the Western Hemisphere
1997: Became the 2nd largest producer of F-150
2001: Voted for socialist president over the left's trademark "income inequality" scam
2004: Private health care is completely socialized <===*You are Here*
2007: All education becomes "free"
2009: All guns are banned
2012: Bernie Sanders praises their "American Dream"
2014: Opposition leaders are imprisoned
2016: Food and health care shortages begin to sweep across the country
2017: Constitution and elections are suspended
2019: Unarmed citizens massacred by their own government
Failing to comprehend human nature or to learn from history is WHO DEMOCRATS ARE.
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