Alan N. Levy:

Socialism is on its way.

“Obamacare” is the less than respectful term attributed to our current healthcare program, and the program is, as suggested by its detractors, fundamentally flawed.

Designed to assist low-income families and to provide them credible medical insurance, this is the reality of that program. Let’s say a family of four has an annual income of perhaps twenty-two thousand dollars and they call the Marketplace to inquire about medical insurance. Great news, they are told. There is (hypothetically) a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, or a plan by another provider, available for those residing in their zip code, and the premium for that family of four is normally $1,050.00 per month. Clearly unaffordable, but, and here’s the big part, the family qualifies for a premium tax credit in the amount of $1,025.00 per month.

So the federal government pays Blue Cross that $1,025.00 each month, and the newly-insured family pays the balance, or $25.00 per month. So far, this sounds pretty good. And a family with a modest income now has major medical insurance, thanks to a federally-funded assistance program, the Affordable Care Act. But the question, the most vital question, is this. Does this hard-working, relatively low-income family now actually have credible major medical insurance?

Yes and no are the complex answers to that question. On paper, the family has insurance, and Blue Cross has furnished the family members little ID cards. So, in theory and in actuality, we can attest to the fact that this family has medical insurance. But from a practical point of view, they do not, because they will only use that insurance sparingly, if at all. Policies such as this one carry a staggeringly high out-of-pocket maximum annual expense, usually in the range of $7,000.00, and that’s the amount this family must first expend, before Blue Cross, in this example, begins to pay medical bills at the rate of 100% coverage.

An immense $7,000.00 per year in additional expenses faces this particular family with an income structure (before taxes) of $22,000.00 per year, and the net result is this. The members of this family technically have insurance, but they cannot possibly afford to utilize their medical care plan.

And that’s why the Affordable Care Act is a poorly designed program, and it needs to be completely overhauled.

Medicare for all? Socialized medicine as those programs now exist in Great Britain and in Canada? Perhaps that’s the cure. Certainly, the ill-constructed alternative that the Republicans attempted to pass is not a viable alternative, in my opinion. I might easily support a form of socialized medicine or less-expensive Medicare-For-All in this nation, and I agree that a prosperous nation of our stature should be able to create a healthcare system for its citizens that is a plan to which other nations aspire.

The worst is yet to come.

But this article is about the pendulum of government, as it dangerously swings, in our case, from the right to the left. I sense a movement in this nation. Allow the pendulum to move a bit to the left, and we achieve a system of socialized medicine and benefits for all, assuming we can work out the bugs. The smart thing would be to hire some Canadians and Brits as consultants, but we’re far too pig-headed to do something logical in ego-maniacal Washington, D.C.

And in the dangerous waters to the more left of center as the pendulum continues its course, we have universal socialism as a new form of government in this nation. That’s what Bernie Sanders advocates, and according to an article published within the past few days in the Daily Signal and written by Lee Edwards,

“A new Gallup poll confirms what other surveys have reported: A disturbingly high percentage of Americans, about 4 in 10, now look favorably on socialism. Forty-seven percent of Americans even say they would vote for a socialist candidate for president.”

Our nation is a Republic conceived by men whose thought processes are not ancient, nor is the wisdom of their creation to be carelessly discarded. “Everyone is equal” and “everyone is to be treated equally” are the rallying cries of mediocrity. And those words are the foundation of socialism. At first, to take offense at those statements will turn heads. “How can you believe it is unacceptable to support ‘everyone is equal’ or ‘everyone is to be treated equally?’” is the challenge before us. There’s such a subtle difference here, and it’s easy to miss.

The second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”

What is equality?

From those great words has evolved a radical misconception. Self-evident truths, among them that “all men are created equal,” in particular. Abraham Lincoln clearly understood what Jefferson meant, when he wrote those everlasting words. Lincoln correctly decided slavery was an abomination, and in the bloody conflict that followed, Jeffersonian doctrine prevailed.

Those words are about the right to have opportunities. “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, at its core, means the right to live, the right to grow, the right to learn, the right to work, the right to achieve, the right to excel, the right to pray or not to do so, the right to prosper, the right to provide for your family, and the right to keep that which you have earned. “All men are created equal” in this great nation means that we each have the right to begin that path, as your personal journey toward greatness, as I’ve just outlined. And as an entrenched conservative and patriot, I am honor-bound to protect your right to take that path. It is my duty to fight and give my life, should that be necessary, to protect your right to walk with me in that belief or to think otherwise and to disagree with anything I state or believe in this or any article I’ve written.

Socialism purportedly treats everyone equally, but it requires that the government take control in a stifling system that encourages mediocrity. And that was not what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they made statements about equality.

Imagine a huge welfare state, where all your personal and familial needs are provided for, by the government. What does your nature become? Do you remain driven to excel and to succeed? Do you strive to keep your creative juices alive? Do you have any reason to look at a situation or an object and mold it into something better, or to proclaim a thing outdated by virtue of that which you have invented? Do you maintain your sense of humanity, or do you become robotic and immune to all sensory input? Can you still value things, achievements, education, if you and others in our society are given everything as equals by a government monolith? That is the glimpse into the future, as suggested by the Gallup poll described in this article.

What America will be like, under Socialism.

As a tiny glimpse into a socialistic state, attend a little league post-season party or a swim meet where everyone is merely given a “participant” medal or trophy. The kid who lapped the field in the 100 meter butterfly is given the same level of recognition as the kid who finally just climbed out of the water, and the kid who was 0 for 70 at the plate with 68 dismal strike-outs is given the same award as the kid who went 70 for 82 with 182 RBIs. I get giving kids something that signifies their determination, their stubbornness to be there and to compete, b

\ut don’t cross the line and rob the great ones of their achievements. And the silliest image I can muster is at the Olympic Games, in which a socialistic world gives all the participants in each event the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.

When I read that nearly half our citizens might easily vote for a socialist candidate for president of this nation, I felt compelled to write something. In a socialist state, the only true equality is that citizens have no rights at all, and in that lone regard, we are equals. Dissension is frowned upon, either politely or impolitely, and in the latter form of governmental concern with a particular citizen, there are imprisonments and executions. Your right to work and grow within our current form of government, a Republic, is something that is sacred. Do not allow the pendulum of power to swing too far to the left, for one day, in the quiet of your kitchen, you might whisper to someone you love, “How did this all occur?”

And whispering will be necessary.

Alon Preiss:

You may or may not know that I contributed a blurb to Alan N. Levy’s terrific new novel, The Tenth Plague. He is a great writer, indeed, and you should certainly read his book, a terse, tense, fast-paced, paranoid thriller. I hope he sells it to the movies, and that he becomes a millionaire many times over.

But Levy, who also writes a lively blog over at The Times of Israel, has chosen to devote his latest column to dire warnings about the rising popularity in America of “socialism.” And regrettably, he mischaracterizes today’s moment.

“Socialism” means many things to many people.

In Communist parlance, it is the stage before full Communism, and does indeed advocate state ownership of all the means of production.

In the parlance of the American conservative, it is anything that the conservative wants to prevent, an all-purpose insult. So, for example, the conservative promises to protect Social Security and Medicare, which are broadly popular.

Is Warren Buffett a Soviet-style socialist?

The conservative hears about Warren Buffett’s call for the rich to stop paying a lower tax rate than the poor, on the other hand, and calls Buffett, one of America’s most successful capitalists, a “socialist.”

When a CEO of a privately owned company chooses to increase everyone’s pay, American conservative Rush Limbaugh calls that “socialism,” as though a CEO in America should not have a perfect right to pay his employees whatever he wants Obama is a “socialist,” because he is a member of the Democratic Party.

To conservatives, socialism has become a broad brush to tar anyone who advocated economic fairness. Because economic fairness, while good for America overall, and especially the American economy, is not particularly beneficial to America’s ruling class.

America’s young, so battered by America’s winner-take-all society, hears the “socialism” label that conservatives use to fight any effort to narrow the economic divide in America, and they think, Socialism doesn’t sound so bad. Toss the word “Democratic” in front of the word “Socialism” and it sounds even better.

To the young, Socialism just means some kind of social safety net set atop our Darwinian capitalist system.

When Bernie Sanders talks about democratic socialism — and, really, everyone who talks about socialism in America today means the democratic kind — his action plan includes proposals to improve health care, the tax system and education, things that have worked well elsewhere, things that young people in America want.

Indeed, nowhere in the entire column does Levy find fault with any actual policy advocated by Sanders or favored by America’s youth. Instead, he seems to object to the word “socialist,” and attributes various horribles to the word.

He is alarmed that this word, so recklessly bandied about for so many years by Fox News propagandists, has lost its ability to terrorize Americans, and he has imagined, out of thin air, some kind of awful future that will now inevitably result, an argument that is as ridiculous as it is fact-free.

Levy would have done well to investigate why socialism is popular, and what the young people calling for socialism actually want.

Because what they want is not at all bad.

But instead, Levy conjures some kind of horrible science fiction horror movie, in which Democratic Socialism turns everyone into robots, which bears no resemblance to any sort of reality. He then spends an entire column knocking down a straw man that exists only in his own mind.

Ironically, Levy begins his column by acknowledging that “I might easily support a form of socialized medicine or less-expensive Medicare-For-All in this nation, and I agree that a prosperous nation of our stature should be able to create a healthcare system for its citizens that is a plan to which other nations aspire,” which is, after all, what our young socialists are asking for today. “Medicare for all?” he muses. “Socialized medicine as those programs now exist in Great Britain and in Canada? Perhaps that’s the cure.”

After all, he is, like me, an oldish man, and for Alan and me, what’s not to like about socialized medicine? Presumably, he also likes “Social” Security.

But then he adds, “[I]n the dangerous waters to the more left of center as the pendulum continues its course, we have universal socialism as a new form of government in this nation. That’s what Bernie Sanders advocates[.]”

Let’s begin by stating, again, that Bernie Sanders wants Democratic Socialism, and that only his opponents on the right talk about “universal socialism,” something they made up to hurt him. And this idea of a “new form of government in this nation” is also not something that Sanders advocates. Sanders and the new young American socialists are quite happy with the Constitution.

But let’s discuss this on Levy’s own terms: what is this “universal socialism” that he says Bernie Sanders advocates, and that he believes a majority of Americans now want to vote for?

“ ‘Everyone is equal’ and ‘everyone is to be treated equally’ are the rallying cries of mediocrity,” Levy tells us. “And those words are the foundation of socialism.”

While he puts those words in quotes, and attributes them to socialism, he doesn’t actually name any socialists who have said those words. And then, well, um, er, actually, as he admits in the next breath, those words are the foundation of American democracy. (No less a conservative figure than Paul Ryan, after all, said, in his speech to the 2016 Republican convention that nominated Donald Trump, “Everyone is equal, everyone has a place.”)

So Levy has to spend a few paragraphs explaining that, while those words are actually the foundation of American democracy, Thomas Jefferson, who said them, didn’t really mean them, and the socialists, who didn’t say them, do mean them.

And, clearly, Levy is just wrong: social democrats do not want to treat everyone equally regardless of need or ability.

If my friend Alan Levy needs arthritis medication, but he cannot afford it, a socialist would say that the government ensure that he gets it. If Levy has a granddaughter who does not have arthritis, the government would not give her arthritis medication.

Equality, to a socialist, means equal rights and equal access, according to need, regardless of race or economic means.

“Imagine a huge welfare state,” Levy then grouses, “where all your personal and familial needs are provided for, by the government. What does your nature become? Do you remain driven to excel and to succeed? Do you strive to keep your creative juices alive? Do you have any reason to look at a situation or an object and mold it into something better, or to proclaim a thing outdated by virtue of that which you have invented? Do you maintain your sense of humanity, or do you become robotic and immune to all sensory input? Can you still value things, achievements, education, if you and others in our society are given everything as equals by a government monolith? That is the glimpse into the future, as suggested by the Gallup poll described in this article.”

Really? It’s self-evident to Levy that government help discourages innovation and ambition (and worse, makes everyone into a robot who is [WOW!] “immune to all sensory input”), when in fact the opposite is true.

Socialist robots?

Alan, my friend, that “huge welfare state” that you think would turn us into robots, is a nation in which citizens do not need to worry about how to pay for health care or education, in which its citizens can seek to excel and to succeed.

Worrying about health insurance has never encouraged anyone to achieve excellence.

Now imagine a huge capitalist society, run by gigantic corporations, in which the children of the poor know that, no matter how hard they work, they will never be able to afford the good college that the rich see as their birthright; do the children of the poor remain driven to excel and to succeed?

Imagine a world in which you, Alan, need a job to maintain health coverage for you and your family.

It’s not so hard to imagine, is it? It is today’s America. Would you have any incentive to leave that job to start your own business? If you knew that if you were to start your business, and it failed, there would be no government support to help you get yourself back on your feet. Would you take the risk?

Imagine a child who could be a great cellist. Should she pursue a career in music, or would she instead take a job at an insurance company, for the regular paycheck, the health benefits?

In that huge welfare state that Levy fears, in which the cost of education and health care are provided for by the state, the best cellists would be cellists.

But still, Levy wants a universal capitalism of gigantic corporations that are too big to fail, in which access to education and health care is only for the wealthy, because it would discourage mediocrity, somehow.

This is the conservative’s idea of “freedom,” and a conservative’s “freedom” is the true rallying cry of mediocrity. Isn’t the America of Donald Trump Jr. a nation in which the mediocre rule?

Alan? Is up down? Is down up?

Levy then argues that “a socialistic state,” like that imagined by Sanders and the young of America, is like “a little league post-season party or a swim meet where everyone is merely given a ‘participant’ medal or trophy.”

When socialist nations hold trials to qualify athletes for the Olympic games, he complains, “all the participants in each event [receive] the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.”

This is just not true.

Look, I think Levy and I will agree that the Soviet Union was no one’s idea of a worker’s paradise.

But Levy sees the USSR as a nation that failed to yield successful Olympic athletes, a claim that is simply factually untrue.

Levy is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

In fact, the USSR was a highly unsuccessful nation overall that nevertheless achieved massive success at the Olympics, as did many nations in the Communist bloc.

The USSR did have glimmers of success from which the capitalist nations or mixed-economy nations can learn, and one of them was its ability to find the best athletes across a vast nation.

When the USSR granted access to its athletics programs based solely on ability and excellence, it achieved greatness.

And this is an important point: a nation that grants access to the best universities based on ability, rather than ability to pay, is a nation that cherishes personal excellence, not a nation that encourages mediocrity.

Many politicians around the world happily call themselves Socialists, and they are, in fact, often very reasonable people.

Nevertheless, Levy argues, in his final paragraph, if we follow today’s young Americans down the road to what they are not afraid to call “socialism,” a world of affordable education and healthcare, of progressive taxation and a livable working wage — if we pursue the policies of self-described “Socialists” like former British prime minister Tony Blair — we will find ourselves, like the English did when they lived under Blair’s rule, in a world in which “the only true equality is that citizens have no rights at all, and in that lone regard, we are equals. Dissension is frowned upon, either politely or impolitely, and in the latter form of governmental concern with a particular citizen, there are imprisonments and executions … [O]ne day, in the quiet of your kitchen, you might whisper to someone you love, ‘How did this all occur?’ And whispering will be necessary.”

What specific policy does he think will lead us there? He doesn’t say. I can only dream of an America in which one could engage in a reasonable debate with our fellow citizens. It would be a better America.

Alan N. Levy:

In my recent article that expressed concern about the United States becoming a Socialist state, I seem to have awakened more than a few sleeping giants. In particular, a deftly penned rebuttal by Alon Preiss, my friend and colleague at Audere, attempts to disembowel every aspect of my article.

Bravo, Alon. This is the kind of stuff that makes our nation great. You think, you write. I think, I write, and only in a remarkably free society are we granted the power to publicly disagree. We both cherish that right, I often refer to the U.S. Constitution as the sacred document that it is, and I write to protect it and the foundations of this Republic.

John Stossel on Swedish Taxation

Let me address your commentary by first quoting an article written by John Stossel on January 1^st, 2019. I hope we can get by the fact that Mr. Stossel is a contributor to Fox News, primarily since he immediately begins to quote a reputable Swedish historian.

For years, I’ve heard American leftists say Sweden is proof that socialism works, that it doesn’t have to turn out as badly as the Soviet Union or Cuba or Venezuela did.

But that’s not what Swedish historian Johan Norberg says in a new documentary and TV video. ‘Sweden is not socialist—because the government doesn’t own the means of production. To see that, you have to go to Venezuela or Cuba or North Korea,’ says Norberg.

We did have a period in the 1970s and 1980s when we had something that resembled socialism: a big government that taxed and spent heavily. And that’s the period in Swedish history when our economy was going south. Per capita GDP fell. Sweden’s growth fell behind other countries. Inflation increased. Even socialistic Swedes complained about the high taxes.

Astrid Lindgren, author of the popular Pippi Longstocking children’s books, discovered that she was losing money by being popular. She had to pay a tax of 102 percent on any new book she sold.

She wrote this angry essay about a witch who was mean and vicious—but not as vicious as the Swedish tax authorities, says Norberg.

Yet even those high taxes did not bring in enough money to fund Sweden’s big welfare state.

’People couldn’t get the pension that they thought they depended on for the future,’ recounts Norberg. ‘At that point the Swedish population just said, enough, we can’t do this.’

Sweden then reduced government’s role.

They cut public spending, privatized the national rail network, abolished certain government monopolies, eliminated inheritance taxes, and sold state-owned businesses like the maker of Absolut vodka.

’They also reduced pension promises ‘so that it wasn’t as unsustainable,’ adds Norberg. ’Today our taxes pay for pensions—you (in the U.S.) call it Social Security—for 18-month paid parental leave, government-paid childcare for working families.’

But Sweden’s government doesn’t run all those programs. ‘Having the government manage all of these things didn’t work well.’

So they privatized. ‘We realized in Sweden that with these government monopolies, we don’t get the innovation that we get when we have competition,’ says Norberg.

Sweden also partially privatized its retirement system. In America, the Cato Institute proposed something similar. President George W. Bush supported the idea but didn’t explain it well. He dropped the idea when politicians complained that privatizing Social Security scared voters.

Swedes were frightened by the idea at first, too, says Norberg, ‘But when they realized that the alternative was that the whole pension system would collapse, they thought that this was much better than doing nothing.’

So Sweden supports its welfare state with private pensions, school choice, and fewer regulations, and in international economic-freedom comparisons, Sweden often earns a higher ranking than the U.S.

Next time you hear democratic socialists talk about how socialist Sweden is, remind them that the big welfare state is funded by Swedes’ free market practices, not their socialist ones.

So if Sweden is an improper example of a true Socialist state, by definition, then which nations are successful and prosperous Socialist nations?

Countries Where Socialism Has Failed

Let’s skip the Communist nations, and per Wikipedia, here is a current list of non-Marxist-Leninist Socialist States.

The People’s Republic of Bangladesh

The Co-operative Republic of Guyana

The Republic of India

North Korea

The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal

The Republic of Nigeria

The Portuguese Republic

The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

The United Republic of Tanzania.

Of these Socialist nations, all are “multi-party semi-presidential republics,” with the exception of just one of these nations.

The Preamble to the constitution of that nation states, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the socialist motherland of Juche, which has applied the idea and leadership of Kim Il-sung,” and that nation declares itself a “Unitary One-Party Republic.”

North Korea.

Can North Korea Happen Here?

Am I suggesting that if we evolve into a one-party nation with a Socialist mentality, we may mirror the horrific form of government entrenched in North Korea? No, I am certainly not convinced we may be headed down that path. On the other hand, to ignore the parallels is infantile.

While Alon and I are debating the merits of a Socialist society or allowing ourselves to overindulge at the Socialist buffet … “I’ll have a little Health Care with lemon-butter sauce, and a chunk of Tax Reform marinara,” the real concern, admittedly not addressed in my article, is a clearly defined plot to reshape elections of the future by virtue of granting the right to vote to an additional body of new voters.

Alon, you wrote, ”Equality, to a socialist, means equal rights and equal access, according to need, regardless of race or economic means.”

I wrote, ““the only true equality is that citizens have no rights at all, and in that lone regard, we are equals. Dissension is frowned upon, either politely or impolitely, and in the latter form of governmental concern with a particular citizen, there are imprisonments and executions … One day, in the quiet of your kitchen, you might whisper to someone you love, ‘How did this all occur?’ And whispering will be necessary.”

You wrote, “Of course, none of this is true.”

Isn’t it ironic that if (a) the Democrats have a formula to seize power in this nation by giving the right to vote to millions of illegal aliens, and (b) absolute power corrupts as Lord Acton so correctly observed, then there is only one nation which we can study to observe the aftermath of the events I fear may take place in this nation.

And that nation, as I’ve mentioned, is North Korea.

The German Example

It’s easy to dismiss my concerns about where this nation may be headed. You can wave a hand of dismissal at me and walk away, shaking your head in disbelief.

But let me remind you that’s what millions of Jews did as they were loaded into cattle cars and embarked on their journeys to Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

And by the way, you misquoted me.

You claimed I said, “When socialist nations hold trials to qualify athletes for the Olympic Games, he complains, ‘all the participants in each event [receive] the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.’”

Of course, the Soviet Union achieved greatness and won medals. Not at all what I said or meant, and I might add that their lack of ethics in competing were hardly admirable.

I actually stated, “And the silliest image I can muster is at the Olympic Games, in which a socialistic world gives all the participants in each event the same cheap medal. Certainly no need for podiums and flags, or judges and scorecards.” That was my way of taking issue with treating all participants as equals and having the concept of competition be meaningless.

A Final Thought

In summary, debate between us is very healthy. You are entitled to pick at sentences and disagree with me. But the message I’m attempting to convey is this. Give someone or a coterie the scepter of power, and anything can happen. The remainder of the quote by Lord Acton concerning absolute power is this.

“Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”

We are in dangerous waters here, and the first murky step will be to elect a Socialist President of the United States.

Alon Preiss:

Alan, you are a really cool writer, but you spend too much time in front of Fox News.

What do young socialists think “socialism” is?

Here is my point: for years, every time some earnest Democrat would propose some reasonable legislation that might actually help poor people, conservative propagandists would label him a “socialist.” So, as I noted in my rebuttal, a CEO who raised the salaries of his workers was a socialist; Warren Buffett, of all people, was a socialist, because he thought his secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than he paid. (In the feverish conservative mind, taxing the poor is “capitalism”; taxing the rich is “socialism.”) Obamacare, a thoughtful attempt to use capitalism to provide health care to all Americans, was labeled “socialism.” Free college? Socialism! Clean energy? Socialism.

What has happened, perhaps inevitably, is that the young have listened to your political party. Suddenly, they believe that everything they want is in fact socialism.

The result? That poll, which has frightened you so much, showing that the slur has lost its teeth.

I ask you again: tell me what, if anything, is objectionable about the New Socialism.

It’s a simple request. Engage with our ideas, without hysteria.

Don’t talk about North Korea. Don’t scream about Nazis.

Look at our plan for the American economy and let me know what you think about our actual proposals.

What do the new socialists want?

Listen to Bernie Sanders.

“The right to quality health care,” he says, in today’s New York Times. “The right to as much education as one needs to succeed in our society, the right to a good job that pays a living wage, the right to affordable housing, the right to a secure retirement, and the right to live in a clean environment. That is what I mean by democratic socialism.”

Now, is that really “democratic socialism”?

Arguably, it’s not.

Sanders, and the young American Socialists, don’t even believe in nationalizing industry. This is the inevitable result of the conservative campaign to vilify sensible progressive policies. The word “socialist” has lost its bite.

The Koreans and the Mexicans are Coming to Get Us!

In my rebuttal to your column, I asked you to consider Sanders’ policies specifically, and let me know what you disagreed with. I pleaded with you to engage with me in a sensible debate about America’s new socialism, about the policies favored by America’s new socialists.

Instead, you’ve responded with … um, the exact opposite.

First, a list of what you consider frightening countries, something you say you pulled from Wikipedia. You know, good work mastering the internet, I guess.

North Korea, you pant. The Republic of Nigeria.

Then a story from propagandist John Stossel about something or other than went on in Sweden, which has precisely nothing to do with anything.

Finally … Nazis.

And finally, you throw  this in my face:

“You can wave a hand of dismissal at me and walk away, shaking your head in disbelief. But let me remind you that’s what millions of Jews did as they were loaded into cattle cars and embarked on their journeys to Auschwitz and Buchenwald.”

Is that what Hitler was all about? Free education, decent healthcare and clean air?

Yes, I want decent air for my grandkids, good education for the poor.

I think decent education, regardless of ability to pay, would be good for America.

One Final Plea for Sanity

Alan, you are a smart guy.

You wrote one of the best books of 2019.

You have been a brave voice against Iranian appeasement.

You want socialized medicine.

You believe in free education.

I am not sure, but I think you probably even like clean air, and as a resident of Florida, you probably would prefer that the ocean stop rising.

Step out of the Fox News opium haze and into the light. I know that you’ll be happy here.

Alan N. Levy, a political columnist at Audere, is also the author of The Tenth Plague, an acclaimed geo-political thriller that focuses on a future with a nuclear-armed Iran, coming in September from Chickadee Prince Books. He’s now also a blogger at The Times of Israel, addressing the various terrible threats facing America, Israel and the world. Take a look at all of Levy’s opinionated opinions at the TOI.

Alon Preiss is the author of A Flash of Blue Sky (2015) and In Love With Alice (2017), which are both available from Chickadee Prince Books.