Hollywood imbecile Amanda Seyfried thinks that “socialism is a gorgeous idea.” While on a media tour promoting her latest movie, “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Seyfried told Variety that most people don’t “understand what the word [socialism] actually means.”
“For me, it’s taking care of each other. If I have more money, I can spend more money on other people,” Seyfried said in defense of socialism.
Sadly, Seyfried is a moron who knows nearly nothing about the hideous history of socialism. Moreover, her assertion that socialism is beneficial to society and results in people taking care of each other is absurd.
Every time socialism has been implemented, it has led to mass poverty, misery, suffering, corruption, murder, malnutrition, and tyranny. These outcomes are not "gorgeous;" they are ghastly and ghoulish.
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I’ll bet Seyfried knows very little about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), humanity’s first major experiment with socialism.
According to the Black Book of Communism, nearly 20 million people died in the Soviet Union from executions, famines, and forced labor in gulags. The USSR was a totalitarian one-party state that treated its citizens as little more than cogs in the socialist machine. The people had no rights. There was no due process. Private property rights did not exist.
The Soviet Union was not the exception; it is the norm for life under socialism.
After World War II, East Germany, also known as the German Democratic Republic, implemented socialism under the auspices of the USSR. Shortly after, East Germany became a repressive police state with a command-and-control economy that created shortages, rationing, and a thriving black market. The Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, created terror via an extensive surveillance network that pitted citizens against one another.
The same story applies to Cuba, China, North Korea, Cambodia, Venezuela, and all the other countries that have enacted socialism over the past century.
If socialism is so attractive, as Seyfried says, then why have millions of people risked everything to escape from socialist regimes? Why have socialist governments needed to put walls up, as in Berlin, to literally keep the people from fleeing for greener pastures?
The answer is obvious: human beings long to be free, make their own decisions, and pursue their own happiness.
Aside from the fact that socialism has failed spectacularly to improve living standards, foster innovation, protect liberty, and increase prosperity, simpletons like Seyfried still give it the benefit of the doubt.
Seyfried thinks socialism can work because wealthy people like her could “spend more money on other people.” What she fails to understand is that under socialism, she would not have the choice to “spend more money on other people” because the all-powerful central government would do that for her.
In socialist nations, “productive” people like Seyfried would have their wealth redistributed not by choice, but by force. Gee, maybe that would discourage people from being as “productive.”
The problem is that dimwits like Seyfried don’t think beyond what Thomas Sowell calls “stage one thinking.” In other words, Seyfried and far too many young Americans think socialist policies can work because they fail to consider the unintended consequences, trade-offs, and hidden costs of the simple socialist slogans they parrot without proper contemplation.
To some degree, Seyfried is right. On its face, socialism sounds like a good idea. However, she should do just a little research to figure out that, in reality, socialism is evil and does not align with human nature, fairness, or equality. Put simply, "gorgeous" and socialism do not belong in the same sentence.
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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