May Day Marathon! Why Communism and Socialism Are So Evil (5/1/17)

my leaving Guatemala and I work throughout Latin America and I want to speak to the millions of fortunate Hispanic immigrants living in the United States legally or not I have a question for you why do you support the same policies in the US that cause you to flee your home country the policies I'm talking about are those that lead to a bigger and bigger central government you know only too well that the more power the government has the more corrupt it becomes my home country like most other nations in Central and South America is very poor 54% of the population lives in poverty and 133% live in extreme poverty half of all children under five are chronically malnourished crippling government corruption is the norm opening a new business can take months even years because of a multitude of regulations that are designed to line the pockets of bureaucrats so the cost is much too high for the average citizen quite simply unless you're politically connected in Guatemala you probably want to leave and in the last 20 years many Guatemalans have left or to put it more honestly they fled the fortunate ones reached the United States the freest and wealthiest nation in human history there are at least 1 million Guatemalans living in the US nearly every Mexican and Central and South American immigrant in the United States whether they immigrated legally or illegally move or fled to the US for the same reasons Economic Opportunity and the freedom to shape their own lives in short you came to the United States to participate in what Americans call The American Dream but have you ever asked yourself why is the United States so free so much less corrupt and so much more affluent than any Latin American country the answer lies first and foremost in the unique American belief in limited government why because the smaller the government the less the corruption and the smaller the government the more individual freedom and personal responsibility and given those things along with hard work and talent you can accomplish your life's goals so back to my question why would you support policies that keep expanding the power of the government when they are the very policies that Doom your home country countries is it because you think that when Democrats offer you free stuff it means they really care about you do you think that when Republicans talk about enforcing immigration laws it means they are going to send you back let's be honest you didn't come here for free stuff you came for the Economic Opportunity that allows you to work and earn and of course a nation has an obligation to enforce its borders certainly every country in Central and South America does in fact much more so than the US perhaps you believe that your home country is poor not because of failed socialism and corrupt B government but because of issues unrelated to ideology not enough natural resources imperialism and so on or worse you believe that the US has gotten rich on the backs of poor Nations but this narratives are false there are many nations blessed with abundant natural resources that are poor and they are poor overwhelmingly because of corrupt governments and policies that destroy incentives to produce look at Venezuela which has vast oil and mineral reserves but has shortages of every basic necessity why because of socialist policies because of those same deceiving politicians who promise to fight for the people and give you free stuff and you're going to fall for this lies again in your adopted country do you think think by electing politicians who will fight for the people fight for social justice and raise taxes on the 1% who are exploiting the wealth of the 99% that you will get ahead in other words will you support the same policies and vote for the same types of politicians here who made such a mess back home the United States became wealthy because its government stayed out of the way of its City citizens the more power you give to the government the less power you have to control your own life prosperity and opportunity diminish as Government grows so why did you like so many of my fellow Guatemalans come to the US because your Society was broken you chose to make a new life in the United States you could have gone to another Latin American country with a similar culture and the same language as your home country but you didn't because the United States is different please help keep it that way I'm glor Alvarez author of The populist deception for Prager University Democratic socialism it's not the same as socialism socialism because it's Democratic right or something right people are buying that people buy that now right apparently as though adding the word Democratic in front of a word changes what it means just because we toss something to a vote doesn't change what that something is nor does it alter whether that something is inherently good or bad couple of examples because I know you'll ask Hamas was democratically elected as the government in Gaza despite the fact that the destruction of not only Israel but the eradication of all Jews is in their official Charter Robert Mugabe or Bobby Mugabe if you prefer was democratically elected by a loving majority in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe how's that working out Venezuela well Hugo Chavez noted personal favorite and friend of Shawn Penn to whom he constantly pointed as being unfairly characterized as a dictator when in fact he was democratically elected as a socialist well how'd that work out for Venezuela well it's now on the brink of collapse despite it being one of the most resourcer nations in the entire world basic things like eggs milk flour and toilet paper are either too expensive for the average Venezuelan or simply out of stock out of stock mind you democratically I know some of you will say well that's not fair because really we knew all along it technically was a dictatorship okay that's fair let's move on to example number two Denmark okay here's the time where you point to an entirely homogeneous population about 160th the size of americaas and you point to that as the blueprint okay let's go there this is a place where the middle class can't even afford a car because of the 180% new car hardex and the Prime Minister was so fed up with Americans pointing to it as a beacon for socialist success that he felt compelled to clarify I would like to make one thing clear Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy Denmark is a market economy Sweden I love Sweden okay great bikini team and thanks to that country my arm War now doubles of the bookcase speaking of which the founder of Ikea let's be honest the only really cool export from swed aside from a few good hockey players left Sweden because of the stifling High tax rate so Sweden good place not bad people but a successful model for a viable economy in today's Global Market incorrect the fact is that over time the greatest enemy of socialism is reality the reality that human nature will invariably pull certain people toward individualism and success and others toward laziness and collectivism the tension between the makers and the takers always always leads to socialism's inevitable collapse but I know that I can give you examples of failed socialist economies until I'm bleue in the face and you won't care because at least socialism is inherently more morally altruistic than the evil greedy capitalist warmongering scene in the west greed what's more greedy than wanting to take from someone else something that you haven't earned unlike capitalism free enterprise which can only occur truly through voluntary transaction socialism can only occur at gunpoint that's what it comes down to if you don't pay your taxes once you get through the IRS and the auditing and the lawyers and the pr stunts people make you give the government your money increasing amount of your money the more successful you are or they send in scary men with guns to take you away now so long as the people having their stuff taken away at gunpoint are in the minority and the majority feels that they'll get to benefit from more said taken stuff you'll always be able to win that decision through a popular vote and claim the moral High Ground through democracy putting the word Democratic in front of your socialism doesn't make it any inherently more moral nor less violent did you get that American want to be socialists also get a job please like a real job you'll probably have to shape first I'm Steven Crowder for Prager University hi I'm Marissa stri CEO of prageru did you know that prageru is a nonprofit every dollar you give will go towards making more videos and marketing them so please consider making a donation today when people describe particularly evil individuals or regimes why is it that they use the terms Nazi or fascist but almost never communist given the unparalleled amount of human suffering Communists have caused why is communist so much less a term of revulsion than Nazi Communists killed 70 million people in China more than 20 million people in the Soviet Union not including about 5 million ukrainians and almost one out of every three cambodians and Communists enslaved entire nations in Russia Vietnam China Eastern Europe North Korea Cuba and much of Central Asia they ruined the lives of well over a billion people so why doesn't communism have the same terrible reputation as Nazism reason number one there is simply put widespread ignorance of the Communist record whereas both right and left loathe Nazism and teach its evil history the left and I'm talking about the left not traditional liberals like Harry Truman or John F Kennedy has never loathed communism and since the left dominates Academia almost no one teaches communism's evil history reason number two the Nazis carried out the Holocaust nothing matches the Holocaust for Pure Evil the rounding up of virtually every Jewish man woman child and baby on the European continent and sending them to die is unprecedented and unparalleled the Communists killed far more people than the Nazis but never matched the the Holocaust in the systemization of genocide the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the enormous attention rightly paid to it have helped ensure that Nazism has a worse name than communism reason number three communism is based on nice sounding theories Nazism isn't it's based on heinous sounding theories intellectuals in general including of course the intellectuals who write history are seduced by words so much so that they deem actions as less significant than words for that reason they haven't focused nearly as much attention on the horrific actions of Communists as they have on the horrific actions of the Nazis they dismiss the evils of Communists as perversions of true communism but they regard Nazi atrocities correctly as the logical and inevitable results of Nazism reason number four Germans thoroughly exposed the evils of Nazism have taken responsibility for them and have attempted to atone for them Russians have not done anything similar regarding Lenin's or Stalin's Horrors to the contrary lennin the father of Soviet communism is still widely venerated in Russia and as regards Stalin as University of London Russian historian Donald Rayfield puts it quote people still deny by assertion or implication stal 's Holocaust unquote even less so has China exposed the greatest mass murderer and enslaver of them all Ma's a tongue Mao remains revered in China every Chinese currency note has his picture on it until Russia and China and Vietnam and Cuba and North Korea acknowledge the evils their countries committed under communism communism's evils will remain less known than the evils of the German State under Hitler reason number five Communists murdered mostly their own people the Nazis on the other hand killed very few fellow J even worse than being murdered or enslaved is a world that doesn't even know that you were I'm Dennis Prager many American millennials seem to be drawn to socialism they came out in big numbers for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primaries they rail against capitalism on their college campuses they wear CH t-shirts to Signal their socialist virtue I know a lot about socialism I live in Rio de Janeiro and I work throughout Brazil as a journalist for a popular magazine in the early 2000s Brazil's economy was growing rapidly the government had enacted economic and monetary reforms and invested Holdings in some state-run companies giving the private sector more room to breathe inflation a chronic problem in Brazil was dramatically reduced forgan investors poured into the country eager to catch a portion of our expanding economy the future seemed promising but today our economy is in shambles unemployment and debt are massive and Powerful politicians are being investigated for involvement in the largest scandals of fraud andup corruption in the country's history what happened in 2002 a socialist politician named Lula da Silva ran for the presidency he was a socialist but painted himself as a modern cool kind of socialist he would be the politician who would heal National divisions and unite everyone he even had a nickname lul Pam which means little Lula peace and love in Portuguese but the old message about the need for income redistribution to decrease in equality was still there the media academic Elite and celebrities assured Brazilian that by transferring the money from the rich to the poor the poor could finally be richer but the only ones who really got rich were Lula and his corporate and political friends it only got worse under his successor Juma husf the Socialists increased government spending deits and debt they called it a stimulus they increased the minimum wage and the benefits of social programs they call it social justice they increased the salaries and retirement benefits of the Civil Service they called it investing in the future they handed out thousands of jobs in the government and state-owned companies as favors to their political allies and they called it good governance it worked for a while socialism always works at the beginning but government spending just kept going up and then Lula's socialist Paradise fell apart and the economy fell with it the outcome from 2008 to 2015 government spending grew nearly four times as fast as tax revenue the economy shrank 3.8% in 2015 the worst result in 25 years that same year A World Bank survey found Brazil's economy to be one of the world's worst out of 189 countries we were the 16th hardest place to open a business the 60th most difficult nation in which to register property and the 12th most complex place to pay taxes economically and morally the almost 15 years of socialist policies have greatly harmed Brazil we also remain among the world's leaders in murder and robbery and we rank near the bottom of industrialized nations in terms of education and Health Care Americans take it for granted that they can be born into the lower class and reach the middle or even upper class many Brazilians take take it for granted that they can't but finally some things are starting to change there may be Reason for Hope today more and more Brazilians see that capitalism and limited government are the only way forward thankfully for Brazil Lula has been charged in several lawsuits for corruption involvement in a criminal organization influenc pedling money laundering and obstruction of justice jusf was impeached in 2016 for falsifying the government's Finance and illegally using money from state-owned Banks to run the government this crisis prompted the new government to freeze federal spending reduce the government's role in state owned companies and to encourage some of the massive Federal Workforce to resign no one knows whether these basic measures will be enough to rescue Brazil economically truthfully the damage has been so so extensive it may take decades for the country to recover but if we do it will won't be socialism that saves us American Millennials take note I am Philipe MOA Brazil for Prager University hi everyone I am Philipe MOA brazila journalist and columnist in Brazil prer your videos have made a deep impact on me and many Brazilians if you have been impacted by these videos too please consider making a donation to prer you your support will help ensure that prageru can keep these videos free and continue to make a difference please donate today ciao from Brazil in the Contemporary world it's taken as a given that capitalism with its free market and profit motive is based on selfishness and produces selfishness while socialism is based on selflessness and produces selflessness well the opposite is true whatever its intentions socialism produces far more selfish individuals and a far more selfish Society than a free market economy does and once this widespread selfishness catches on it is almost impossible to undo it here's an illustration in 2010 the United States President Barack Obama addressed a large audience of college students at one point in his speech he announced that young people will now be able to remain on their parents' health insurance plan until age 26 I don't ever recall hearing a louder more Thunderous or more sustained Applause than I did then had the president announced that a cure for cancer had been discovered it is highly doubtful that the Applause would have been as loud or as long but what were they so happy about to be told that you can now remain dependent on your parents until age 26 should strike a young person as demeaning not liberating throughout American history and for that matter all of Western history the great goal of young people was to become a mature adult beginning with being independent of mom and dad socialism and the welfare state destroy this aspiration in various European countries and now increasingly in the US it is becoming common for young people to live with their parents well into their 30s and not frequently Beyond and why not in the welfare state taking care of yourself is no longer a virtue why because the government will take care of you therefore socialism enables and as a result produces people whose preoccupations become more and more self-centered how many benefits will I receive from the government will the government pay for my education will the government pay for my health care what is the youngest age at which I can retire how much paid vacation time can I get how many days can I call in sick and still get paid how many weeks of paid paternity or maternity leave am I entitled to the list gets longer with every election of a liberal or Progressive or left-wing party and then each entitlement becomes a right but we're not done there are even more destructive effects of socialism entitlements create citizens who lack a character trait that every human should have gratitude you cannot be happy if you are not grateful and you cannot be a good person if you're not grateful that's why we constantly tell our children say thank you but socialism undoes that after all why would a person be grateful for receiving an entitlement who's going to be grateful for getting what they're entitled to so instead of thank you the citizen of the welfare state is taught to say what more am I entitled to yet the left insists that it's capitalism and the free market not socialism that produces selfish people but the truth is that capitalism and the free market produce much less selfish people teaching people to work hard and take care of themselves and others and that they should earn what they receive produces less selfish not more selfish people capitalism teaches people to work more socialism teaches people to demand more which attitude do you think will make a better Society I'm Dennis Prager one of the most important differences between the left and the right is how each regards the role and the size of the government the left believes that the state should be the most powerful force in society among many other things the government should be in control of educating every child should provide all health care and should regulate often to the minutest detail how businesses conduct their business in Germany for instance the government legislates the time of day stores have to close in short there should ideally be no power that competes with government not parents not businesses not private schools not religious institutions not even the individual human conscience conservatives on the other hand believe the government's role in society should be limited to Absolute Necessities such as National Defense and to being the resource of Last Resort to help citizens who cannot be helped by Family by Community or by religious and secular Charities conservatives understand that as governments grow in size and power the following will inevitably happen one there will be ever increasing amounts of corruption power and money breed corruption people in government will sell government influence for personal and political gain and people outside government will seek to buy influence and favors in Africa and Latin America government corruption has been the single biggest Factor holding Nations back from progressing two individual liberty will decline with a few exceptions such as an unrestricted right to abortion individual liberty is less important to the left than to the right this is neither an opinion nor a criticism it is simple Logic the more control the government has over people lives the less Liberty people have three countries with ever expanding governments will either as economically six the bigger the government the greater the opportunities for doing great evil the 20th century was the most murderous Century in recorded history and who did all this killing big governments evil individuals without power can do only so much harm but when evil individuals take control of a big government the amount of harm they can do is essentially unlimited the right fears big government the left Fears Big business but Coca-Cola can't break into your house or confiscate your wealth only big government can do that as irresponsible as any big business has ever been it is only big government that can build concentration camps and commit genocide seven big government eats away at the moral character of a Nation people no longer take care of other people after all they know the government will do that that's why Americans give far more of their money and volunteer far more of their time to charity than do Europeans at the same economic level without the belief in an ever expanding government there is no left without a belief in limited government there is no right I'm Dennis Prager I'm Elicia Krauss director of Outreach here at Prager U to have this video reach more people please consider a donation I'm ammy Horowitz Democrat and the Democratic party have moved decisively to the left how far to the left you may ask what's wrong with socialism nothing what's wrong with socialism nothing nothing what's wrong with socialism I don't have anything I don't have any problems with it I don't think anything's wrong with socialism capitalist countries have always been messing with its ideology and trying to delegitimize it I I kind of like it I think the American people like socialism I think socialism is great this is a pretty dangerous part of town what are we doing [Music] here what kind of food [Music] Venezuela a Democratic Socialist state with the world's largest oil reserves has descended into a mindboggling malthusian chaos the country has been engulfed in violence hunger and Corruption and is on the edge of total societal collapse Venezuela's socialist experimentation has decimated the middle class and most people in karacus live in the extremely dangerous baros of the city these baros are massive crudely built claustrophobic cities within cities we're here one of the biggest baros in karacas to get a sense in how the situation is affecting the poor people here uh it's a very dangerous place we made a deal from the bario buses so we should be safe hopefully are there times where you just you're just hungry your family is hungry [Music] [Laughter] [Music] food has become so scarce that people have to wait in lines very long lines in order to get enough to survive just barely what time did you go to w [Music] line all all night all you got was that one one can of of milk of leer [Music] getting in line overnight does not guarantee that you will come away with anything because the lines are controlled by the government approved Mafia with the Socialist orwellian name the collective they bus in their own people right before the stores open and grab most of the food these are bad dudes that care little for the common people and these big dogs always eat first and of course they don't want their control of the line to be filmed there are only two classes in Venezuela the poor and the super rich the income inequality is absolutely staggering While most of the country is literally starving the government connected Mega Rich are still rocking at Old School [Music] [Music] the one thing that isn't egalitarian in Venezuela is violence the wave of violence that has descended upon the country has been epic they have less than 1/10th of the population of the United States but three times as many murders karacus has had more deaths this year than Baghdad and those are the reported numbers the real numbers are much much higher all this despite the fact that Venezuela has extremely strict gun laws this dystopian country has literally become one of the most dangerous places to on planet Earth while the violence is literally happening everywhere in Venezuela it seems particularly bad here in the baros I know we got permission to shoot here but it doesn't really feel like a safe space to me [Music] do you know anybody who's been killed personally in your life [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] right in front of us a man was shot in the street by unknown asants holy the guy just got shot the cop just walking away do you feel socialism Works no [Music] [Music] [Music] let me ask you this what do you think of Americans who want to bring socialism Democratic socialism into America [Music] foree e e