Guest Post by John Stossel
Democrats say President Joe Biden won “a strong mandate.” His government can do all sorts of good things!
I don’t believe he has a mandate, but thanks to the selfishness of former President Donald Trump, Democrats control Congress, and that may give them power to shove their worst ideas down our throats. Those include:
No. 1: Hate speech laws.
No. 2: Expanding the Supreme Court.
No. 3: Gun control.
No. 4: Spending much more.
Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have noticed that these “reforms” were just tried in a country near us. My new video reveals how they worked out (spoiler alert: badly).
Venezuela became progressives “it” country when Hugo Chavez became president.
Celebrities like Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore showered him with praise. Sean Penn called him “one of the most important forces we’ve had on this planet.”
“You have to be blind to believe that,” responds Andres Guilarte of The Fund for American Studies.
Guilarte is one of many Venezuelans who risked his life to protest socialist rule. When the protests failed, he came to the United States as a refugee.
Today, protest is even riskier in Venezuela, because of progressive reform No. 1: the “Law Against Hatred.”
Half America’s Democrats support that, says a YouGov poll.
They should rethink what they want, says Guilarte, because “the ruling party … (gets to decide) what hate speech is.”
In Venezuela, critics of the government now face jail time.
No. 2: Some Democrats want to add four new justices to the Supreme Court. Sen. Ed Markey says the new justices would “restore balance” after years of Republican rule.
Chavez added justices to Venezuela’s Supreme Court.
He “changed it from 20 people to 32 people,” says Guilarte. After that, “the court never ruled against him.” It let him shut down opposition media and confiscate 1,000 private businesses.
No. 3: American Democrats want gun control.
In Venezuela now, only the army, police and certain favored groups may have guns. That made it even easier for officials to come to people’s homes and take their property.
“You’re just in your shop, selling shoes,” explains Guilarte. “Some government officer arrives and says, ‘We’re going to shut down your business.’ That would be completely different if that business owner had a gun.”
“But the government would just come in with bigger guns,” I suggest.
“If we had a culture like you have in the U.S.,” Guilarte responds, “It would have been incredibly difficult.”
Venezuela’s gun control didn’t even reduce crime. In fact, Venezuela’s murder rate rose. Venezuela now has the third-highest murder rate in the world.
“These laws never work,” says Guilarte. “Citizens don’t have guns. But the criminals have bigger guns!”
No. 4: The most important lesson from Venezuela is the idea that governments can fund whatever they want to do simply by printing more money.
“The Federal government can never run out of money,” says Modern Monetary Theory economist Stephanie Kelton. She’s convinced politicians that they can spend much more without worrying about inflation.
“Well, of course, John,” replies Guilarte, sarcastically. “That’s how the economy works. You just print money because money comes up from trees.”
Venezuela printed money and won praise from progressives by spending some on programs they said would help the poor. But the poor and the middle class were crushed by the inflation that followed: 20% … then 100% … 3,000% … 40,000%! This destroyed Venezuela.
Inflation in America has risen to 5.4%. Bad, but of course, nothing close to what happened in Venezuela.
“Doesn’t mean that it can’t happen!” warns Guilarte.
That, unfortunately, is true.
“We were the richest economy in Latin America,” he points out. “People from America came to Venezuela to build businesses.”
Now the country is in shambles.
“Everything can fall to the ground really quickly,” says Guilarte. “Inflation is like a cancer. You never know when it’s going to hit you.”
Let’s learn from socialism’s failures.
The idea that massive government spending and other progressive feel-good policies will help America, when these same ideas failed horribly elsewhere, is a dangerous myth.
John Stossel is author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”
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“but thanks to the selfishness of former President Donald Trump, Democrats control Congress, and that may give them power to shove their worst ideas down our throats”
Fuck off
He signed every stimulus bill and warp speeded the vaxxine. Yes he got a lot of evil exposed but did he end any of the things government has done to us. Did he declassify anything or did he get the JFK message about his kids. It was better but not much accomplished except to get us to where we are today.
FOAD
Care to refute any of what Bear Claw said?
I just did…not that you want to hear it, TDS is much easier than actually thinking beyond the script you swallowed whole.
No, you didn’t. You went on another one of your unhinged rants, spewing nonsense about “TDS” any time someone has a legitimate criticism of Donald Trump.
Bear said – “He signed every stimulus bill and warp speeded the vaxxine.” Where in your response below is the refutation of that statement?
You focus on the minutae, and ignore the elephant in the room. Where are you on Biden and all the glories coming from him? Crickets…all you got is TDS and ignoring the reality of what a stolen election is going to cost you. Now, go bash Trump, ignore Biden and enjoy the suck.
Bullshit. If you have a half a brain and are capable of making comparisons…please. Compare the first year of Trump vs. the braindead pervert’s first year. I’m looking at five dollar a gallon gas by the end of the year, millions of illegals overrunning the country, billions given to the Taliban while Americans are STILL stuck in Afghanistan, Critical Race theory is now ensconced in the government and schools and the Atty. General is attacking parents and white people as terrorists.
You assholes who constantly trash Trump and ignore what he did (no illegals, gas at 2.oo gallon, no energy shortages, ditto supply shortages, no CRT (Trump banned it) and no vaccine mandates. There’s more but you TDS assholes can’t and won’t pay attention because if you did pay attention and focused on who stole the election and why, you’d have to face a very ugly reality, none of it connected to Trump.
WTF is this?? What selfishness?? America First?
“but thanks to the selfishness of former President Donald Trump, Democrats control Congress, and that may give them power to shove their worst ideas down our throats”
I put up a 4’x8′ “Let’s Go Brandon” sign on the state highway that runs past my farm Teusday.
I got a call the same day from a local doctor thanking me for making her day. It’s a good start.
Saw one on rural Massachusetts road yesterday: “Impeach Biden and Harris”
Socialism did not fail in Venezuela. The socialists were successful in creating the dystopia they desired. They are hard at work in the USA to accomplish the same goal.
Later this month (October 2021), the Supreme Court will announce whether it will revisit Times v. Sullivan in an effort to undo it. If it does undo it, it will crush the freedom of the press as surely as any petty tyrant has done who can’t stand the heat. It will dumb down our public discourse in favor of those in power. We will have a press afraid to be free.
Andrew P. Napolitano
Is there some tragic irony in a Supreme Court willing to overturn such an important legal precedent guarding the protections of a free press when they have completely avoided their moral obligation to the citizens to issue a writ of certiorari on any of the critical issues being debated in the lower courts now* and demand they are the SUPREME LAW of the land regarding Constitutional issues.
How many of them are well aware that Epstein did not kill himself? Are they trying to avoid the packing of an already contaminated and corrupted court?
There is not one branch of our government without deeply entrenched corruption rampant and obvious. Not one.
We have out-SodomandGamorrahed Sodom and Gomorrah.
Not one.
*equity issues, public school mandate issues, gender issues, lack of border law enforcement in SPITE of SCOTUS decision, and so on.
Worth repeating.
“There is not one branch of our government without deeply entrenched corruption rampant and obvious. Not one.”
^^^^^What Ghost said^^^ times ten!!!
Ya lost me at “selfishness” Stossel.
Fuck off
Four very good points completely derailed by a completely unnecessary insult that highlights the complete loss of objectivity on certain topics by those given opportunity to speak. If it weren’t for the selfishness aside, more people would have become aware where the pattern is taking us.
No. 1: Hate speech laws. (Some are already here, others are being crafted for you and me.)
No. 2: Expanding the Supreme Court. (I suspect that is why the SCOTUS is keeping its collective head down. They gots lots of skeletons in their Epstein closet, I’m sure.)
No. 3: Gun control. (I would not be surprised if the gun grab starts next year over some mass shooting event staged or encouraged by the evil Biden regime.)
No. 4: Spending much more. (
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations/factbox-venezuelas-nationalizations-under-chavez-idUSBRE89701X20121008
Demonizing Trump for no good reason did put the audience off, including myself.
It’s kind of like trying to suggest the planet is round on TBP. It isn’t considered polite or copacetic.
“43 people missing after first Flat Earth Surfing Championship”
“complete loss of objectivity”
When rampant voter fraud is ignored… it becomes propaganda.
I intended to add this parenthetical comment on No. 4.
This was just six months ago, in March 2021.
The link to the story is here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-05/hyperinflation-pushes-venezuela-to-print-1-000-000-bolivar-bills
“thanks to the selfishness of … President Donald Trump, Democrats control Congress”
Slow your roll there, John. President Trump is not the one who ignored MASSIVE voter fraud. That’s all thanks to people like YOU, John Stossel, who absolutely REFUSE to acknowledge the truth.
“epstein didn’t kill himself” …nor did anyone else. alive and well and probably laughing with the guy from Enron who died of a heart attack