Socialism appeals to many millennials under 30 because of Socialism’s two built-in fallacies: ignorance of human nature and ignorance of economics. Socialism, in its various forms, is based on twin false premises: humans can be programmed like Pavlov’s dogs, and people can have life’s needs without effort, property or liberty.

Socialists revise the reality of history and replace it with flowery, feel good images that provide cover for socialism’s need to direct and control the social and economic actions of the many by an elitist few. Socialist blather notwithstanding, socialism cannot even begin to work without centralized command and control over the economy and the development of society.

Unfortunately, socialism has never worked in the past and won’t work in the future. Because of its inherent flaws, true believers think that they have a moral right to impose their socioeconomic theories on the populace no matter the cost in human lives and suffering.

Recent history (the past 150 years) tells us that socialism, in its various forms (democratic socialism, national socialism, or communism) has slaughtered hundreds of millions of people to prove that socialism is the better way.

To say that socialism is devoted to the betterment of society is a flat out, high-grade oxymoron. Given the historical record, one has to wonder why Progressives continue to be enamored with socialist fallacies in education and politics.

Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said the group’s 2017 annual report shows that millennials are “increasingly turning away from capitalism and toward socialism and even communism as a viable alternative…This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society regarding socialism and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago” (reported in the Washington Times)

Over the past century, the American educational establishment has morphed from classical education teaching literacy, mathematics, and the uniqueness of the American Constitutional Republic into an education system that puts equality of outcome above all else. Progressive educators bypass the horrors created by socialist regimes and instead they promote the siren song of egalitarianism.

Unfortunately, the generations that lived through the horrors of socialism have mostly passed away and the tribal knowledge gained is being interred with them. Our educational system has failed subsequent generations by playing up the theoretical benefits of socialism instead of the historical disasters, and by teaching relativist theory that all systems of government are equally valid. History is repeating itself all over the world, including here in America, but teach the relativist theory that all systems of government are equally valid and that one is as good as another.

Theoretically that may be true, but history and reality tell us that socialism, over time, has outstripped all other socioeconomic systems in the softness of their speech and the brutality of their actions.

The preceding originally appeared on themainewire.com, a news and opinion service of The Maine Heritage Policy Center conservative think tank.

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