New U.N. 'Study' Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs

A new United Nations climate report declares that the end of the world is almost at hand--unless we all submit to “sweeping global intervention,” as the New Jersey Star-Ledger puts it in an editorial, GOP must get on board with climate crisis, or we'll all pay the price:

Twelve years. That's the time we have to make drastic reductions in our fossil fuel consumption or we will reach a tipping point in the fight against climate change, and if humanity blows this deadline, the results will be biblical.


A UN report released Monday said that without sweeping global intervention, we can expect more floods and rising sea levels. More food shortages and more poverty. More extreme weather, wildfires, and droughts. The endangerment of hundreds of millions of lives, and a global refugee crisis.

The only way it can be addressed, the climate scientists say, is with an unprecedented political will, which is why environmental stewardship should be a precondition for anyone seeking elected office in 27 days.

The problem is you cannot find a GOP House candidate from New Jersey who has shown much of that will lately: Their environmental records - on cap and trade, carbon tax, and President Trump's demolition of regulations on coal or auto emissions - are generally disqualifying with the livability of our planet at stake.

They have two choices: They can acknowledge the scope of this massive challenge, and admit that this UN report means changes to how we live, how we eat, how we develop cities and agricultural systems, and "unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society." *

My emphasis. I left these comments:

“Unprecedented political will?” Wrong. We’ve seen this movie before. Marxian socialism (Soviet Russia, Communist China), National Socialism (Nazi Germany). They were ideologically-driven efforts to engineer, from the top down, "unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society."

The UN report is the latest in a decades-old line of apocalyptic predictions, all of which utterly failed. Instead, we’ve seen a steady improvement in human living standards around the world, driven by expanding freedom of markets and rising use of reliable, economical energy, mostly fossil fuels. More food, more clean water, better structures, innovative industries, better jobs. The list goes on. It adds up to a vast and steady improvement in “the livability of our planet,” which is the whole point of industrialization. A climate crisis has always dogged mankind. Far from being something new, we are less at risk from climate-related danger than ever. What we need is the freedom to choose the best energy source available for human benefit, including coal and nuclear.

12 years left? Give me a break. The UN report is not science. It is more politically motivated speculation. Everyone wants to be safer from climate dangers. But “climate science” has become political because it’s not about climate. It is about power and control. “Environmental stewardship” is the latest buzzword for totalitarianism. The Left wants it because it’s a path to democratic socialism, the latest incarnation of Marxism, which requires top-down government control.

For a balanced, pro-humanist view, one must go outside the politically motivated “establishment,” to people like Ronald Bailey and Alex Epstein. As for me, the Democratic Party’s embrace of climate catastrophism is one more reason not to vote Democratic.

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If you doubt that climate catastrophism is tied to a socialist agenda, then consider the opening paragraphs of the summary for policymakers of the UN Report:

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday.

The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C was approved by the IPCC on Saturday in Incheon, Republic of Korea. It will be a key scientific input into the Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland in December, when governments review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.

"With more than 6,000 scientific references cited and the dedicated contribution of thousands of expert and government reviewers worldwide, this important report testifies to the breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC," said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC.

Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries prepared the IPCC report in response to an invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when it adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The report's full name is Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.

The italics are in the original. The red is my emphasis. These emphasized portions speak for themselves. But let me clarify. “Ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society” does not mean more free market capitalism, the only truly equitable system because it features a government that protects individual rights. It means more forced egalitarian government policies. “Efforts to eradicate poverty” means control of business and industry and massive redistribution of wealth. “The breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC” means the report’s agenda is more about furthering a statist political agenda than dealing with some sort of “climate crisis”. “Global response” means a massive transfer of wealth from the U.S. and other advanced countries to developing countries in order to keep those countries’ development “sustainable”--that is, at a low, energy-starved (non-fossil fuel) level.

At least that’s my take on this report. It's a call for global central planning over everyone's lives and property--especially prosperous people--by powerful elites. What other conclusion can one draw? After all, who generates the most greenhouse gas? Prosperous people. 

* [See United Nations, Climate Action, "1.5C is still possible but requires unprecedented and urgent actions," second paragraph]

Related Reading:

Paris Climate Agreement Adopted: New Central Plan for the World’s Economy and Climate—Ronald Bailey for Reason.com

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey

The sustainability myth—Alex Epstein

Trump Provides the Right Kind of Leadership in Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord

To Defeat Discrimination, Let them ‘Discriminate in the Open’

Pierre-Guy Veer, a self-described “gay libertarian,” posted a great article on the Foundation for Economic Education titled I Don't Want Anyone Forced to Bake Me a Cake. Here are some excerpts:

[M]any liberals stand by the ACLU’s faulty reasoning that businesses open to the public must serve everyone – it’s not “personal” property anymore. Faulty because it implies that, once you start selling a product or service, you automatically lose your right to freely and voluntarily interact with other people. It’s opened to the public, so it suddenly becomes public “property” and the business owner loses any say in who he or she does business with.

So anti-discrimination laws applied to the private sector violate individual rights, in this case rights to freedom of association and contract.

But Veer doesn’t stop there. He shows that legalizing discrimination is a very effective anti-discrimination tool:

So instead of having government force businesses to serve anyone, I want it to let them discriminate in the open. This way, I know exactly where not to do business.

With bigots exposed by their own actions, opponents can peacefully (non-coercively) fight back, for example, with boycotts. Veer cites several examples of successful boycotts.

And this is the crux of the matter. Freedom works both ways. The only sure way to weed bad behavior (or bad ideas like so-called “hate speech”) out of the culture is to leave bad actors free to broadcast their beliefs, and then defeat or marginalize them in the open air of freedom. Legal bans only end up driving it underground, allowing it to metastasize without scrutiny. Even if a boycott is unsuccessful at bankrupting or getting a business to change its behavior, each of us is free not to patronize the business. That is the civil way for people to deal with their differences.

Worse, legal bans threaten the freedom of all of us, by putting government in charge of dictating who we may associate with and what ideas we are allowed to express--a sure road to tyranny.

If you value freedom, you must be prepared to stand up for the rights of people who engage in unsavory behavior. This article makes a good case for why this truth is so. Read I Don't Want Anyone Forced to Bake Me a Cake by Pierre-Guy Veer and heed his advice.

Related Reading:

Private Sector Anti-Discrimination Laws are Rights-Violating and Destructive

How to Overcome Bigotry in a Free Society

Does rescinding laws banning private discrimination make a moral statement in support of bigotry?

Freedom, not Laws, is the Answer to Defeating Bigotry

Fighting Anti-Private Discrimination Laws: The Role of Principles in the Fight for Freedom

There is No ‘Right to Equal Treatment’; Only the Right to ‘Equal Protection of the Law’

QUORA: ‘Do people with disabilities fall behind in capitalistic societies?’

QUORA* : ‘Do people with disabilities fall behind in capitalistic societies?’

I posted this answer:

Looking at the issue from a “get ahead” versus “fall behind” perspective is the wrong way to think about it. Life is not a race, where everyone must “keep up.” Human society is not an ant colony or bee hive or herd of buffalo, but an association of individuals. In a capitalist society, the association is built on voluntarism rather than force.

The great danger of any society is restrictions on individual flourishing, not holding anyone back. “Capitalistic” means freedom based on individual rights. One of the great moral virtues of capitalism is that no one is stopped from flourishing according to her ability, ambition, personal values, and other individual factors.

As to disability, no social system has ever provided more opportunity for the disabled to survive and even flourish than capitalism. Capitalism—free minds, free markets, and economic success-through-trade—fosters technological and industrial progress, which requires less and less physical labor and more and more intellectual labor—a trend that definitely favors the physically disabled. The freedom of business and entrepreneurialism to turn scientific knowledge and inventive ideas into useful products and services leads to prosthetics, medications, and workplace tools that enable people of limited abilities to become productive. The prosperity that capitalistic society enables also leads to increasing amounts of investable savings in the hands of productive individuals, the very “surplus” wealth from which philanthropy and charity are built.

I can’t imagine a better society for people with disabilities, not to mention the elderly, than a free capitalist society.

Related Reading:

The Poor, Disabled, and Helpless Under Capitalism--Craig Biddle

Prosthetics Violinist--Thanks to Courage and Capitalism

Serviceman Who Lost Leg Carries Woman Across Finish Line—Thanks to Prosthetics Industry

Koni Dole: Loses a Leg, Shines in Football Anyway

Humans Are Building Better Versions of Themselves—Mike Riggs for REASON

QUORA *: 'How is capitalism good despite the fact that it creates higher and lower classes?'

QUORA *: 'How is capitalism good despite the fact that it creates higher and lower classes?'

I posted this answer:

Capitalism doesn’t create classes. It eliminates them, by establishing a government that equally protects every individual’s freedom based on individual rights.

Only statism/collectivism creates classes, or castes: e.g., legally enforced group status like aristocrats and peasants, masters and slaves, etc., from which no one can escape. Under capitalism, no one can stop any individual from rising or falling based on his own efforts, so long as his efforts involve only voluntary, non-rights violating agreement, association, and trade with others. (Economic inequality is not classism under capitalism. It is merely a reflection of the individuality and diversity of human nature.)

Today, capitalism doesn’t exist in unadulterated form. Only mixed economies exist--mixtures of statism and free enterprise. Observe that the modern regulatory welfare state increasingly locks people into stagnation—the poor through welfare dependency and reliance on government schools, big business into entrenched dominance over smaller upstarts via cronyism and regulation. Trade groups into quasi-monopoly status via occupational licensure laws and the like.

People can always be divided into statistical groups based on whatever criteria one chooses, and be labeled “classes”—even in a laissez-faire capitalist society. But only capitalism establishes a truly classless society, on principle: that is, a society that banishes rigid social stratification based on wealth, heredity, custom, religion, or other criteria sanctioned and enforced by law and regulation.

* [Quora is a social media website founded by two former Facebook employees. According to Wikipedia:

Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited and organized by its community of users. The company was founded in June 2009, and the website was made available to the public on June 21, 2010.[3]Quora aggregates questions and answers to topics. Users can collaborate by editing questions and suggesting edits to other users' answers.[4]

You can also reply to other users’ answers.]

Related Reading:

What is Capitalism—Ayn Rand

The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire—Andrew Bernstein

The Great Achievement of Christopher Columbus

Columbus Day has become controversial. Critics, mostly on the Left, point to Christopher Columbus's brutal treatment of New World natives and support for slavery, which they claim override his exploratory achievements that set in motion the train of events that led to the Enlightenment and ultimately the birth of America. Which holds sway; Columbus's undeniable bad aspects or his positives, which led to the such monumental turning points such as the abolition of slavery throughout most of the world?

History is messy. There are very few total heroes or total villains. Historical context is crucial, and the ultimate evaluation of any achievement must be weighed against this context and the totality of the person. On balance, from a humanitarian perspective, was Columbus a positive or negative force in the overall sweep of history?

Count me on the positive side. As my tribute to Christopher Columbus on this, his day, I present selected excerpts from selected articles by other writers:

Columbus Day Celebrates Western Civilization

By Thomas Bowden

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World.

We need not evade or excuse Columbus’s flaws--his religious zealotry, his enslavement and oppression of natives--to recognize that he made history by finding new territory for a civilization that would soon show mankind how to overcome the age-old scourges of slavery, war, and forced religious conversion.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose philosophers and mathematicians, men such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Euclid, displaced otherworldly mysticism by discovering the laws of logic and mathematical relationships, demonstrating to mankind that reality is a single realm accessible to human understanding.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose scientists, men such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, banished primitive superstitions by discovering natural laws through the scientific method, demonstrating to mankind that the universe is both knowable and predictable.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose political geniuses, men such as John Locke and the Founding Fathers, defined the principles by which bloody tribal warfare, religious strife, and, ultimately, slavery could be eradicated by constitutional republics devoted to protecting life, liberty, property, and the selfish pursuit of individual happiness.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose entrepreneurs, men such as Rockefeller, Ford, and Gates, transformed an inhospitable wilderness populated by frightened savages into a wealthy nation of self-confident producers served by highways, power plants, computers, and thousands of other life-enhancing products.

On Columbus Day, in sum, we celebrate Western civilization as history’s greatest cultural achievement. What better reason could there be for a holiday?

In another op-ed on Fox News.com, Let's Take Back Columbus Day, Bowden said this:

We’ve been taught that Columbus opened the way for rapacious European settlers to unleash a stream of horrors on a virgin continent: slavery, racism, warfare, epidemic, and the cruel oppression of Indians.

This modern view of Columbus represents an unjust attack upon both our country and the civilization that made it possible. Western civilization did not originate slavery, racism, warfare, or disease--but with America as its exemplar, that civilization created the antidotes. How? By means of a set of core ideas that set Western civilization apart from all others: reason and individualism.

Excerpts from an op-ed in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, October 10, 2008

Columbus was a hero

By Dimitri Vassilaros

Christopher Columbus could not have discovered a better spokesman than Thomas A. Bowden.

The accomplishments of Columbus should speak for themselves. But thanks to political correctness, the moronic multicultural mob keeps talking them down. Mr. Bowden has been speaking passionately and forcefully about Columbus for years.

"My ancestors were savages," says Bowden matter-of-factly. Everyone can say the same, depending on how far back one is willing to look at lineage. "It's nothing racial or ethnic; it's historical fact."

"Columbus critics have a disguised criticism of Western civilization because Europeans replaced Stone Age Indians. They believe that this continent would have been better off without Europeans, that industrial civilization is an evil that is to be lamented and regretted.

"That is the real criticism of Columbus. I reject it completely."

Indians typically were widely scattered Stone Age tribes, he says. "They had little agriculture and lived in poverty, fear, ignorance and superstition. They had no concept of government, ownership or private property rights.

"Slavery was perfectly common.

Well, didn't Indians at least live in harmony with nature?

"No," says Bowden. "Man should not live in harmony with nature in the sense of simply keeping it pristine. We live by impacting the environment. The environment has no intrinsic value. Our civilization is more in harmony with nature by making it serve our ends."

Well, what about all the land supposedly stolen from the Indians by European settlers?

Indians did not own the vast reaches of land that they traveled on, Bowden says. Ownership of land is deserved, he says. By that, he means a settler can acquire property rights by making the land more valuable by, say, digging it up for farming. Or to build his homestead or business.

Columbus essentially was an explorer and discoverer bringing Western civilization's cures, science and technology, he says. The philosophical legal process was another gift the Europeans gave to the Indians, he says. "Indians got all that for free."

Columbus' critics should fall down on their knees and thank the Founding Fathers for creating a nation based on the moral principle of the individual's right to life, liberty and, Bowden stresses, the selfish pursuit of happiness.

"It's the only nation that came about in such a way. Anyone who has humanity's interest at heart should love America," he says.

Excerpts from Man's Best Came With Columbus—Michael S. Berliner

Did Columbus “discover” America? Yes, in every important respect. This does not mean that no human eye had been cast on America before Columbus arrived. It does mean that Columbus brought America to the attention of the civilized world, i.e., the developing scientific civilizations of Western Europe. The result, ultimately, was the United States of America. It was Columbus’s discovery for Western Europe that led to the influx of ideas and people on which this nation was founded and on which it still rests. The opening of America brought the ideas and achievements of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and the thousands of thinkers, writers, and inventors who followed. What they replaced was a way of life dominated by fatalism, passivity, superstition, and magic.

Happy Columbus Day

Related Viewing:

Columbus Day Without Guilt—Thomas A. Bowden

Related Reading:

The enemies of Christopher Columbus—Thomas A. Bowden

Opposing Views:

On Christopher Columbus, the Far Left Is Correct—Bryan Caplan

Save Humans from the Earth Savers

A recent Trump Administration report raised Leftist eyebrows by including a prediction of a 7-degree fahrenheit rise in global temperature above pre-industrial (1880) levels by the year 2100. The New Jersey Star-Ledger jumped on it. In Trump says the planet's screwed, so let's burn as much fossil fuel as we can, the Star-Ledger editorialized:

First the good news: Science may no longer be the greatest casualty in Donald Trump's war on truth, as his official position on climate change has made a tangible shift from "Chinese hoax" and "nonsense."

The bad news is that while his administration now acknowledges the reality of climate change, his policy is essentially this: The planet's screwed, so let's feel free to burn as much fossil fuel as we can.

That is the message contained within an environmental impact statement drafted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which was written to justify Trump's recent decision to freeze fuel efficiency standards on cars and light trucks.

The Washington Post found it buried on Page 191 of a 500-page report: At the current pace, the planet will warm by 4 degrees Celsius (7 Fahrenheit) by 2100, which scientists assert will be catastrophic, so the report concludes that there is no point in trying to prevent it.

"The emissions reductions necessary to keep global emissions within this carbon budget could not be achieved solely with drastic reductions in emissions from the U.S. car and light truck vehicle fleet," said the NHTSA, adding that the only significant change can come by a "move away from the use of fossil fuels," which is "not currently technologically feasible or economically practicable."

My emphasis. The rest of the column degenerates into an apocalyptic tirade urging us to “invest in life jackets and hazmat suits” for our grandkids, coupled with the usual cry of It’s Climate Change! In response to every unpleasant weather event.

I left these comments:

The best environmental protection humans have ever invented is industrial progress. That requires plentiful reliable, economical, clean energy; i.e. fossil fuels combined with advanced anti-pollution technologies, which we now have. The real threat to future generations is the drive by the climate catastrophists to cripple industrialization and prosperity by attacking the fossil fuel industry--the very energy needed to increase prosperity for future generations.

Trump’s energy and climate policy is exactly right: First, Do No Harm! Especially to Americans. Fossil fueled industrial progress has made us safer than ever from the danger-filled climate. Climate-related deaths have declined 98% over the past century. At the same time, our standard of living has skyrocketed. To this day, fossil fuels continue to drive Third World lives up from poverty. Reliable energy is CRITICAL to continued progress. Any policy to drive up energy prices and availability by FORCIBLY reducing fossil fuels in favor of technologically and economically unreliable “renewables” would cause a human catastrophe dwarfing the alleged harms (if any) we MAY see from climate change. Thank god the Earth savers didn’t get their way 100 years ago.

“Scientists assert” is really “Government scientists speculate.” The warming may come true, or more likely be another failed apocalyptic prediction. But the positives to human life of fossil fuels--and the other “dirty” reliables, nuclear and hydro--far outweigh the climate risks. We only get one side of the story from the Earth savers. Go outside the government (political) establishment to the “skeptics” for a balance view; Alex Epstein, Ronald Bailey, [Paul] Mulshine’s [Star-Ledger] columns, etc. You’ll find a wealth of knowledge to counter the anti-humanist climate catastrophism.

Related Reading:

‘Climate Denier’: The Leitmotif of the Climate Propagandist

Droughts No Match for Fossil-Fueled Industrial Agriculture

Are Floods More Frequent, as Climate Alarmists Claim?  by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul Knappenberger

Trends in Extreme Weather Events since 1900 – An Enduring Conundrum for Wise Policy Advice—Journal of Geography & Natural Disasters

It is widely promulgated and believed that human-caused global warming comes with increases in both the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. A survey of official weather sites and the scientific literature provides strong evidence that the first half of the 20th century had more extreme weather than the second half, when anthropogenic global warming is claimed to have been mainly responsible for observed climate change. The disconnect between real-world historical data on the 100 years’ time scale and the current predictions provides a real conundrum when any engineer tries to make a professional assessment of the real future value of any infrastructure project which aims to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

The Truth About Sea Levels—Alex Epstein

Assume 6 Feet of Sea Level Rise: Predict Catastrophe—Useful science or worst case scaremongering? by Ronald Bailey

LINKS of Interest:

Q: What nation on Earth has reduced its carbon emissions more than any other?

Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter

Recently, I shared Democrats Are the Party of Fatalism by Michael Hurd on Facebook. Hurd argues that the Democrats’ collectivist agenda undermines belief in free will. Since free will is fundamental to the case for individual rights, this undermining of free will leads to full-blown totalitarian socialism.

It was re-shared by my wife and triggered a conversation with two Leftist friends on her page. The essential point Hurd was making about the link between free will and liberty wasn’t really addressed. Instead, the conversation turned to Trump being the real totalitarian, not the Democrats or democratic socialism. One correspondent, who I will identify as “two”, wrote in part:

[W]e are currently headed towards totalitarianism with Trump's policies of "his way" or the highway. . . Democratic socialism is different than totalitarianism and works well in many countries. Everyone points to Venezuela as an example of what can happen but Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Canada etc have a great standard of living.

I left these comments regarding the emphasized portions:

Germany, England, the Scandinavian countries, Canada, et al are NOT socialist. Socialism is the political implementation of the principle that the interests of “society” as represented by government take precedence over individual interests. Therefore, socialism denies individual rights, including rights to property and free trade: He exists to serve the interests of society as determined by the state. Socialism, to be socialism, has to deny individual choice (individual rights). Unlike capitalism, which exists to the extent government refrains from interfering in people’s individual private decisions, socialism exists only to the extent government forcibly overrides people’s right to live by their own judgement and personal pursuits. Adding “democratic” in front of socialism changes essentially nothing. Why do democratic socialists turn to politics? “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”-- and so democratic socialists seek political power: Socialism grows out of the barrel of a gun. It is, of necessity, totalitarian. What else but the total state can be possible under a social system that subordinates the individual to a government endowed with the power to carry out the creed of societal supremacy? [See my reply to [correspondent one’s] dictionary comparison of Socialism vs. Totalitarianism posted below.]

These European countries are not socialist (although Germany WAS once socialist, under NAZI rule). They, like America, are mixed economy welfare states. Unlike totalitarian socialism, Western welfare states still have a healthy degree of free enterprise to facilitate continued prosperity and finance the burden of the welfare state, differing only in the balance between the two. Venezuela is a prime example, among many prime examples, of socialism properly instituted.

It’s important to get this understanding right, because most Democrats now view socialism more positively than capitalism, according to Gallup. Welfare statism is different in crucial respects from democratic socialism. The limited socialism of the welfare state requires the same statist powers as full socialism. But its goal, in theory, is a “safety net” for capitalism, not a replacement--i.e., a mixed economy; that is, a mixture, albeit a tense one, between socialism and capitalism. Under the Western style welfare state, individual rights and free enterprise is still fundamental, and socialism is limited in scope so much freedom remains. Democratic socialism implies no limits. The distinction is important. No longer content with the limits of the welfare state, and driven by hatred of freedom, capitalism, and achievement, the Democrats are now in the process of “graduating” to full blown totalitarian socialism, including massive central control and strict economic regimentation. It won’t be easy to bring about in America. But once we start down this road, the result will be the same as it always is--loss of economic, political, and intellectual freedom, growing economic paralisis and eventual collapse, massive human suffering, and the total state. What else can one expect when the individual is subordinated to the collective? Of what importance are hordes of suffering individuals next to whatever grand utopian collectivist ideal the state happens to want to impose “for the good of society?”

No doubt, Trump has an authoritarian streak--his antitrust threats against Amazon for Bezos’s WAPO editorial criticisms; his regulatory threats against Google for alleged search engine “bias”; his tax bullying of U.S. multinational corporations; his threat of stronger libel laws against reporters. But this is penny-ante statism next to democratic socialism. Totalitarian? Based on what ideology? Trump doesn’t even have one! Next to democratic socialism, Trump is a schoolyard bully. Democratic socialism is the Al Capone crime organization, rising out of the underworld to rule a nation. Democratic socialism is across the board a criminal enterprise, but with law as protector rather than adversary. It makes the Al Capones of history look like pickpockets.

If you like Germany, then stick with what Germany actually is, a Western-style mixed economy welfare state. We can at least debate the relative balance between capitalism and socialism. Freedom and prosperity, at least, has a chance. But be aware of what you’re advocating if you declare your allegiance to socialism, democratic or otherwise--the total subordination of individual to state.
As to Socialism vs. Totalitarianism, I analized it, summarizing as follows:

This confirms there is no essential difference. A government that owns and regulates the means of production, exchange, and distribution; that can distribute all of a country’s money equally; in which government rather than individual people owns all industry, is a government with total control over the economy. Economics is the field of activity by which people support their lives. A government that totally controls the economy has total control over people’s means of survival. A government with total control over people's means of survival is a government that has every individual by the throat. What freedom, what opposition, is possible under such conditions? Does it matter whether you have a single ruler or a politburo? Whether it is elected or not? A government, of whatever kind, that has every individual by the throat IS a totalitarian state. Logic confirms this truth. History has proven this time and again.

Correspondent one attempted to deflect the label “socialism” by linking to Bernie Sanders is not a socialist. Socialism is dead by Hunter Baker. Of course, I read the article and replied:

The key to understanding why Baker is wrong is this statement: “I am defining socialism by its true meaning, which is that the state owns the means of production and operates them on behalf of the people.” That definition is no longer valid.

Western socialists have long understood that they could never get away with seizing all ownership, given the deep Western respect for private enterprise. So they adopted a policy of total CONTROL, while leaving technical ownership in private hands. It’s called fascism. We are already getting a taste of the Democrats’ new totalitarian direction in the resurrection of an idea rejected by Democrats in the 1970s, Elizabeth Warren's proposed bill to federally charter corporations. This goes much further than regulations. Chartering would effectively require corporations with $1 billions in sales--not big by today’s standards--to get permission from government to operate and putting them under political control. That is pure fascism. That is socialism. Since we’re posting articles, I have 2 on this subject--one of them mine. The links are below.

As to Sanders, he understands this. His goal is to sanitize the concept, so as to lay the groundwork for totalitarian socialism down the road. Democratic socialism can be a cover for any government program to restrict liberty, and Sanders knows it. He is a deceitful snake. He is the most evil politician in America.

For what it’s worth:

We Need a Deeper Understanding of Socialism

Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian by George Reisman

Related Reading:

The Myth of Scandinavian Socialism

Elizabeth Warren’s Plan — We’ve Seen This Before--Stephen Hicks