President Trump’s State of the Union address, as well as his speech at Florida International University today, hit back hard against the sludge-covered wave of socialist thought that has infested parts of our country. It was a big, glorious middle finger to the likes of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib – a bold statement of defiance informing these socialists that their dream of a Marxist plague will not happen.

“And to those who would try to impose socialism on the United States, we again deliver a very simple message: America will never be a socialist country,” Trump said toward the end of his speech in Miami on Monday.

This is exactly the type of rebellion we need in the US today, as a cancerous scourge of socialism tries to attach itself like so many pubic lice to the life source of our nation. Those unwilling to put in the effort to support themselves and to succeed are voting for politicians who will steal from their neighbors at the point of a government gun, while at the same time working to disarm those from whom they steal to ensure a “peaceful” transfer of wealth.

I’m thrilled that Donald Trump is standing up to these parasites, and brazenly telling them their dream is not going to happen, because the wholesale condemnation of those who have achieved economic success in this country is worrisome.

Men and women who have studied, worked, taken risks, and bled to achieve what only a few could are being condemned as parasites and told they shouldn’t exist.

Billionaires shouldn’t exist. Pass it on.

— Lee J. Carter (@carterforva) February 16, 2019

People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have a limited understanding of economics, and still look at wealth as a finite pie. Instead of growing the entire pie, Occasional-Cortex believes that billionaires are simply hogging most of it, while the rest of us are left with crumbs, without understanding that as the pie grows, more and more people earn bigger pieces of it.

“I’m not saying that Bill Gates or Warren Buffett are immoral, but a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong,” Ocasio-Cortez said during an event honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday.

It’s difficult to believe that this imbecile holds a degree in economics. Her professors at Boston University should either be embarrassed, or they are as frighteningly ignorant and incompetent as she is.

By condemning people who help grow the economy, Occasional-Cortex and her ilk want those whom they consider deserving of stealing the fruits of others’ labor, to have a piece of a much smaller economic pie. The socialists believe that somehow those who have made billions with their ingenuity and courage are taking away from those who haven’t, instead of providing a product for which people want to pay them money.

Canadian-born Guy Laliberte had nothing when he decided to take a small troupe of circus performers to the US. He took a chance that Americans would love what this group had to offer, and flew to LA without a return ticket. The self-made billionaire is now the CEO what became Cirque du Soleil. Do you think Cirque du Soleil would have been the raging success that it was if people weren’t willing to pay money to see the shows?

Howard Schultz – the former CEO of Starbucks – grew up in a housing complex for the poor. In 1987 Schultz became Starbucks CEO and grew the coffee chain from about 60 stores to more than 16,000 outlets worldwide. Schultz came up from nothing. Starbucks now employs thousands of people, pays them well above minimum wage, provides education benefits to veterans and their families, and allows its employees to progress and grow their careers from within.

How do I know this? My son started working at a Starbucks store as a barista when he was 16. This high school kid, who started this part time job at $10 per hour. Six months later, he was earning $15 as a trainer, and continued working there while in college, earning benefits and stock options. My son didn’t have to agitate for a “living wage.” He earned it.

Oprah Winfrey grew up in poverty and started off her career by becoming the first African American TV correspondent in Nashville. She’s now worth more than $3 billion. She came up from a local TV station to a national television show and has developed her own brand, her own broadcast network, and her own magazine. Oprah’s Harpo Studios alone employs roughly 13,000 people. Should she not exist? Does she not contribute to the economy?

The Jeff Bezos that Occasional-Cortex loves to malign started Amazon in his house. Amazon now employs more than half a million workers. Bill Gates started Microsoft in a garage, and he is now worth roughly $97 billion and is one of the biggest philanthropists in the world and employs 131,000 people worldwide.

Billionaires are employers, they help elevate the neighborhoods in which their companies locate, they employ thousands of people and provide opportunities for them to achieve and succeed. They invest in other ventures and provide a means for them to succeed. Those employees, in turn, rent and buy homes, they eat at restaurants, they contribute to charities, and they pay taxes.

These are the people Occasional-Cortex and crew want to tax out of existence. They are the producers, the inventors, the risk-takers, and the ones who put their blood, sweat, and tears into their businesses. These are the people who grow the economic pie, and penalizing them for  their success will disincentivize hard work and achievement. Taking away their earnings and redistributing them to those who have neither the skill nor the desire to reach that level of skill, knowledge, or ingenuity will simply remove the desire to work and achieve. Why bother striving to improve, if the government will simply steal from your neighbor and give it to you? Why bother remaining in the country, providing jobs, investing in new ventures, and growing that economic pie, if the government will simply take what you have produced and give it to those who haven’t?

Part of the reason I am a strong supporter of Virginia Delegate Nick Freitas is because he understands and appreciates the producers of the world and wants to ensure they have every incentive to remain, to earn, to contribute to their communities, to provide employment opportunities, and to flourish without some envious Marxist pointing a gun at their head and demanding they hand over their earnings to those who don’t have the skills or the knowledge to reach that level of achievement.

Socialism is nothing but institutionalized envy – a way to use government force against the thinkers, the producers, the investors, employers, and risk-takers who have achieved and earned more than you have. It’s the tool of the indolent and entitled, who believe they deserve a piece of their neighbors’ earnings precisely because they are less wealthy and less capable. They take up government force as their preferred way of doing business because they cannot or will not work hard enough to attain what others have, and the only way they know to elevate themselves in society is to pull others down.

If you steal from billionaires, they will have less, and you won’t look like an abject failure.

Socialism needs class envy. It needs worthless parasites to leech off the producers of society by voting for those who will use government guns to suck those producers dry. The outcome is that wealth creators will have less, and so will everyone else when you remove the incentive to grow, to create value, to succeed, to invest time and money in new ideas and ventures.

Socialism cannot be allowed to win, and the parasitic, anti-Semitic (is it any wonder that some of the most odious anti-Semites in Congress are Marxist?), adulterous, lying, hypocritical, barely employed, plagiarist sack of manure Karl Marx should be relegated to the trash bin of history where he belongs.

Featured photo: DIMSFIKAS Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (cropped, altered)