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Russell G. Lloyd, Jr., Viewpoint Published 9:47 p.m. CT Oct. 8, 2020

As the November elections rapidly approach I continue to be dismayed to see our young people marching and chanting to the banner of the new socialists in our midst. Whether its called democratic socialism or the old revolutionary Marxism the results are always the same: disastrous economics, poverty and loss of freedom where ever applied.

Free market capitalism is the economic system thats lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the globe. When you combine free markets with a democratic government and the rule of law, the United States and western democracies have flourished for nearly 250 years in unparalleled freedom for their people with growing innovation and prosperity. So why do our young people turn away from free markets and capitalism to advocate for socialism?

Briefly I would like to compare these two vastly different economic systems.

Free market capitalism requires the rule of law, free and fair trade, private property and individual ownership that is protected by a fair court system, relatively low taxes, capital markets, freedom to travel and a military having a small percent of ownership or participation in the economy. The best examples of countries that have free markets and participatory democracies include Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. You can check out the Index of Economic Freedom to see a ranking of the top performing countries.

On the other hand, socialism and itsdespicable cousin communism include societal components where the central government elites set the rules and enforce them to control the population, most times against their will. Socialist economies have high levels of government ownership of land, property, resources and businesses.

The state owns much of the natural resources but allows favored private enterprises to develop them under strict and sometimes confiscatory agreements. Citizens have limited rights, are under surveillance, many times cant travel out of the country and generally cant criticize the state. The courts and justice system operate at the direction of the state and typical have large prison populations that include political prisoners. With the government controlling a large share of the economy taxes are usually high and the military constitutes a large share of production, gross domestic product and business activity.

The repressive societies and economies are evident in states such as Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Venezuela and the old Soviet Union, Eastern bloc and pre 1980s Communist China.

How can these systems be attractive to our young people? Former socialist countries like India, Mexico, Vietnam and Hungary are moving to the free market capitalist model. Unfortunately the free market economy of Hong Kong appears to be going the other way as Communist China attempts to exert more control over the island. We see people trying to flee these rotten economies while their governments move to keep them in.

In the last hundred years socialism and communism are responsible for the untimely deaths of millions of people, the enslavement of millions more while operating repressive governments with failed economic systems causing much poverty. Dont believe what Sanders and Ocasio Cortez are peddling socialism follows the same disastrous road that leads to Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung with imprisonment, loss of freedom, untimely death and poverty the result.

The United States has the greatest economic system created by man, free market capitalism, when coupled with representative democracy it is the envy of the world! Lets work to improve it. And move to put socialism in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Russell G. Lloyd, Jr. is the current city controller and former mayor of Evansville. The opinions here are his personal views and do not represent the City of Evansville.

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Viewpoint: Socialism is not the answer - Courier & Press

Editors note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com

Socialism in the US? Really!! Even Communist China gave up Socialism. After 25 years of totalitarian Communist Rule and Socialist Economic policies, China came to the conclusion that Socialism was a failure, the famine and the death that Socialism caused eventually threatened Chinas Communist Party rule and China was moving toward anarchy and the destruction of Chinese Totalitarian Communist Party control and power.

The Chinese people were rising up and ready to take back their government. In order to save all the Communist Power over the people, the Communists decided to discard their chosen Socialist Economic structure and embrace Market Economic policies if not just to try to keep their power over their people. It worked!! Over the last 50 years China has first been able to feed its people, excellent, keep its people from taking down the Communist Power Structure, and now looking toward becoming a rival to the U.S. Superpower. Quite the accomplishment.

But even though China abandoned Socialism long ago, they do not support a Free Market System like here in the West. No Communism does not allow freedom, China requires total control. Is this what our leftist friends want for the United States? Do they realize or even recognize Communist China got rid of Socialism long ago? Because everywhere its been truly tried, its killed tens of thousands of people by hunger and violence, mainly perpetrated by authoritarian government leaders? Socialism is, will be, and has always been a train wreck.

The inventor of Socialism Karl Marx, an admitted racist, thought he got it all right, but actually got it all wrong. Socialism does not work, and invariably leads to death and despair. History shows this in every historic case. Dont fall for the argument theres a utopia of a pure Socialist system, it does not and will never exist.

Human nature will be human nature and Socialism will always fail to live up to how Karl Marx thought humans would react and respond. Racist Carl Marx is discredited in every way. Even in and by Communist China.

Barry MannieVancouver

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Letter: 'Socialism does not work, and invariably leads to death and despair. History shows this in every historic case' - clarkcountytoday.com

When Vice President Joe Biden won the Democratic primary earlier this year, it was ablow to the independent progressive and left forces, which had been working hard in support of more progressive candidates like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. People grieved, then rallied. The most important thing now, many have reasoned, is to oust President Donald Trump from office, even if it means backing acandidate who does not share the same core values youdo.

Now, in the final weeks before the election, progressive and left organizations are working hard to get out the vote for acandidate many of them dont feel enthusiastic about. In the process, theyre aiming to build astronger, independentleft.

LeftRoots, asocialist organization, doesnt normally get involved in campaigns. The organization educates and trains community organizers (mostly people of color and women) across the country in political education and strategy development, with the goal of establishing 21st century socialism in the UnitedStates.

This year is different. In the wake of acatastrophic Trump presidency, LeftRoots took astep back to review the whole picture. Several times aweek the organization mobilizes its members and networks to canvass, phone bank and text bank for Biden through Seed the Vote, avolunteer-based coalition working with already-existing groups providing grassroots efforts to get out thevote.

In this moment, defeating not just Trump, but also the forces that he represents, is our number one task, says Milena Velis, LeftRoots training director. Thats because of the real danger this white supremacist authoritarian minority thats vying to take control of the country right now poses for our communities and for our organizing goingforward.

Campaigning for Biden has not been an easy decision. The establishment Democrat, who voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and rejects key left demands like Medicare for All, doesnt reflect the socialist values that LeftRoots holds. Biden is not aleft-wing candidate, Velis explains. It requires us to both be honest and to not lose sight of our vision. We have to be talking about much bigger change than Bidens platformpolicy.

In its recently released situational objective document, LeftRoots says that left forces working to oust Trump should not hide our politics, nor become subsumed within the Democratic Party. Rather, the group says it sees the defeat of Trump not as an ending, but as the launching point for new struggle. The organization argues that whenever possible we should be open socialists against Trump, voting for Biden, defendingdemocracy.

So far, the call to action appears to be working. The enthusiasm from the LeftRoots community around getting out the vote has been strong, despite the many other issues staff and volunteers juggle. Many folks who are on the frontlines of community organizations, who are really engaged in fights against evictions, or trying to fight for labor protections for workers, at the end of the long day are getting on the phones for two hours to call someone in aswing state, Velis says. We have parents who are home with their kids, squeezing in afew hours to text folks on aweekend. This is really the time to throwdown.

LeftRoots is just one of many groups working to support Seed the Votes campaign effort in swing states, particularly Pennsylvania, Florida andArizona.

This years mission is to fill the gap in the Biden campaigns outreach, which appears to be neglecting to reach some marginalized communities with apowerful voting pool. In activating those people who have traditionally been left out, Seed the Vote hopes to nurture and build onto its existing base of voters and volunteers, creating amovement independent of the Democratic Party that can be activated forchange.

We dont know what the next weeks of the campaign will bring, but one thing is clear, wrote Emily Lee of Seed the Vote and Peter Hogness of Water For Grassroots in New York in arecent Guardian op-ed. Defeating Donald Trump is too important to leave up to the Bidencampaign.

The solution, they argue, lies in supporting established grassroots organizers who already have connections to communities that are at risk of voter suppression, or who arent yet registered tovote.

In conversations with disenchanted voters, agroup doing long-term organizing can have more credibility than acandidates campaign, state Lee and Hogness. Theyre working in the community 12 months ayear, not just appearing at election time, extracting avote, and thenvanishing.

These on-the-ground organizations, however, dont always have the staff or volunteer base available to run operations for amajor campaign, particularly in dense urban areas. Seed the Vote draws from anational pool of volunteers, trains them on the needs of each geographic area, and deploys them to canvass or phone bank for small organizations. Often, community-based nonprofits or neighborhood groups are away to start aconversation with potential voters who the Biden campaign may overlook, or not be culturally adept to talk to. For example, the Biden campaign didnt ramp up efforts to target Puerto Rican voters in Florida until mid-September. Seed the Vote has been making Spanish-language calls in Florida since at least August.

In Florida, which Trump won by 112,911 votes in 2016, Seed the Vote partners with the New Florida Majority, which fights for inclusion of marginalized communities in the electoral process, and Mijente, which advocates for Latinxrights.

Florida is avital state to watch in the upcoming election. As the third most populous state in the country, it has 29 seats in the electoral college, and has historically goneRepublican.

Its not impossible to flip. The population of people of color in Florida has grown 25% since 2010. Florida now has the third largest Latinx electorate in the country, with 3.1 million eligible to vote. But race does not always connote apolitical stance. As Seed the Vote states on its website, we can expect that Trumps campaign will aggressively pursue Latinx people and other key groups in Florida through anti-abortion and anti-socialistfearmongering.

In Pennsylvania, Seed the Vote volunteers provide support for Pennsylvania Stands Up, an umbrella advocacy organization with nine networks statewide that supports candidates who fight for racial and social justice while battling voter suppression and working to get people to thepolls.

In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by only 44,292 votes. This year, those on the ground believe the state can be flipped, but it wont happen without aton ofwork.

Michaela Purdue Lovegood, the deputy executive director at Pennsylvania Stands Up, says that voter suppression is amajor concern for the upcomingelection.

When Ithink about the work of voter suppression, theres alot of work that we need to do around laws, and around really figuring out how do we change laws, how do we ensure that people show up at the voting polls, how do we ensure that people get our mail-in ballots, she says. All of those things we have to do, but we dually have to do the work to deal with the decolonization that exists in our minds about what our vote is, and what it cando.

Every Thursday Seed the Vote volunteers team up with Pennsylvania Stands Up to help state residents make sure they are registered to vote, and to ensure they understand theprocess.

The work doesnt stop there. Even during the pandemic, there is acall for volunteers to travel to high-density areas like Philadelphia to canvass for Biden. Simply put, research shows us that there is no more effective way to persuade someone to vote than through aface-to-face conversation, reads an information guide for Seed the Vote volunteers. That is why it is critically important that you and your friends travel to Philadelphia to bring locals to these polling centers. (The Biden campaign initially declined to do door-to-door canvassing, but recently reversed itsposition.)

Last but not least is Arizona, which Trump won by 91,234 votes in 2016. In this state, Seed the Vote partners with Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), which advocates for the rights of the states large Latinx population, and has been wildlysuccessful.

In a2019 New York Times op-ed, LUCHA founders Alejandra Gomez and Toms Robles Jr. state that Democrats have long treated communities of color as instruments of someone elses power rather than core progressives who should be instruments of their own power. This is despite the fact that there are 1.2 million eligible Latino voters in Arizona, making them ahighly impactful voterbase.

In the years since its creation, LUCHA has launched ahighly successful reclamation of that power. In the 2020 August primaries, 14 of the 15 legislative and county candidates LUCHA supported were victorious. In the primaries, LUCHA endorsed Sanders. The organization hasnt openly endorsed Biden, but its work hasnt stopped, and the mission is clear: kick Trump out ofoffice.

For organizers who campaigned hard for Senators Sanders or Warren only to see them lose, its important to keep their eyes on the horizon. Change happens in increments, and this is just one step toward amore progressivenation.

Biden is not our savior, write Lee and Hogness. In fact, if he wins, on many issues he may be our opponent. But defeating Trump will open possibilities for organizing that wont exist if he remains inoffice.

While existing organizations continue their legacy of voter education and empowerment, new collaborations are beingborn.

Every four years theres achorus of voices that says this is the most important election of our lifetime, states Maurice Mitchell the national director for the Working Families Party. This year Iam one of those voices. Things are bad now, and they can get worse. But that doesnt have to be where our story ends. In the midst of an unprecedented crisis, there is much we can be hopeful and drivenby.

The Working Families Partywhich identifies itself as a progressive grassroots political party with chapters in 15 states nationwideis now part of anew movement christened The Frontline. Launched in September, The Frontline is acollaboration between several groups, including immigrant rights group United We Dream Action and the Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Project. Its acollaboration that centers the myriad experiences of people of color, uniting them toward one clearcause.

The movements goals are short and succinct: Mission one is to defeat Trump in alandslide, to make it harder for him to refuse to step down between the election and inauguration. Step two is to push candidates Biden and Kamala Harris policies furtherleft.

We must seize the opportunity in the first hundred days to lift up the demands our movements have been fighting for decades, Frontline volunteer Cindy Wiesner recently told Organizing Upgrade. We have an opportunity to make the BREATHE Act real. We have the capacity to pass aGreen New Deal, to continue to push for areal Peoples Bailout, not acorporatebailout.

The energy, organizers believe, is already there. The Black-led uprisings around the country in response to police violence has activated acommunity that is desperate for change. Black and Brown communities, meanwhile, are the ones Trump is working hardest to discredit and exclude through voter suppression andcriminalization.

Our lives and the lives of the people that we love depend on us fighting with everything weve got to overthrow the Trumpism, the white supremacy, the white nationalismall the harm that is being done by this administration to our communities, says Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson of the Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Project. We are committed, not to fighting for asavior on Pennsylvania Avenue, but to fighting for our next target. And we will come as hard at the new administration that we hope will follow the Trump administration as we are at Trump rightnow.

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The Socialists and Progressives Working Outside of the Biden Campaign to Oust Trump - In These Times

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Judge Amy Coney BarrettAmy Coney BarrettLike Scalia, Amy Coney Barrett shares an 'originalist' view on Second Amendment Senators dial down rhetoric at Barrett hearing after 2018 Kavanaugh brawl Twitter reacts to Barrett misspeaking about approaching cases with an 'open wine': 'Me too, girl' MORE come as the Supreme Courts nascent Second Amendment jurisprudence is at an important inflection point. So far, the court has clearly held only that the Constitution protects the right to keep a handgun in ones home for self-protection. The most practically important questions that have not yet been answered have to do with carrying firearms in public. The justices have hinted that there is such a right, but they have not determined what limits on that right they will recognize, or how far legislatures may go in restricting it.

For the past 10 years, the Supreme Court has been dragging its feet by refusing to hear any cases that raise this issue. Several members of the court have protested against this inaction, and it looks as though the next justice may be able to get the court off the dime. If that turns out to be Barrett, we can expect her to provide an intelligent and faithful interpretation of the Constitution.

Such an approach is particularly important on this issue at this time because America has been experiencing an extraordinary plague of violent political unrest. Most of the riots and other forms of political violence in recent years have been connected to specific allegations of police misconduct and to broader claims about pervasive racial bias in the use of lethal force by police.

Most dramatically, the nation was swept this summer by mass protests after several incidents in which such bias was imputed to police officers who were involved in confrontations that turned violent. No one at the time could have known what mixture of truth and fiction there was in the assumptions made by those who took to the streets. Despite this uncertainty, and perhaps in part because of it, many of the demonstrations were marked by arson, looting, beatings and murders of innocent victims.

Most strikingly, some state and local governments were visibly tolerant of the rioters. Public officials discouraged or forbade the use of standard crowd-control measures, and in some cases prevented the police from taking any action to protect innocent bystanders or their property. One city has experienced nightly riots for months on end. Another simply surrendered an area within its legal jurisdiction to thugs who had begun by attacking a police station. In some cases, prosecutors were disinclined to enforce the law against individuals who had been arrested. Prominent politicians promoted the defunding of the police, and some jurisdictions took concrete steps in that direction. Violent crime spiked sharply in some places, probably in part because the police became less aggressive in enforcing the law.

Barrett was a law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and she shares his originalist approach to constitutional interpretation. As it happens, Scalia wrote the seminal 2008 opinion inDistrict of Columbia v. Heller, which protects the right to keep a handgun in ones home. Last year, Barrett wrote a dissenting opinion in a Second Amendment case, which is even more proficient than Scalias.

InKanter v. Barr, the majority upheld a federal statute that imposed a lifetime firearms disability on a man who had been convicted of mail fraud. Barretts dissent thoroughly refuted a popular theory according to which the Founders thought the right to keep and bear arms is relinquished on conviction for any felony. She concluded that the historical evidence shows that legislatures at the time sought only to disarm classes of people who were considered dangerous.

But how much discretion should legislatures have in defining such classes? Barrett argued that a total and permanent deprivation of the right to possess arms would have to be substantially related to the prevention of violent crime, as well as closely tailored to that goal. She then showed that the governments evidence failed to demonstrate that mail fraud is a reliable predictor of future gun violence, and that the government presented no evidence that this particular convicted felon had shown any proclivity for violence.

Hellersignaled that the first places to look for the meaning of the Second Amendment are its text and the historical evidence that bears on how it was understood by those who enacted it. Barrett was faithful to that sensible teaching, as well as to the principle that definitive answers supplied by those sources are binding on the courts. But most questions wont be so easily answered. And when theyre not, judges have a great deal of discretion about the nature and degree of the burden they put on the government to justify infringements on the liberty of American citizens.

Barrett showed how to exercise that discretion by engaging in legal, rather than policy, analysis. HerKanterdissent is not the work of an ideologue. Rather, she conscientiously sought to respect what ScaliasHelleropinion called the interest balancing by the people that is reflected in the Second Amendment.

This summers civil unrest may be a prelude to a series of increasingly aggressive legislative disarmament efforts, which will call for careful and fearless review by the courts. Neither the Supreme Court nor most of the lower federal courts have recently exhibited much care or much courage in their approach to the Second Amendment. HerKanterdissent promises that a Justice Barrett would bring both of those virtues to her work, which would be good for the court, good for the Constitution, and good for American liberty.

Nelson Lund is a professor of Law at George Mason Universitys Antonin Scalia Law School.

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Like Scalia, Amy Coney Barrett shares an 'originalist' view on Second Amendment | TheHill - The Hill

Salesman Ryan Martinez holds a handgun at the Ready Gunner gun store In Provo, Utah, June 21, 2016.(George Frey/Reuters)

In my post arguing that the Founders wanted you to own AR-15, I contend that there was no mention of hunting during drafting debates over the Bill of Rights.

Professor Joseph Olson reminds me that the debates over ratification of the Bill of Rights in Pennsylvania did indeed mention hunting. (I write about this in detail in my cultural history of the gun.)

Here was the excellent suggestion offered by the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention on the topic of arms:

That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil powers.

James Madison ended up simplifying and distilling many suggestions, throwing in a comma that would be seized upon many years later. But the debate on ratification was over militias and standing armies, never over individual ownership of guns.

Hunting was likely only mentioned in the Pennsylvania convention as a precaution against English-style restrictions on ownership. The most famous example, the Game Act of 1671, made possession of a firearm by anyone unqualified to hunt (read, common men) illegal and provided a pretext for the Crown to confiscate weapons.

Many saw all of this as superfluous. Some argue that fear of the national government was overblown because there were so many guns in private hands it was unimaginable any tyrannical army could ever be more powerful than the general public. Noah Webster, writing as A Citizen of America, reasoned that the supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.

Not one person in the provisional government or at the Second Continental Congress or any delegate at the Constitutional Convention at any state ratifying convention is on the record arguing against the idea of individual firearm ownership. There is, however, a multitude of examples of leaders championing the importance of that right.

Eight of the 13 original states enshrined the right to gun ownership in their constitutions most with language more straightforward than that found in the Bill of Rights. The best was probably New Hampshires compact sentence: Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are or have been in Actual Rebellion.

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On the Second Amendment and Hunting - National Review