The darling of the left in America, and a quite likely presidential candidate there in the near future, is Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The self-described “Democratic socialist” is competing with the likes of Bernie Sanders for the title of the most far left moonbeam politician in the US.
She is not always known for getting her facts right, for thinking straight, or for being the epitome of logical thought. Indeed, we already have enough gaffs and bloopers from her that we could fill a book with them, or offer a lengthy video featuring all of her whacky and wild pontifications.
Her howlers are now becoming almost a daily phenomenon. Even the leftist media has had to call her out. Consider just one example – her 21 trillion dollar mistake:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/04/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-trillion-mistake/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6de158761003
As one conservative wit said, ‘When the Washington Post starts fact-checking her more than Donald Trump, you know she’s a problem for the Democrats.’ Yep, she sure is. She is a loony tune deluxe. And as many have pointed out, so much of what she believes and says is simply downright dangerous.
We really do NOT want her running the country. Things are bad enough with her zany antics in New York. But the lamestream media absolutely love her, and she seems to get a free pass on a daily basis. Consider her recent appearance on 60 Minutes. She said a number of frightening things there, including the need to raise taxes to at least 70 percent!
But one thing she said is a real worry. Sure, it fully fits her worldview and that of the secular left. But it is scary stuff nonetheless. She actually said this: “I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned with being precisely, factually and semantically correct than about being morally right.”
What? So now you are pitting morality against facts? Now truth does not matter as we consider issues of right and wrong? When facts and truth no longer matter when it comes to morality and ethical decision making, all we are left with are subjective impressions and personal feelings.
As Mark Steyn reminded us, this notion of being morally right over against being factually correct is the heart of how the left operates. They want to show us that they are ‘nicer’ than everybody else. They are the people of compassion, and so on. It is identity politics and victimhood.
Never mind the facts, just make a lot of moral motions and emotive ejaculations. Never mind that leftist economic and social policy does not actually help people but makes things worse. Never mind that capitalism, not socialism, raises the masses out of poverty.
And politics of feeling good will not help any nation. It will make the ones talking this way feel good about themselves, but it is no prescription for healing what ails us. I quoted a new piece from Everett Piper recently, so let me share some of it again. He spoke about the worrying trends in America and at the top of his list was this:
First, the feelings versus facts narrative has destroyed our culture, and it will continue to do so. It’s now all about “bread and circuses.” Nero fiddles — he entertains us, he feeds us, he placates us — yet, Rome burns. It’s no longer about the reality of the “economy, Stupid” but rather about the illusion of our stupid feelings.
As long as our bellies are full and our intellects are numb, we march along like mindless lemmings toward our own destruction. The infatuation with socialism, the Kool Aid of climate change, the literal lunacy of sexual fluidity, the name-it-claim-it teleology and ontology of the left, the suppression of free speech on our college campuses — all of this is the result of elevating feelings over facts. Left unchecked, this will continue to destroy anything that’s left of a free society and a free people.
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jan/6/when-feelings-are-elevated-above-facts-a-free-soci/?fbclid=IwAR2voxeiOGewau87X1KIaBsSQEYs57ReUDV-kiI5qvTkem-Wgg12Bo03psU
That sums up Ocasio-Cortez and the left: feelings versus facts. They want to take the high moral ground, while ignoring facts, evidence and history. That is why they keep blindly and foolishly extolling the virtues of socialism, even though it has never worked, and it only causes greater human misery.
The current state of play in Venezuela is a textbook example of all this. Consider what is happening there: in this socialist hellhole the supermarkets are empty, hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing the country, and even zoo animals are dying of starvation, or being killed to provide food for others.
As I said in a recent article on Venezuela:
Socialism never works, but that does not stop the leftists who keep hoping that one day, somehow, it will. Witness the latest “big thing” in America and the Democratic Party: radical democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Bernie Sanders supporter and radical leftist ideologue won a Democratic primary in New York in June.
Sadly many young people seem to have no idea what socialism is all about, and their naivety about it can only mean more misery and suffering if more of their heroes get into power. Some are now even talking about a Sanders/Ocasio-Cortez ticket. Heaven help us.
They need to listen to the wise words of Thomas Sowell: “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. Even countries that were once more prosperous than their neighbors have found themselves much poorer than their neighbors after just one generation of socialistic policies.”
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2018/08/12/venezuela-socialism-kills/
The views of Ocasio-Cortez are so bad that one is tempted to not tell people that the following is actually from a satire site. She really could have come close to saying something like this!
In an interview on Meet the Press Sunday, Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scolded American leaders for not setting the minimum wage as high as Venezuela, whose hyper-inflated currency is forcing minimum wage increases all year long.
Ocasio-Cortez then pointed out that if we would just raise the minimum wage to somewhere in the millions like the socialist South American country did, everyone will be a millionaire.
“Venezula’s minimum wage is, like, millions per month, and ours isn’t even close to that,” she said. “Our minimum wage is, like, seven bucks or something. We call ourselves a developed country, but we don’t even just like print nearly as much money as Venezuela and give it out for free, because of businesses and corporations and things like that.”
She also called Venezuela’s leaders “really smart” for overloading the economy with more currency, and called on America’s leadership to do the same. “It just goes to show that socialism is better because you can inflate the currency to a lot more, and more is better than less, obviously.”
“It’s just common sense, and you know, like, human rights and stuff,” she added.
https://babylonbee.com/news/ocasio-cortez-praises-venezuela-for-making-everyone-a-millionaire-through-hyperinflation
Let me close with some wise words made by James Delingpole in a recent assessment of her and her ilk:
Communism is ugly, dangerous and whenever and wherever it has been tried it has made people poorer, more miserable and often more dead. That’s why one of our most pressing missions in 2019 is to defend Western Civilisation from what I call the Care Bear Commies – all those youthful, telegenic, smiley, hard-left activists you see across the media reassuring your kids that actually communism is likeable and fun and the only reason it gets such a bad rap is that it hasn’t been tried properly yet.
Probably the world’s current most egregious example of this disturbing trend is U.S. congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who seems to believe – with some justification, worryingly – that no one will notice the terrifying commie tendencies of her Green New Deal (ie her plan to impose a watermelon tyranny on the U.S.) so long as she looks cute enough in those college dance videos.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/07/exposed-the-dodgy-phd-of-care-bear-commie-aaron-bastani/
Yep, we sure do not need any more of these Commie Care Bears. The cost is far too high for us mere mortals who have to live in the real world of facts and not feelings.
[1348 words]