Democratic socialism may seem appealing in theory, but the reality is that it takes away everything that makes this country great – and contrary to what’s been said by a certain political candidate lately, America truly is already great.

I never understood why Bernie Sanders was so popular and I’ll probably never agree with anything he puts forward, because I’ll never see how any type of socialism could ever work – even if you throw the word “democratic” in front of it to sound nice. The truth is, any type of state-owned production is still socialism, complete with a miserable population, an economy in shambles and a gap between the rich and poor as huge as Donald Trump’s ego.

In a recent survey conducted by YouGov and commissioned by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, roughly half of the participants said they would vote for a socialist or a communist. Furthermore, they found that a majority of millennials believe more people died under President George W. Bush than under Joseph Stalin, whose regime saw the death of about 20 million citizens of the Soviet Union.

When I heard this, I immediately thought of videos I had seen growing up about people who risked their lives to cross the Berlin Wall so they would not have to suffer under communist rule. Somehow those images have escaped the minds of so many people who support the notion of bringing “edgy,” radical political and economic policies into America.

Of course, not everyone is an extremist. Very few – if any – people want to live under total socialist rule and most millennials repeat the trope that they just want America to be more like Norway.

Now, before you start yelling, “democratic socialism works in other countries,” let me remind you that America isn’t Norway. Pretending that we don’t have wildly different economic systems than other countries is naive, and – to put it shortly – their model of government won’t magically work for our country too.

If we were a small country with a large influx of income from a rich supply of oil, a low unemployment rate, little to no immigration, a small percentage of the population living in poverty and basically no diversity of opinions or lifestyles, democratic socialism may very well work for us

However, we have a population that is nine times the size of Norway’s. Add the number of undocumented, illegal immigrants in the country and that estimate grows to 11 times larger. We pride ourselves on being a melting pot of diversity and in America we tell our children – and the entire world – that we are a land of infinite opportunities.

Now I’m constantly being told that rich people are greedy and that we need to ostracize them and blame them for our economic woes. However the thing is the top one percent of the country is already paying nearly 50 percent of our income tax revenue. The rich people my peers hate so much are the ones responsible for handing them scholarships or supplying money for new facilities.

While I don’t support crony-capitalism or using tax loopholes, I also don’t think taking hard-earned money out of the hands of those who worked to get to where they are is fair either. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being successful and amassing wealth, and I’m sure that the majority of people complaining would actually love to make enough money to one day be part of that tax bracket.

Socialism – yes, even the “democratic” kind – is a concept that takes from those who we deem must “spread the wealth.” Taking from those who work hard to create a fictional utopia where everyone lives equally will not only streamline our nation into even more debt, but will create a new generation of absolute dependence.

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