When the Berlin Wall fell it was obvious to everyone with eyes to see and a brain to think with that socialism had been tried, and it had failed spectacularly. No one alive at the time could fail to get the lesson: Socialism Sucks.
But it seems lessons that big have to be relearned every generation: the tragedy of Venezuela should be this generation’s object lesson that Socialism Sucks.
Socialism came to Venezuela, and in its inevitable wake has come poverty, penury and oppressive totalitarian rule. This issue of The Free Radical sends out A Challenge to Young Socialists to watch, and to learn – and to reject this ideological harbinger of misery.
Let freedom reign! Let freedom reign in boardrooms, bedrooms and smoko rooms. We talk to NZ Green MP Metiria Turei who wants to let freedom reign in New Zealand’s hospital treatment rooms, allowing medical practitioners to prescribe a drug that, as Jonothan Rennie's History of Medical Marijuana points out, was once used by Queen Victoria – a drug that Lancet has confirmed is less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco.
There’s much, much more in this issue:
- Frank Shostak and Lary Sechrest explain how economic illiterates and central banks make us poor;
- Lindsay Perigo and Muriel Newman lament the rise and rise and rise of Nanny State - as Perigo describes her, that disgusting "hybrid of gargoyle and dominatrix";
- George Reisman on how the thricefold seductions of socialism, environmentalism and irrational skepticism (but surely I repeat myself) are fuelled by irrational education;
- we have an obituary for the New Zealand woman who’s left several generations of students around the world functionally illiterate;
- an interview with the man to whose gun shop knife-wielding would-be suicide victims seem to be drawn;
- dissidence from "a dissident president";
- global warming sense from another president - "environmental extremism is the modern equivalent of communism," says Czech president Vaclav Klaus;
- confessions of a former warmist who threw himself off the global warming gravy train;
- an obituary for a philosopher whose own grip on reality was slight. He died, we think;
- reviews of conman Conrad Black's eulogy to "champion of freedom" Franklin Roosevelt, Al Gore's upfront assault on reason and the internet, and Stephen Hicks' exegesis of Nietzsche and the Nazis;
advice for parents from Larry Sechrest and Tia Wooller: Don't fake reality;
I invite you to step inside Free Radical 76: Politics, Economics & Life As If Freedom Mattered, and load up on intellectual ammunition!
Subscribe here.
Download a digital copy here.
Buy your hard copy (NZ only) from one of these quality outlets.
But that's not all. We're so confident of the quality of each and every copy of The Free Radical that this month we're throwing open our digital back issues. That's right: All digital back issues of The Free Radical are free! See below for links.
We're convinced that once you see the quality of our back issues, you won't want to miss out on getting your NEW copy of the Free Radical in your letterbox hot off the press.
Enjoy!
Cheers, Peter Cresswell
EDITOR, THE FREE RADICAL
PC.Blogspot.Com
DIGITAL FREE RADICAL BACK ISSUES -- all free to good homes:
FREE RADICAL 75: The Naked Truth About Self-Defence
FREE RADICAL 74: The Environmental Noose is Tightening!
FREE RADICAL 73: The Assault on Free Speech
FREE RADICAL 72: The Great Environmental Sellout
FREE RADICAL 71: The Stolen Election!
UPDATE: I've just been told that subs were mailed this morning (including everyone who's subscribed online this week) and shops should have their copies Monday. :-)
9 comments:
Are you sure this is good business practice?
Making the back issues free for those who subscribe is a good idea...the last issue is still on the shelves (at least in Queenstown),so it's not a good look to make it available free just yet...and especially annoying when one has just paid for it.
Just my humble opinion.
Socialism might work or it mightn't, but if you can smoke enough dope, you won't really care.
Hi Anonymous, Opinions however humble are always welcome, particularly from loyal readers.
I'm surprised to hear it's still on shelves in Queenstown. Unsold copies are usually returned a week or so ago.
The decision was made in the confident expectation that the magazine is worth reading, and that more people need to be introduced to it. I'm confident that of those that do take advantage of this offer, many will become regular Free Radical readers, and hopefully subscribers.
When they see the consistent high quality of 'The FRee Radical, they'll realise that this is a magazine to which they NEED to subscribe.
More readers should = a better magazine for all.
It's not however a deal that will happen every month.
But I very much don't wish to annoy any loyal readers. Perhaps if you let me know your mailing address (using my email which you'll find in that copy you bought) I can send you some complimentary hard copy back issues?
Hope that helps.
:-)
I meant to say too that the new issue should be in shops Monday. Subscribers should begin receiving their copies over the weekend.
Regarding creeping socialism - why does Barkers emblazon a hammer and sickle across their 'winter range'?
Considering that symbol is responsible for a shite-load of misery and even for the occupation of Tibet (flag of Chinese commie party) you may as well tatoo 'Ignorant noob' across the forehead of anyone wearing a Barkers hammer and sickle hoodie or t-shirt.
The hammer and sickle is in fashion ATM. Even The Warehouse has it on hoodies.
As I've said before, young people dont know what it represents. My eldest has never heard of Karl Marx, Lenin etc, and before you blame public schools, this is after years at an exclusive private girl's school.
"My eldest has never heard of Karl Marx, Lenin etc, and before you blame public schools"
Yes, before I blame public schools, I'll ask what *you* have been doing all those years?
And regarding creeping socialism, I found this little gem from Kenneth Minogue
“If in the twenty-first century, we should be threatened by freedom-destroying ventures seeking to create an ant heap society, the one thing we can be reasonably confident of is that they will not feature men in jackboots. Far from being announced by the drumbeats of revolution, they are likely to be stealthy and insidious. For what one must never forget about all totalitarian experiences is that they are created (though not necessarily sustained) by idealists thirsting for virtue."
And PC - "Subscribers should begin receiving their copies over the weekend."
Yes, I suppose we should, whether we *did* on the other hand...
What have I been doing? Paying a 6 figure tax bill each year.
What have *you* been doing? Or are you a student being subsidised by my family?
I have also been trying to get these ideas into the public schools by actually doing something concrete and not just bloviating on blogs.
It may come as a surprise to you dearie, but Karl Marx and communism is irrelevant to private school pupils and spoilt trust fund kids.
So Ruth, you think it is lamentable that children - your own even - do not know of Karl Marx, and when pressed as to why they don't say that you have been too busy to teach them.
I don't buy that, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument for my next point. You then say, that when you are not paying tax or not teaching your *own* kids political philosophy, you spend your time trying to get the ideas introduced into the public school system - thinking that this is something concrete.
But there are your own kids who you could start with Ruth! If the youth of today think that "Karl Marx and communism is irrelevant" [sic] then you have children of your own who you could have started with to *make* it relevant but chose not two.
I know charity begins at home, I presumed education did as well. Maybe I was wrong.
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