The First Stage of Grief

(As posted on Facebook) 

Wow.  My timeline is really angry about what happened in Orlando. And there’s a lot to be angry about - senseless murders, families suffering, horrible maiming, and the loss of a sense of security in a sacred place like the home of Disney World. 

Now we are going through the inevitable stages of grief.  You know them by now: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.  The dominant emotion I’ve been seeing since the moment the attack occurred is anger.  Anger at the gun used, anger at the second amendment, and anger at the NRA.  But this anger emerged immediately after the attack.  You skipped denial entirely!  Could it be that this anger is actually denial masquerading as anger?

I think so.  Leon Trotsky said, “You may not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you.”  That’s a pretty darn harsh reality – too harsh to even face.  So naturally denial kicks in. 

9/11 was a big wake-up call.  Of course there were others before that, but we kept hitting the snooze button.  After 9/11 though, there was no denying we had a problem.  So we got busy.  The new president came up with a doctrine to counter the jihad. We fought back, we fought hard, and we had a global strategy.   Along with the obvious military, intelligence, and diplomatic efforts, there was a serious and covert operation called The Global War on Terror. This was not an easy task.  Regardless of what you ultimately thought of him, Bush was a leader who took the effort seriously and kept us safe for seven years.  The jihad went into retreat.  It dispersed.  The hotbeds of the jihad movement became, relatively speaking, stabilized.

But it didn’t always go as planned.  Wars never do.  Communication was weak.  Political critics saw an opening.  Our unity crumbled.  And we slipped back into denial.  Enter Barack Obama. 

Candidate Obama promised to end the Global War on Terror.  He was not interested in that war regardless of whether or not it was interested in him.  Sure, he would continue pinprick bombings and assassinations when the opportunity arose, but commanding a global war?  No way.  In fact, he took the opposite view.  The jihad wanted safe havens – he gave them safe havens in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and others.  They wanted no surveillance – wish granted.  They wanted a nuclear and missile program in Iran - he gave them that plus $150 billion dollars to fund it.  The Muslim Brotherhood wanted Egypt and Turkey – he supported them.  The jihad wanted hijrah (a demographic invasion) into Europe and the US - he supported it.  They wanted access to the highest echelons of U.S. government - he invited them in.  They wanted all references to Islam removed from government security training manuals - he did it.  They wanted NASA devoted to Muslim outreach - he gave it to them.  (Do you think that last one looks crazy? Here's Obama's NASA administrator proudly declaring NASA's foremost mission is outreach to Muslims.)      

The jihad wanted a complete end to the war against it, and Obama supported that goal.  The military ceased combat operations, then withdrew completely.  Hardcore GITMO terrorists were released.  No new captures were allowed.  No further interrogations were permitted.  No new human intelligence was gathered.  Even Voice of America was neutered so we had no way to counter the jihad over the airwaves or Internet.   

For his support, Obama got a peace prize.  He bought a selfie stick, a set of golf clubs, and took a seven year victory lap.  Most of you applauded the performance.  You were in denial.

But the wake-up calls kept coming.  And you kept hitting the snooze button.  Nadal Hassan?  Workplace violence - snooze.  Benghazi?  A video - snooze.  Boston? Homegrown – snooze.  San Bernardino?  Lone wolfs - snooze.  Charlie Hebdo?  Send James Taylor - snooze.  Paris (with some of the strictest gun laws on the planet)?  Change Facebook picture - snooze.  ISIS?  JV Team - Snooze.  Human disaster in Syria?  Give it to Putin - snooze.  Russian jetliner bombed out of the sky?  Look, Kardashians! – snooze.  ISIS takes western Iraq?  Not going back - snooze.  Boko Haram?  A hashtag will do - snooze.  Brussels?  Where’s Brussels? – snooze.  Another attack in Israel?  Only Jews – snooze.  Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Nusra, etc?  Too complicated – snooze.  Taliban back in Afghanistan? – Wow, look at my 401K! – snooze.  Iran wants nukes?  Ben Rhodes says it’s cool  – snooze.

How many of these would have been prevented if the second amendment were completely repealed?  None.  What if it never existed?  Not a single one.  There were no guns on 9/11.  Even in San Bernardino, where they illegally used guns, they had bombs too.  The jihadi in Orlando was reportedly a gun licensed government contractor. 

That’s not to say a second amendment debate is not worth having.  We’ve been debating it since before it was adopted, and we will continue.  But in the context of the jihad, the second amendment is not only irrelevant, it protects us!  Israel is the country most threatened by jihad and they protect themselves pretty darn effectively with, among other things,…guns.  But you are in denial.  

Jihad blood is now flowing in the streets near Disney World and you can’t just snooze this one away.  This is real.  Large numbers of Americans are dead.  This is not some unpronounceable distant land most Americans can’t find on a map.  This is Disney World, man.  Every American has either been there, or wants to go there. 

And somewhere deep in your heart, or deep in your subconscious, you know why this happened.  And you know you were complicit on some level.  You hit the snooze button.  You were in denial.  You supported Barack Obama and his disastrous jihad policy. 

Of course you never wanted to hurt anyone!  You wanted peace! That’s always how it goes with appeasers.  But your denial has cost lives and left a vacuum.  The world is a mess.  The jihad is on the march.  Europe is gone.  The Mideast, save Israel, is gone.  Turkey is gone.  Libya is gone.  Afghanistan is gone.  And we may be gone.  But the truth of all that is too painful right now in the face of all those bloody bodies in Orlando. 

So you are lashing out angrily at guns, the second amendment, the NRA.  Things that will have no effect on stopping the jihad - the war you are not interested in, but is very interested in you.  Sorry, you are in denial.

Could Orlando have been prevented? II

And if your response is something like, "It's all about guns and Obama HAS been laser focused on gun."  I've got one word for you: Paris, where they have some of the strictest gun laws in the world.  

This particular islamic jihadist was licensed, not just to own guns, but to use them as a government contractor for Obama's DHS (Department of Homeland Security).  That, despite twice being investigated by Obama's FBI as a possible terrorist.   Obama's government knew he was a terror threat and still allowed him to own guns and work as a DHS contractor.  Let that sink in. 

Here's the deal:  The Holocaust was not due to gas chambers and boxcars. 9/11 was not due to box cutters and jet fuel. The Murrow Bldg. was not due to fertilizer and Ryder trucks. And Orlando was not due to an AR-15. In a world of absolute moral equivalence and political correctness it is forbidden, in an Orwellian sense, to judge because to judge is to discriminate and to discriminate is wrong. Thus we cannot see politically protected ideologies as a source of evil, and so must focus on objects and material things.  It's not the ideology you see, it's the tool used.  This is delusional and suicidal.

The salafist islamic jihad ideology is the problem and Obama is either oblivious or sympathetic.  As Leon Trotsky said, "You may not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you." Eight years of cooperation with this ideology will have to be reckoned with at some point.      

Could Orlando have been prevented?

Remember the Global War on Terror?  In the wake of 9/11 it kept us safe from domestic attacks by jihadist islam, and did so right up until the election of Barack Obama.  Obama won the presidency and declared that he had no interest in conducting a Global War on Terror, he was withdrawing resources from it, he was closing GITMO, he was ceasing combat operations targeting jihadi islam, and he was focusing his efforts on other things:      

From Jerome Hudson at Breitbart:

Below are 23 times Obama or his administration officials claimed climate change a greater threat than radical Islamic terrorism.

In a January 15, 2008 presidential campaign speech on Iraq and Afghanistan, Barack Obama said the “immediate danger” of oil-backed terrorism “is eclipsed only by the long-term threat from climate change, which will lead to devastating weather patterns, terrible storms, drought, and famine. That means people competing for food and water in the next fifty years in the very places that have known horrific violence in the last fifty: Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Most disastrously, that could mean destructive storms on our shores, and the disappearance of our coastline.”

On January 26, 2009, Obama delivered remarks at the White House on the “dangers” of climate change:

These urgent dangers to our national and economic security are compounded by the long-term threat of climate change, which, if left unchecked, could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines, and irreversible catastrophe.

In May 2010, the Obama White House released it’s national security strategy, which said, “At home and abroad, we are taking concerted action to confront the dangers posed by climate change and to strengthen our energy security.” The document declared climate change “an urgent and growing threat to our national security.”

On September 6, 2012, during his Democratic National Convention speech, Obama said, “Yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet, because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They are a threat to our children’s future.

On January 23, 2013, in an address before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry declared climate change among the top threats facing the United States.

February 16, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry addressed students in Indonesia and said that global warming is now “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”

In a June 2014 interview, Obama said:

When you start seeing how these shifts can displace people—entire countries can be finding themselves unable to feed themselves and the potential incidence of conflict that arises out of that—that gets your attention. There’s a reason why the quadrennial defense review—which the secretary of defense and the Joints Chiefs of Staff work on—identified climate change as one of our most significant national security problems. It’s not just the actual disasters that might arise, it is the accumulating stresses that are placed on a lot of different countries and the possibility of war, conflict, refugees, displacement that arise from a changing climate.

During a September 2014 meeting with foreign ministers, Secretary of State John Kerry called Climate change a threat as urgent as ISIS.

On September 24 2014, the Obama USDA launched its Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture. In a memo posted by Secretary of State John Kerry, among other Obama administration officials, read,“From India to the United States, climate change poses drastic risks to every facet of our lives.”

On October 29, 2014, in an address to the Washington Ideas Forum, Obama’s Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said:

From my perspective, within the portfolio that I have responsibility for–security of this country–climate change presents security issues for us. There’s a security dynamic to that. As the oceans increase, it will affect our bases. It will affect islands. It will affect security across the world. Just from my narrow perspective, what I have responsibility for, that’s happening now.

During his 2015 State of the Union address, Obama said, “No challenge  poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.”

In a February 2015 address to college students in Iowa, Vice President Joe Biden said“Global warming is the greatest threat to your generation of anything at all, across the board.”

On February 09, 2015, in an interview with Vox, Obama said he “absolutely” believes that the media “sometimes overstates the level of alarm people should have about terrorism” as opposed to “climate change.”

On February 10, 2015, when asked to confirm if this means Obama believes “the threat of climate change is greater than the threat of terrorism,” Earnest responded, “The point the president is making is that there are many more people on an annual basis who have to confront the impact, the direct impact on their lives, of climate change, or on the spread of a disease, than on terrorism.”

During his April 18, 2015 weekly address on climate change, Obama said, “Wednesday is Earth Day, a day to appreciate and protect this precious planet we call home. And today, there’s no greater threat to our planet than climate change.”

In May 2015, the White House released a 1,300-page National Climate Assessment that declared climate change among the world’s foremost threats.

May 20, 2015 President Obama said in his keynote address to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduates: “Climate change, and especially rising seas, is a threat to our homeland security, our economic infrastructure, the safety and health of the American people.”

On July 13 2015, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy and Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Kenneth F. Hackett wrote in a joint blog post on the EPA website, praising Pope Francis for dedicating his second encyclical to urging swift action on global warming.

McCarthy and Hackett wrote:

As public servants working in both domestic policy and diplomacy, we understand the urgent need for global action. Climate impacts like extreme droughts, floods, fires, heat waves, and storms threaten people in every country—and those who have the least suffer the most. No matter your beliefs or political views, we are all compelled to act on climate change to protect our health, our planet, and our fellow human beings.

An Obama Defense Department report released on July 29, 2015 says climate change puts U.S. security at risk and threatens the global order:

The report reinforces the fact that global climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national security interests over the foreseeable future because it will aggravate existing problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions that threaten domestic stability in a number of countries.

The report finds that climate change is a security risk because it degrades living conditions, human security, and the ability of governments to meet the basic needs of their populations. Communities and states that are already fragile and have limited resources are significantly more vulnerable to disruption and far less likely to respond effectively and be resilient to new challenges.

In his August 28, 2015 weekly address, Obama said “This is all real. This is happening to our fellow Americans right now,” he said. “Think about that. If another country threatened to wipe out an American town, we’d do everything in our power to protect ourselves. Climate change poses the same threat, right now.”

In a September address at the United Nations Climate Summit Obama said, “For all the immediate challenges that we gather to address this week–terrorism, instability, inequality, disease – there’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.”

During a September 28 address at the United Nations, President Obama said that ““We can roll back the pollution that we put in our skies,” adding that “No country can escape the ravages of climate change.”

So yes, Orlando could have been prevented.  It's just a matter of priorities.  

Hillary is Awesome! *

* unless you know her history, that is.

Before there was #NeverHillary there was #NoMoreClintons.org:

Faux News Exposed!

According to Barack Obama, Fox News is Faux News.  They can't be trusted.  They make stuff up. He mocks them, ridicules them, and uses his DOJ to harass their reporters.  He has been a harsher critic of Fox News than of ISIS.

This weekend we learned that there actually is a ton of faux news out there, but it's not coming from Fox.  It's coming from the Obama administration, and they are proud of it!  Just when we thought the Obama presidency couldn't be more like bad fiction, we learned that the guy running Obama's foreign policy is actually an aspiring novelist who regularly feeds fiction to the gullible and overwhelmingly liberal press.  (If that sounds like hyperbole to you, you may not know that there is not a single Republican covering this President.)  Can't make this stuff up, folks.

Remember that lame story about Benghazi being about a video?  Remember that lame story about the Iran deal being about nuclear weapons?  Turns out these were false narratives spun out of whole cloth from Obama's propaganda shop.  We learned about this only after Obama's foreign policy novelist bragged about it in a NY Times Magazine piece that ran Sunday, May 8th.  He refers to himself as a "ventriloquist"  feeding lines to the Washington press corps.  (The "p" is silent for you  MSNBC, NPR, and NYTimesers)  They lap up the fictitious narratives and repeat it out to the masses as in an "echo chamber".  (Everything in quotes, for those of you "27 year olds... who know literally nothing", is actually from the mouth of Obama's novelist.)   

As if that wasn't enough of an affront to both the credibility of Barack Obama and his stenographers in the media, we also learned that Facebook is suppressing conservative news stories and promoting liberal ones.  The guy in charge of this operation at Facebook is an Obama/Clinton donor.  Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, who run the whole enchilada, make no secret of their leftist politics, yet they sanctimoniously claim Facebook as a paragon of transparency and fairness.   (Gee, I wonder if this post will be trending on FB anytime soon?)

And just today, James Rosen, one of the few adults in the Washington press corps., and a Fox News reporter, discovered that eight minutes of his questioning of a State Department spokesperson in 2013, where she openly admits the State Department misleads the American people, was mysteriously edited out of the official video record. These are Soviet tactics, folks!  This is banana republic stuff!  Without all the delicious bananas, of course.  

In other words,  the only news bureau not taking dictation from Obama's propaganda shop is ironically the one they refer to as "Faux News".  

Again, can't make this stuff up.

Here's a summary of all this:

Trump vs. Clinton - Milton Friedman's Ultimate Test

So Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the two best people we have come up with to be the next president.  What do we do now? 
  

I would suggest, as I do on many sticky occasions, that we turn to the wisdom of Milton Friedman:

I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. 

Milton Friedman 

Many Americans believe Hillary and Donald are precisely the wrong people.  But according to Dr. Friedman they can still do the right things under certain circumstances.

Recall in 1992 when Hillary's husband Bill was elected president with less than a majority of the electorate. Most Americans thought he too was the wrong person for the job.  For his first two years he raised taxes,  pursued big government, the economy stagnated, and the stock market lagged.  The Democrats lost big in the mid-term congressional elections of 1994.  In came Newt Gingrich and The Contract With America.  Low taxes, free trade, limited government, and welfare reform were the order of the day. The economy went on a tear.  Stock market gains were unprecedented.  The budget got nearly balanced.   And to this day Bill Clinton is known for the strong economy that came after he "triangulated" and signed into law many of the planks of Newt's contract.  Bill Clinton was forced to do the right thing despite being the wrong person.

Can the electorate make it "politically profitable" for Hillary or Donald to do the right thing despite being the wrong people?  Based on the example of Barack Obama I think we have a much better shot if our next "wrong person" is not a "historical first" from a politically favored class of citizens. Donald will not be coddled by the media, Hollywood, academia, or anyone for that matter.  He will not be given the benefit of any doubt.  He will be held to the highest of standards each and every day.

Hillary?  The historic "First Woman President"?  Not so much.    

  

And also there's this to ponder: Donald Trump has never:

• Been an accessory to rape
• Smeared women abused by his spouse
• Jailed a filmmaker to cover-up his own incompetence
• Attacked a country for no good reason and caused chaos on two continents
• Made billions selling U.S. Govt. favors
• Lied under oath
• Violated several U.S. laws regarding classified information
• Jeopardized U.S. national security by using an unsecured email server
• Stonewalled Freedom of Information requests
• Lied to the American people about official U.S. business
• Turned the IRS into a "gestapo"
• Looted the White House
• Sold secrets to the Chinese
• Lied about fake sniper fire in Bosnia
• Been pals with Saul Alinsky, Sidney Blumenthal, and Karl Marx (OK, I made the last one up...sort of.)
• Been fired for lying on a Watergate committee 

And this: 

And this:

And this:  

But, of course, also this:  ;-)

Socialism is the Darwin Award for Economic Ignorance

Pop quiz:   

1. Who is the father of modern socialism/communism?  
2. Who is the father of modern capitalism? 

Odds are you will be able to answer the first question correctly and can name Karl Marx as the father of modern socialism/communism.  You probably can do a decent job of explaining Marxism without even looking it up on Wikipedia.  You may even be familiar with the Marxist slogan, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Conversely, if you are asked who the father of modern capitalism is, odds are you'd either draw a blank, or be mostly wrong.

If you attended a public school in the U.S., chances are most of your teachers were union members. Unions were prohibited for most government workers prior to the 1960s because organized labor in the U.S. began as a communist/socialist movement.  Public sector unions were seen as a huge conflict of interest. But that changed in the 1960's under Democrat John F. Kennedy, and since then government workers, including school teachers, have flooded into organized labor. That's not to say all teachers and organized laborers are socialists.  Most probably don't even think in those terms, but the politics of organized labor leans undeniably in that direction. You may or may not have been taught Marxism in school, but you probably weren't taught anything positive about "capitalism"!  

If you attended a college in the U.S., particularly in recent years, you are very likely to have been taught Marxism.  Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" is the third most assigned book at U.S. colleges today.  That's out of all the books ever published!  The next most assigned book in economics, capitalist or otherwise, is not even close.      

So how did you answer the second question above?  In one sense the answer to that one is again... Karl Marx.  Yes, Karl Marx is both the father of modern communism/socialism AND the father of modern capitalism. Karl Marx was the person who defined that term for the masses in his risible critique of 1860s capitalism, "Das Kapital".  

Many scholars credit a Scotsman named Adam Smith as the person whose ideas most influenced our economic system.  Adam Smith’s book, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” was actually published in 1776.  (That date rings a bell, no?)  But the word capitalism wasn't in common use in Adam Smith’s day.  He never used it.  We mistakenly call our economic system capitalism because that's what Marx and the critics called it.  The name unfortunately stuck. 

If everyone knows what "Marxism" is, why doesn't everyone know what "Smithism" is?  Because it’s not taught, except to select economics majors.  According to the Open Syllabus Project, Adam Smith is assigned at a rate about 25% compared to Karl Marx.  "Smithism" never became a word the way "Marxism" did.  You can go through K-12 and well beyond in schools in the U.S. and never hear the name Adam Smith, never learn about his ideas, and never understand the influence those ideas had on the founding and success of our country.

Pop quiz:  

1. What is Supply Side Economics?  
2. What is Demand Side Economics?

You are probably familiar with the first term, but can you accurately define it?  Have you ever heard of its opposite, Demand Side Economics?  

·         Supply side economics is the theory that people will SUPPLY (create) more value if they are allowed to function in a free market.
   

·         Demand side economics is the theory that people will DEMAND (consume) more value if wealth is redistributed to them.    

These are opposite approaches for achieving different economic goals.  Supply Side seeks to optimize overall economic vitality (Smithism).  Demand Side seeks to stimulate consumption (Keynesianism), or at times to redistribute wealth (Marxism).

If you look up supply side economics on Wikipedia, you’ll find a thorough entry along with plenty of criticisms.  If you look up demand side economics, you’ll get... crickets.  The language in this case does not favor the Marxist/socialist demand side ideology.   Hence, it is not even defined.  [UPDATE:  There is now a short and inaccurate entry on Wikipedia for Demand Side Economics.  When the first version of this piece was written in 2016, there was only a re-direct to "Keynesianism".] 

Pop quiz:

The financial crisis of 2008 was caused by:

      A) Greedy bankers, deregulation, George W Bush, and capitalism
      B) Socialism

Most likely, you are 100% certain the correct answer is A.  

No event had a more profound impact on this country's recent tilt towards socialism than the financial crisis of 2008.  It is said that history is written by the victors.  That has never been more true than in the wake of the financial crisis.  Democrats controlled the government commission that wrote the post-mortem.  Barack Obama won the presidency.  Democrats had both houses of congress.  And liberals made the movies and wrote the books explaining the crisis to the masses. Unfortunately, everything they told you was a deliberate deception designed to exonerate socialism, and scapegoat capitalism.   

The fact is, the financial crisis of 2008 was a perfect demonstration of the failures of socialism. Redistribution of wealth, in this case redistribution of mortgage credit, was at the heart of the financial crisis.  At times, the support for this redistribution was bi-partisan, but the ideology behind it was socialist/demand side regardless of who was advocating.

It all began with the affordable housing goals promoted by Democrats in the early 1990s, which lowered mortgage requirements.  It accelerated in the mid 1990s under Democrat Bill Clinton with further loosening of mortgage standards, pressure on banks to write loose loans, and mandates for government backed companies FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac) to buy all the new mortgages.  It finally reached its apex in 2007 under Republican George W. Bush, while Democrats including Senator Barack Obama, ran both houses of congress.

All of the risk from this socialist redistribution was supposed to be assumed by the federal government, mostly in the form of the afore mentioned government backed companies.  Fannie and Freddie were ground zero for the financial crisis.  No government official took more money from these two companies, and at a faster rate, than the junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  His closest competitors in that money grab included Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Hillary Clinton.  If this is news to you,  it's because they wrote the history.

What they told you was that it was a perfect storm involving greedy bankers, deregulation, and the natural flaws of capitalism.  It was a plausible argument designed to deceive.  Bankers today are no greedier than their banking forebears.  So why did they suddenly engage in such risky lending? Because they were coerced to do so.

Deregulation also had nothing to do with it.  Canadian banks are lightly regulated compared to their U.S. counterparts and none of them failed.  Why the difference?  Only in the U.S. was mortgage credit redistributed.  To make matters worse, government regulations encouraged financial institutions to load up on mortgage backed securities.   Unfortunately, when the scheme went bad the damage quickly spread to the private financial sector bringing the entire global financial system to its knees.

The deceptions about this animated the Occupy Wall Street movement, got Barack Obama elected twice, and are responsible for the acceptance of openly socialist candidates like Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez today.   They are also part of the continuing campaign that has mischaracterized the mortgage market as an example of free-market failure.

The frightening thing about this is, if history is written by the victors and they engage in deception, aren't we doomed to repeat it?  Fannie and Freddie own just about every new mortgage written since 2008, and the socialist policies promoting home ownership and borrowing accelerated under Barack Obama.  We are currently in the process of building a second real estate bubble.  Adding to that are new socialist bubbles in national debt, student loans, auto loans, and equity prices.

Pop quiz:

People love Scandinavian socialism because:

      A) Scandinavian countries are happy, healthy, productive, prosperous, AND socialist
      B) They misunderstand Scandinavian economics and history

Scandinavian success came long before their experiment with socialism.  They were happy, healthy, productive, and prosperous prior to the 1960s when they first began their turn towards socialism. Socialism had nothing to do with their success.  But sixty years of high taxes and socialism has slowed their growth and momentum.  Until recently, Sweden and Denmark spent more than 100% of their private sectors on government - an obviously unsustainable level.  In response, socialist Europe has been freeing their economies and sharply turning away from socialism.  Switzerland, Ireland, and the U.K. are economically freer than the U.S., and Sweden, yes "socialist" Sweden, is essentially tied with the U.S. in economic freedom today.  (According to the Heritage Foundation rankings.)

Here's the thing:  National socialism has never produced anything long term other than misery, poverty, totalitarianism, and death.  Think Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea.  The NAZIS, who brought about the holocaust, WWII, and directly or indirectly caused the death of 70 million people, were known by the German acronym for "National Socialists".

So, that's at the national level.  And long term.  At the local level, socialism can survive a bit longer. Local socialism does not eliminate the incentive killing aspects of socialism, but it does avoid the inevitable monetary collapse.  That's because local governments cannot create money and therefore tend to be more fiscally responsible. National governments can hide their insolvency, plunder future generations, devalue currencies, manipulate interest rates, and cause much bigger problems down the road.

This is an important point that deserves repeating;  socialism cannot work long term at the national level.  The national level is where money is created and controlled.  Our system was never designed to be a socialist system.  The Constitution implied that the states were the proper place for redistributive experimentation.  The conflict of interest at the national level is just too great.  National politicians will eventually destroy the currency, borrow too heavily, undermine the work ethic, and undermine national defense in an attempt to gain and maintain power. The founders knew that.  It is happening today.  We doubled our national debt during just Obama's eight years.  Interest rates were artificially held near zero for that entire time.  If and when rates normalize to historical levels, the debt service alone will cause the kind of pain socialist nations have felt throughout history. We are not immune.
  

In summary: You were indoctrinated to be a socialist. You were indoctrinated to call our system capitalism.  You've been deceived about the benefits of socialism.  You've been deceived about the evils of free markets.  And you've been deceived about the perils of national socialism.  If you still think socialism is great after all that, congratulations, you've earned a Darwin Award in Economics!