SABATES: Let’s Keep America A Free Democracy

Team co-owner Felix Sabates speaks to the media during the NASCAR Charlotte Motor Speedway media tour in Charlotte, N.C., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

I can tell you from my personal experience that America—the greatest country in the world—doesn’t want to go down the Socialist path.

It’s a direction that would guarantee severe damage to this wonderful country; a country that took me in as a son at age 15 when I was alone with no family and no financial help from the government.

I love America and I came to this country legally. I waited for five years before I became a citizen. I went through the legal channels to obtain my citizenship, but I had to earn those rights. I never expected anyone to give them to me, and no one should have an easy road to citizenship. I think it’s obvious that those politicians who are seeking an easy road to citizenship for the illegal aliens are simply looking for votes.

When I was a teenager in Cuba, I saw how quickly a self-proclaimed Socialist, Fidel Castro, became a communist. In less than two years after Castro took over my birth land, the government was 100 percent communist. Thousands of innocent people were killed and many others were jailed for 30 years simply for disagreeing with him. His polices drove a rich country into poverty as he confiscated all of the private businesses and eliminated all civil rights.

We have many politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, llhan Omar, Cory Booker, Eric Swalwell, Stacy Abrams and many others that have no clue as to what real socialism is truly about.

I do, and I can assure you it destroys countries, families and lives.

Look what happened to Germany when Adolf Hitler took over. Hitler’s party was the National Socialist German Workers Party. Look what happened to the Soviet Union when Joseph Stalin took over in the mid-1920s and ruled until 1953. That country has never recovered from its Communist government.

We are heading in the same direction if we allow these self-proclaimed socialist to hijack our government.

Mao Zedong was a socialist and the founding father of the Chinese Communist Party and the People Republic of China. That hasn’t worked out well for the Chinese people since 1949. They have high poverty levels, oppression, no human rights, child labor and the largest producer of the worst street drug ever — Fentanyl — which is killing many Americans after entering our country through Mexico.

In the Western Hemisphere, other countries besides Cuba that were socialist before they became Communist were Chile, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela. Every one of those dictators identified themselves as a socialist, but once they had control of the military they quickly changed and proclaimed themselves a Communist.

We have a socialist revolution beginning in America with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat who represents New York’s 14th Congressional district as the new leader of the socialist movement. She currently has Democratic presidential candidates under siege because they are attempting to gain the support of her base. However, I don’t think she has any clue as to what she is proposing with her “Green New Deal”. America would be bankrupt in six months if this country implemented one one-thousandth of her proposals.

We do need strong initiatives to protect our environment, but not in the direction she wants to take this country. One day AOC will be viewed as the person who killed the Democratic Party because of her cockeyed crazy ideas. They are border-line communist policies and are beginning to make her sound more like Castro, Chavez, Maduro, Allende, and Sandino (Sandinista).

American citizens deserve a much better future than what many of the radical, leftist socialist have in mind for our country. The United States is a precious gem that should never be tarnished for it needs to shine brightly with economic freedom for families and private businesses to thrive.