The RNC 2020 speaker who’s made the biggest impact on me thus far is Maximo Alvarez, a Florida businessman whose family fled Cuba when he was 13 years old. Here’s an excerpt:
I heard the promises of Fidel Castro. And I can never forget all those who grew up around me, who looked like me, who could have been me, who suffered and starved and died because they believed those empty promises. . . .
Those false promises — spread the wealth, free education, free healthcare, defund the police, trust a socialist state more than your family and community — they don’t sound radical to my ears. They sound familiar. . . .
But the country I was born in is gone – destroyed.
I may be Cuban born, but I am 100-percent American. This is the greatest country in the world. I said this before. If I gave away everything I have today, it would not equal 1 percent of what I was given when I came to this great country of ours: The gift of Freedom.
Many Americans now seem quite glib and sanguine about socialism, free this, free that, sharing all the good things of the land, etc. — but when you talk to someone who’s actually lived in a socialist country, they tell you that they couldn’t wait to get out.
Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion and former resident of the Soviet Union, contributed the following tweet to a discussion of socialism several years ago:
Sorry, but I'm from a place where everything was "shared equally" and it wasn't as nice as some of you seem to think it would be.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) October 20, 2013