In a speech to Congress in 1974, then-President Gerald Ford said, “Whether we like it or not, the American wage earner and the American housewife are a lot better economists than most economists care to admit. They know that a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

Failure is impossible when success isn’t an option. The logic of socialism — if there is such a thing — is that everyone should give up their chance of winning so that no one has to lose. But the whole idea of the American Dream comes from the fact that it is hard win. It isn’t easy to be a farmer, a business owner or a productive worker, but the difficulty in the short run is worth the chance to improve in the long run. If you aren’t working hard to get what you want, how satisfied are you really going to feel if you get it?

Socialists don’t like monopolies in the private sector, yet they want to give the federal government power over all healthcare, all education, all welfare. If the government isn’t doing well with what it has authority over now, how will more power make it more effective? We can’t give up our hard-fought independence for total reliance on government.

On a side note, Ford alludes to average Americans having a lot more common sense than politicians and the mainstream media like to give them credit. The media would not have been so shocked when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 if they had listened to the Americans who weren’t trying to steal the spotlight. Liberal, progressive ideas might be popular, but just because something is trendy doesn’t mean that most people are on board with it. American socialists might be loud, but conservatives know that doing is more effective than saying, and their votes prove this.

An important thing to remember from Milton Friedman is that, as far as the government is concerned, freedom should come before equality (of outcome). When we are free, we are equal because we all have the opportunity to succeed. Never give up the freedom to fail — when you do, you’ll also give up any chance of true success.