ROGER KIMBALL: Friedrich Hayek’s Enduring Legacy.

Really, the only equality Lenin and his heirs achieved was an equality of misery and impoverishment for all but a shifting fraction of the nomenklatura. Trotsky got right to the practical nub of the matter, observing that when the state is the sole employer the old adage “he who does not work does not eat” is replaced by “he who does not obey does not eat.”

Nevertheless, a long line of Western intellectuals came, saw, and were conquered: how many bien-pensants writers, journalists, artists, and commentators swooned as did Lincoln Steffens: “I have been over into the future,” he said of his visit to the Soviet Union in 1921, “and it works.” Jeremy Corbyn updated the sentiment when, in 2013, he said that Hugo Chavez “showed us that there is a different and a better way of doing things. It’s called socialism, it’s called social justice and it’s something Venezuela has made a big step towards.”

Yes, Jeremy, it has. And how do you like it? Of course, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. But it is remarkable what a large accumulation of egg-shells we have piled up over the last century. (And then there is always Orwell’s embarrassing question: “Where’s the omelet?”) . . .

But why? What is it about intellectuals that makes them so profligately susceptible to the catnip of socialism?

In his last book, “The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism” (1988), Friedrich Hayek drily underscored the oddity:

The intellectuals’ vain search for a truly socialist community, which results in the idealisation of, and then disillusionment with, a seemingly endless string of “utopias”—the Soviet Union, then Cuba, China, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Tanzania, Nicaragua—should suggest that there might be something about socialism that does not conform to certain facts.

It should, but it hasn’t. And the reason, Hayek suggests, lies in the peculiar rationalism to which a certain species of intellectual is addicted.

It suggests to me that the system that produces such “intellectuals” in such numbers has got something wrong with it.

THAT’S DISCONCERTING: Pentagon Document Confirms Existence of Russian Doomsday Torpedo.

Kanyon is reportedly a very long range autonomous underwater vehicle that has a range 6,200 miles, a maximum depth of 3,280 feet, and a speed of 100 knots according to claims in leaked Russian documents.

But what really makes Kanyon nightmare fuel is the drone torpedo’s payload: a 100-megaton thermonuclear weapon. By way of comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 16 kilotons, or the equivalent of 16,000 tons of TNT. Kanyon’s nuke would be the equivalent of 100,000,000 tons of TNT. That’s twice as powerful as Tsar Bomba, the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever tested. Dropped on New York City, a 100-megaton bomb would kill 8 million people outright and injure 6 million more.

Kanyon is designed to attack coastal areas, destroying cities, naval bases, and ports. The mega-bomb would also generate an artificial tsunami that would surge inland, spreading radioactive contamination with the advancing water. To make matters worse there are reports the warhead is “salted” with the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60. Contaminated areas would be off-limits to humanity for up to 100 years.

And being sea-based makes it immune to ballistic missile defense.

JOHN STOSSEL AT REASON TV: The Southern Poverty Law Center Scam — A “hate group” list loved by the media is bogus.

WELL, GOOD: Ex-C.I.A. Officer Suspected of Compromising Chinese Informants Is Arrested.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Prof: Valuing ‘emotion as knowledge’ fights ‘white identity.’ When taxpayers get tired of funding this stuff, we’ll be told it’s because of anti-intellectualism. But now taxpayers can just tell us they’re valuing their emotions as knowledge.

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Clean Bill of Health, Sh*thole ‘Complicit,’ and Much, Much More.

Tyler O’Neil is filling in for Liz today.

LEARNING FROM HAWAII’S FALSE MISSILE ATTACK FIASCO.

DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF PERVNADO AND THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: If Aziz Ansari Were a College Student, He Could Have Been Expelled for Less.

THE SUPREME COURT IS RELEASING OPINIONS at the slowest rate in a century.

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY: Officials are raising the projected cost of the first phase of California’s bullet train by 35 percent, to $10.6 billion.

The extra $2.8 billion comes on a 199-mile segment in the Central Valley that is partly under construction. The California High Speed Rail Authority board discussed the increase Tuesday.

The added cost is due to delays in obtaining rights of way and barriers needed along parts of the track, among other things.

It boosts the overall cost of the project to nearly $67 billion, which officials say they hope to recover later.

Keep in mind two things. The first is that the $10.6 billion first phase is the “high-speed train to nowhere” connecting Merced to Bakersfield. The second is that much of the money officials hope to recover will probably be “recovered” by extracting it from California taxpayers rather than from fare-paying riders.

FLASHBACK:

Two days earlier Melinda Byerley, founder of a Silicon Valley-based tech startup that does “free-range, artisanal, organic, customized marketing” with “Birkenstocks-on-the-ground expertise,” tweeted her expert opinion on Middle America’s jobs-`attraction problem.

It wasn’t very nice.

First she said Middle America needs to realize “no educated person wants to live in a s- -t-hole with stupid people,” which is why she said more big corporations don’t move to the Heartland: “Those towns have nothing going for them,” with “no infrastructure, just a few bars and a terrible school system.”

Educated people such as herself wouldn’t live in rural areas because they won’t sacrifice their superior tolerance and diversity to do so. Nor do her highly educated friends want to live in states where the majority of residents “don’t want brown people to thrive.”

Just in gated communities with only a small, highly curated selection thereof.

TRUMP’S HITLER! LET’S EXPAND HIS POWER! Liberals accuse Trump of being a dictator, then promptly vote to give Trump more power.

Since Inauguration Day, liberals have fear-mongered in order to swell the ranks of their #Resistance. While they said Ronald Reagan was senile and George W. Bush was stupid, they now accuse Trump of being an evil authoritarian. Pieces in both the Washington Post and the New York Times, for instance, declared 1984 a must-read at the start of 2017. In the same spirit, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi even accused Trump of attempting “word and thought control.”

If any of this was legitimate, liberals would suddenly become the biggest advocates of limited government, or at least limited executive power. And for a while, there was even hope that checks and balances would come back in vogue. Reasonable people like columnist Ryan Cooper could be forgiven for naively expecting “Democrats to see at least some of the problems with unchecked surveillance powers.” But they didn’t.

When given an opportunity to limit the authority of a man they said was unsafe for democracy, Democrats joined with Republicans to put the keys to the surveillance state back into the pocket of the president. The House voted down an amendment by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., that would have forced the government to get a warrant before spying on citizens. The combined vote was 233 against with 183 in favor.

What the Deep State wants, the Deep State usually gets.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Vindicated Harold Ford Jr. goes after Morgan Stanley.

“I am gratified to learn that Morgan Stanley now acknowledges what I always knew, that I did not engage in any acts of sexual misconduct or harassment,” Ford said in a statement.

“I only wish for the sake of my good name and reputation that they had admitted the truth five weeks ago.” . . .

Ford’s only accuser, Reuters business editor Lauren Tara LaCapra, refused to speak with me but told the New York Times of a dinner they shared four years ago: “Mr. Ford tried to pull me into an elevator to go to a cocktail lounge, despite my verbal and physical resistance.”

But at 12:44 a.m. she e-mailed him: “had fun tonight! thanks for inviting me out, and for the meal, and my ride home. hope you got back safe & sound?”

Seems shady. I certainly wouldn’t take Ms. LaCapra to dinner after this.

SOCIALISM IN TEN WORDS: Venezuela Promises Pregnant Women a Handout That’s Worth Almost Nothing.

Venezuela’s President Nicholas Maduro announced during an annual address that pregnant women will soon be awarded a small cash subsidy. The monthly payment of 700,000 bolivars is, at the current exchange rate, worth about $3.83, according to CNN.

The subsidy would have been worth $17 as recently as last November; hyperinflation amid a collapsing economy is likely to make the subsidy worth even less in the weeks to come.

After the women give birth, their stipend will increase to 1 million bolivars, or $5.48, Maduro said. He did not provide a reason for starting the new payment scheme, which he reportedly expects will apply to 151,000 expecting mothers.

In the end, socialism’s promises are worth less than nothing.

I should also note that Laignee Barron’s report blames Venezuela’s “recession” — really, that’s the word they used — on low oil prices, rather than on the true culprits: Wreckers, hoarders, saboteurs, Trotskyites, kulaks, Yankee Imperialists, counterrevolutionaries, and Jews.

DON’T BE EVIL? Google Is Becoming A Police State. Too powerful and too untrustworthy, it needs antitrust scrutiny.

REPORT: Islamic Oppression Fuels Two-Thirds of the Worst Persecution Against Christians.