The Patriot Post® · Socialism vs. Capitalism: Part III
Every election year, politicians run for office on their “bold, new ideas (plans).” Often, those politicians either rise or fall based upon the assessment of their ideas by talking heads in the media. If “conventional wisdom” declares those ideas to be truly striking and innovative, the candidate has a much better chance of winning (especially in the so-called “swing” states). If his ideas are ultimately deemed old and stale by the voters, the politician has little chance.
Furthermore, the candidate with the biggest “war chest” and the best strategy for winning those crucial swing states has an advantage over his opponent. He can spend millions of dollars in those critical states on ads making his ideas known and arguing the validity of his “plan” to the voters.*
Question: Why, then, are those countless (millions of dollars-worth of) excruciatingly annoying ads all but totally devoid of ideas – new or old – and chock-full of relentless attacks against the opponent?
Pay no attention to the man [i.e., men and women – talking heads in the mainstream media (MSM) and most political consultants] behind the curtain. He cares nothing whatsoever about you, the country as it was founded, or Truth. He cares only about himself, his candidate, and the narrative (spin; propaganda*) that he can concoct to get his candidate elected and his ideology implemented.
Answer: There are no new, bold, striking and innovative ideas! Anything and everything that is presented as “new” has only been recycled, repackaged and updated from principles and ideas that have existed for millennia. [See Ecclesiastes 1:8-11.]
[Yes, I know that many “new” discoveries have been made over the past 1000 years – and for thousands of years before that. I realize that human technology has increased almost exponentially over the past 200 years. I also know this: Every discovery made 3000, 1000 or even just 2 years ago may very well have been new to the contemporary world-at-large. Yet it was merely the discovery – or, the rediscovery – by a human being of a certain ethical, economic or scientific truth (physical – or practical – principle, aspect, or “idea” of Natural Law) that had existed since almost the very beginning of time. And this: The virtually exponential boom in technological progress over the past 200 years was the direct result of an unleashing of human Liberty – primarily by way of the comprehensive Anglo-American (Judeo-Christian) Ideal. *And this: Certain physical (scientific) principles, truths, ideas and methods (knowledge of the Laws and principles of Nature and how practically to apply this knowledge for the glory of both God – or, “gods” – and man) were known to man some 5000 years ago, but have been forgotten and have yet to be rediscovered. Witness, for just a few examples, the Pyramids of Egypt and South America, Stonehenge (England) and Puma Punku (Bolivia)! An in-depth study of Genesis (the first book of the Torah and of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible), even just at face value – even without any guidance/revelation from the Holy Spirit – explains all of this very effectively and quite comprehensively! No need for “Ancient Aliens!!”]
Please look closely, in full context, at Ecclesiastes 1:11. This verse was paraphrased, for all the right reasons, by Edmund Burke (1729-1797). Burke said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Burke himself was later paraphrased, for mostly the wrong reasons, by George Santayana (1863-1952) in the quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
How quickly we forget history! Especially when we begin to take Liberty for granted and our focus becomes set upon materialism, greed, wealth-without-merit and immediate (self-) gratification!! Certainly when we and our children become wards of a state-run (socialistic) education establishment that distorts and omits historical facts and truths for the purpose of creating dependent automatons – slavish subjects of a “beneficently” authoritarian state!!!
Those who know history, and are intellectually honest, know without doubt that socialism has failed – usually with disastrous results – every time and in every place it has been implemented. Please study Governor William Bradford’s account.
No one needs to go as far back in history as the early 1600’s to understand the dire consequences of socialism. The entire 20th century tells us all we need to know. Let’s look at socialism in the 20th century.
First, however, some critical – but ironic – perspective (context) is necessary.
The purveyors of modern “conventional wisdom” (the men and women behind the curtain – pundits in the MSM and political consultants together with “educators” and administrators within the education establishment) work overtime (and are often paid handsomely) in an effort to convince you and me that American conservatives are a bunch of Nazis and fascists. The irony? The purveyors of modern “conventional wisdom” are “progressives” (modern “liberals”). Their immediate ideological ancestors are the Franco-German philosophers. [Please review Part I of this series.] Franco-German philosophers (e.g., Rousseau, Hegel, Marx and Nietzche) took the age-old idea of totalitarian socialism and refined and codified it into an “acceptable” politico-economic system for the modern age that would carry on into a “postmodern” future – a future without God. [Please see here and here!]
The truth: Every genuine American conservative considers every form and any degree of socialism (at least at any political level beyond local) an absolute abomination – be it national socialism (fascism or Nazism) or international/“global” socialism (communism or Marxism).
At some point during the early-mid 1600’s, Europe (Western culture) became sharply divided between two worldview philosophies (i.e., Anglo-American philosophy vs. Franco-German ideology). Nothing illustrates this division better than a profound, intellectually honest study of the American and French revolutions – and the respective results and consequences of both.
At some point very near the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, Franco-German ideology itself began to cleave into two factions – national socialism (fascism, Nazism) and international socialism (communism, Marxism). Note the common word – the common idea – of both factions: socialism.
Mussolini and, especially Adolph Hitler were the human embodiments of national socialism. The very word “Nazi” comes from the German acronym for the National Socialist German Worker’s Party. Hitler believed that the German state (Reich) was the ultimate god. The German Reich – in Hitler’s demented, narcissistic, megalomaniacal mind – demanded a unified (socially and economically “equal”) collective of virtually “pure” German (Aryan) people.
Not only did Hitler work to purge (murder, incinerate, annihilate) all “undesirables” (Jews; Asians; Africans; Slavs and the physically, mentally and emotionally “impaired”); he also embraced the new “science” of eugenics (see below) in an effort to first bring about, and later to secure his goal for Germany and, eventually, for all of Europe at-large. What was Hitler’s ultimate goal? It was to produce a race of “supermen” – genetically enhanced, “pure” German (Aryan) human beings, by weeding out all “undesirables.” He wanted everyone “faithfully” to worship the “Fatherland,” and to do his bidding (as Der Fuhrer of the Fatherland – or, the Reich) without any hesitation.
Irony:
Eugenics is a “progression” from the assumptions of Charles Darwin. Darwin argued that the many species of animals culminating in humans arrived via a long and complicated process of (purely) natural selection(s). Eugenics takes Darwin’s assumptions a step (or two) farther. “Because there is no god, there are no absolute standards of morality or ethics. Species evolve – humans evolve; and so, too, must moral and ethical standards. We humans have been selectively breeding dogs, sheep, cattle, etc. for millennia. Why can’t we – why shouldn’t we! – selectively breed human beings for the purpose of generating a superior, more enlightened, more highly "evolved” race of human beings?“ [NOTE: Before you conclude that Darwin’s assumptions were completely new and innovative at the time, you must realize that they were merely recycled and slightly modified "ideas” drawn from the very same assumptions that led ancient men toward paganism and polytheism!]
Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) fully embraced the “science” of eugenics. She is the founder of Planned Parenthood. What was her purpose? What was Planned Parenthood’s original objective? Was it merely “birth-control education?” Did it grow out of a deep and moral concern for the reproductive health and rights of women everywhere? Was it focused on the empowerment and liberation of women? This is the narrative (spin; propaganda) that the man behind the curtain wants you to believe – especially if you are a woman!
I urge you to seek out and to study as many original statements, writings and speeches of Margaret Higgins Sanger as you can. If you are both thorough and intellectually honest, you will see that her purpose – the original purpose of Planned Parenthood which largely stands to this very day – was to weed out the “undesirables.” To her, that largely meant “Negroes;” the physically, mentally, and emotionally “disabled;” and the poverty-stricken.
Margaret Higgins Sanger probably did more to influence the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Roe vs. Wade case of 1973 (just over 6 years after her death) than any other person. In no way whatsoever do I wish to diminish the Nazi-inspired Holocaust that European Jews experienced from the 1930’s to the mid 1940’s! Yet, I dare to say, since 1973, abortion has become the United States of America’s holocaust. [Please Google “abortion statistics since 1973.” By virtually all honest and well-documented accounts, roughly 50 million of the most innocent and defenseless American lives have been snuffed out via the abortion “procedure” since 1973.]
Oh, how the man behind the curtain (“progressives”) loves to hate Hitler and all things Nazi or fascist! This is certainly understandable to anyone and everyone who loves life and Liberty and despises socialism. We all revile Hitler, Nazism and fascism! Yet these “progressives” refuse to face facts. They, either willfully or ignorantly, fail to see that their ideology has the very same roots as Hitler’s ideology. “God – along with Truth, Liberty and Justice – is dead. Enlightened man (or, the state: an ‘enlightened’ collective) is ‘god.’ Truth is what ‘science’ (or a consensus of ‘enlightened’ scientists) says it is. Liberty is license. Justice is now ‘social (or collective) justice’ (i.e., not individual justice; but collective ‘equality.’)”
Hitler’s Nazi regime was directly responsible for the violent deaths of some 20 million people. Believe it or not, this is mere child’s play!
Count up the violent deaths from 1917 to 1987 that were the direct results of Marxist/communist regimes around the planet. From Lenin/Stalin’s USSR, to Mao Tse-Tung’s China, to Kim Il-Sung’s Korea, to Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam, to Pol Pot’s Cambodia, to Castro’s Cuba, and through to several regimes (or Marxist rebellions) in both Africa and South America; the bloody body count easily exceeds 160 million. Factor in the forced abortions under China’s “one child policy” and the number of souls (mostly female) snuffed out by Marxist/communist governments may very well surpass the population (300 million +) of the USA today. (War on women?)
Also, consider the lack of Liberty, the grinding poverty, the fear, hopelessness and despair that all of those billions (other than the “leaders” and administrators) of denizens of these totalitarian/socialist states who were “lucky” enough to remain alive were forced to endure. The USSR (the old Soviet Union) was once considered a superpower that rivaled the United States and even threatened both the USA and Western Europe with nuclear annihilation. Yet the people of the USSR very often had to wait for long periods of time in endless lines just to get simple staples such as bread and toilet paper. If they owned their own home or a reliable automobile, they were most likely fairly high up in the leadership of the ruling Communist Party.
[NOTE for the record: The Islamic fanatics (extremists) that the Western world is now reluctantly fighting (under the current administration, sadly, attempting to appease!) are not as grounded in the political (ethical) and economic (fiscal) teachings of Islam as they are rooted the tenets of Nazism and fascism. Please Google “Nazism and radical Islam!” Someone please tell Barack Obama that we are not at war with Muslims. But we darned sure should be fighting Islamo-fascists! Would you like to see a genuine war on women? I certainly hope not; but, ladies and gentlemen, you will see one if you take a good look at these guys!]
Whenever God (the Creator of man and the Author of Law) is declared “dead” by man and assumed to be non-existent by the general populace of any society, only bad things can and absolutely will happen to that society. Selfish man is now all but totally in charge. He now has power and control over you. Truth is what he says it is. Liberty (freedom) is what he says it is. Justice is what he says it is. Beware the man behind the curtain!!
Since at least Woodrow Wilson (1913), “progressives” have been gradually nudging the United States of America toward socialism. Since 2008, the “nudge” has become a tsunami! If the American Ideal of religious (moral), political (ethical), economic (fiscal) and scientific (practical) Liberty is to survive for your children and grandchildren, we must stop this “progressive” tidal wave dead in its tracks! We must reverse the trend. We must fully embrace God and His Truth and reject with all dispatch the “wisdom” of man!
Sam Weaver has been a columnist for RenewAmerica.com since 2002. He can be reached at [email protected].