Sympathy for the Devil
Communism won't go away on its own, it is a devil that must be intentionally eradicated. As long as it is around, it infects and sickens every mind and takes over every organism it touches.
Remember former 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney?
If you are my age, you probably do. Rooney is gone now, he passed away in 2011, but back in back in 1989, before it was fashionable for media people to praise collectivism, rail against free speech and openly ridicule the Constitution, he penned a soft love letter to communism.
After the Berlin Wall fell, Rooney lamented about the “defeat” (it wasn’t defeated) of communism, writing:
“Communism got to be a terrible word here in the United States, but our attitude toward it may have been unfair. Communism got in with a bad crowd when it was young and never had a fair chance…
The Communist ideas of creating a society in which everyone does his best for the good of everyone is appealing and fundamentally a more uplifting idea than capitalism. Communism’s only real weakness seems to be that it doesn’t work.”
One of the fallacies of a communist society is revealed, perhaps unintentionally, by Rooney in the first sentence of the second part of the quote, that communism creates “a society in which everyone does his best for the good of everyone”.
Uh, no. That is why communism always fails - because for “everyone does his best for the good of everyone” supposes that we all will be motivated by some “central good”, upon which we all agree.
Well, just who is it that determines what that “good” is? Who sets the goals? Who determines the behaviors necessary to achieve that state of “good”? Who organizes the population to pursue that “good”? What happens when that “good” does harm to some in society?
Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, aka Vlad Lenin, addressed the problem within communism (actually, within all sociopolitical and socioeconomic systems), when he identified the question of “Who, whom?”.
“Who, whom?” – those two words refer to who plans for whom, who directs and dominates whom, who makes the laws for whom, who assigns to other people their station in life, and who is to have his due allotted by others – which is the greatest conundrum of civil governance.
Who determines those things? Who sets the agenda and upon whose authority?
The answer is that somebody does. Somebody must, for without sufficient order, there would be chaos.
As a result of such questions, people create governments.
Seventeenth century philosopher John Locke noted the reason:
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse [choose] and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society…”
Keep in mind that Locke wrote these words in 1690, 332 years ago. Locke was a scholar but also a keen observer of human nature and social currents. In 1690, most of the world was governed by undemocratic and authoritarian governmental systems. Locke was observing the birth of multiple avenues of thoughts on liberty, freedom and how governance could be structured to preserve and protect those liberties and freedoms.
Even in Locke’s time, there are only two options in governance – everything else is a variation on this theme – it is either an illusion of freedom constructed of a form of forced “equality” through the coercive power of a state or the blessed, minimally managed chaos, the real freedom of self-governance where everybody can prosper to the best of their ability.
The pathology of those two ends of the spectrum can be observed in our culture today. There are kids coming of age who have been protected and managed by helicopter parents their whole lives, they have been rewarded for achieving nothing, but now want to transfer the kind of benevolent and munificent dictatorship they received from their parents to society.
And then there are those, like most from my childhood, who were told to get outside and play, just be back before dark and don’t get hurt or kill anybody.
The 332 years since Locke penned his “Second Treatise of Civil Government” has done nothing to change the nature of man, his interaction with his fellow man or the nature of those who seek to govern. It is both remarkable and tragic that we continue to commit the same errors as in Locke’s time. Understanding these facts alone should be a complete and perfect vindication and approbation of Locke’s observations and postulates.
I find that lack of understanding simply astounding on the one hand and soul wrenchingly disappointing on the other because we seem to be hell bent on making the same mistakes over and over. Humans take rare and unique creations (like America), with their promises of freedom and equality and immediately begin to infect them with the very ideas that can never work. After making the creations sick enough to be bedridden and on life support, the disease carriers scream the only way to save the patient is to kill her.
I’m going to be a solid “no” on pulling the plug.
‘To each what he needs. From each what he can give.’ Uh, nope. Guaranteed to fail.