Posted on 02/02/2021 5:15:01 AM PST by Kaslin
In my new book Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life, I write about growing up with my European immigrant parents. Much of the story is very funny — and of course true — but some of it is quite serious. That’s because my parents saw the horrors of communism up close, and in the stories they told me and my brother they helped us understand that there was real evil in the world. As we learned from them about the evils of living in places under the oppression of Marxist atheism, we also learned about the blessings of living in America, where God and liberty were at the heart of much of our culture, so much so that many take it for granted.
My father grew up in Greece and saw great evil during the Second War, often suffering real hunger; and when that ended, a civil war erupted and Communists tried to take over his beloved country. My mother grew up in Germany, losing her father at age 10 and then suffering tremendous deprivations after the war, also including hunger and malnutrition. Her part of Germany was indeed taken over by the Communists, who forced their Russian Marxist propaganda on her in school. It was so awful she risked her life to escape at age 17, fleeing to the West and then to the United States in 1954.
My father came here in 1955, to New York, where the following year he met my mother in a nighttime class of immigrants learning English. Their first date was to Teddy Roosevelt’s birthplace in Manhattan. A year later another date took them to the Statue of Liberty, which is memorialized on the cover of my book. The next year they were married.
Photo courtesy of Salem Books/Eric Metaxas.
Growing up as their son in the Sixties and Seventies, I heard innumerable stories of their experiences, never doubting that there was real evil in the world — or that its political form existed in the soul-crushing ideology of Marxist communism. I even remember visiting East Germany with my mother in 1971 and seeing the barbed wire and guard towers as we crossed the border. These were not intended to keep people out, but to keep their own people, including my German relatives, from escaping.
I remember my mother explaining to me that people in East Germany and Russia actually voted in elections, but were all expected to vote for the same candidate. It was stunning to hear. I also remember watching the ’72 and ’76 Olympics and seeing the unnaturally muscular female swimmers from the Soviet bloc countries, and my parents explaining to me that yes, of course, the “Russians” always cheated. Marxists didn’t believe in God, or in good or evil, so power and winning were the only things that mattered. Of course history has since shown that they did cheat, but my parents never had any doubt.
Most of the kids in the public schools where I grew up, in Danbury, Connecticut, had no such ideas of such evils. Their parents grew up in America and simply had never seen it up close. Because of this they tended to regard the freedoms we had in America somewhat less appreciatively than my own parents, and were less concerned about leftist ideologies, having little idea where they could lead.
When Aleksandr Solzhenitsn came to the United States in 1976, my father explained how he had suffered cruelties at the hands of the Soviets, but had dared to stand up to them anyway, even writing books about what was going on in their political prison camps in his masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn was thrown out of his own country because the truth he spoke about the Soviet regime was too much for its leaders to bear. I also remember when in 1978 he spoke at Harvard’s graduation, daring to point his finger at the West, too, saying that we were foolishly drifting in the same direction as Russia, albeit by a different path.
This was too close to home for many in the left-leaning and elite American media, who now turned their backs on him, despite so recently portraying him a brave hero. But I had always known that what he was saying was true, and that we in America must also be vigilant in standing against leftist ideologies that place no value on human lives as made in God’s image, and therefore as sacred. Why should we be exempt from such things?
Solzhenitsyn once said that all the horrors of the 20th century — the carnage and cruelty brought to the world by the fascist Nazis and the marxist Soviets both — were because “man had forgotten God.” This, he said, “was why all these things had happened.” Forgetting God, whether via Nazism or Marxism — or via Western materialism and hedonism — was the root problem, and inevitably would open the door to every kind of evil.
It is a chilling thing, therefore, to see all this playing out in America today, and to hear many fellow Americans deem it so extremist and radical to speak of this that they are self-righteously “cancelling” voices that dare to do so. Isn’t shutting down dissent not the very proof that we have stepped away from our core values of “free speech” already, and from genuine tolerance toward others? Doesn’t this show us where all of this is leading?
As Solzhenitsyn prophesied, we in this great country have naively drifted along, now for decades accepting increased government control over our lives and even believing the seductive lie that “socialism” can somehow be a good thing. Though my parents always warned me of these things, I am still horrified to see them for myself, knowing these things are nothing less than the dedicated enemies of liberty and humanity and justice and truth, and the handmaidens to the cruelest evils imaginable.
I know many of my fellow Americans — and friends — now helping these things along know not what they do. But I cannot stop from trying to wake them to what I see. If I were to be silent now I would be guiltier than they, for I know and love people who have lived through these things. Some things are worth sacrificing everything for — our reputations and friendships and careers and even our lives. The God-given freedoms we have are such things; and the freedom — and duty — to speak what we know to be true must always be at the top of that list.
Evil is very real, alive and well in politics. Power politics is evil.
My Russian grandmother taught us about commies when I was growing up. I hate communism. It is evil, of the devil.
The irony is that prosperity ruins people and hardship makes them better. Too much technology, prosperity and leisure time
We have a Moral and Spiritual crisis in this country. We lost this nation when the 10 commandments were removed from the town square.
My German mother shared the tales of Nazism, too. I am trying not to be anxious during the times I hear the same propaganda against the Conservative segment of the population The best thing is not to be blinded by Hate.
I don’t know. We’ve always discussed it. I hung out with my great aunts who hung out with their grandmothers. I’m one acquaintance removed from a Catholic Irish woman who was born in 1865. They talked about it.
My Catholic l friends talk about it. Very few of them can shake the idea that to be and to vote democrat is good, republicans are evil. They hate when people point out that to gain power through promoting abortion rights is evil.
When I talk to my contemporaries in NY, women who were socialized in east coast colleges that used to be Catholic but now I still the idea that democrat politicians and those who support them are divine-like and anyone opposing them is evil.
It used to be women had a sense for evil enough to keep their husbands and kids away from it. They knew how people like these current despots worked with it to gain power. But, att least the majority of east coast Catholic women who encourage voting for it, have allowed themselves to be separated from it.
Most are uncomfortable with anything out of their comfort zone so they deny it, avoid it and shut it out
Yes, it matters little what “ism” they call it....it always leads to misery for the masses and enrichment for those in control at the top.
The leftists want to trade “rich capitalists” for “rich politicians”. That is insanity.
But they believe politicians have good intentions while “rich capitalists” do not have good intentions.
Those of us with clear minds can see where this is going and the misery that will befall those on the left as well who support this nonsense.
Many of us will say “they deserve it” and do nothing....which is always how this happens throughout history.
“ The irony is that prosperity ruins people and hardship makes them better. Too much technology, prosperity and leisure time”
It’s so narrow.
I disagree. Prosperity cannot ruin people. Not does hardship make them better. I think that belief is a root of looking at democrat party the party of the working poor as a god. A religion. I work hard was educated and I appreciate money even if I always did have a lot.
Prosperity can tempt and hardship can build character and virtue. I grew up in prosperity and I have friends who grew up in poverty. I don’t see myself as evil and them as good. They think democrat politicians are gods to be obeyed they hold their nose to vote for trump and spit when they talk about him same time they go to mass and pray for an end to abortion
I know people who think it’s virtuous to be poor. That’s just ignorant. They hate wealthy people. That’s silly. Trump took the 200 million he inherited and worked got educated and turned it into 9 billion. Honestly. People hate him for being wealthy. Their bigotry at not seeing that wealthy people can be virtuous blinds themselves
Meanwhile dem politicians have millions plus trillions illegal at their disposal but they’re not evil because they’re hard working poor democrats?
So ignorant
Loosely from Dorothy Sayer’s great commentaries on "The Devine Comedy": 'Sloth’ is more than just the laziness of mind and body. It's the total poisoning of the will to the place where we acquiesce to evil and error in the name of ‘tolerance.’
bump
We made the Roman’s look like complete amateurs with our improved version of bread and circuses. We did amazing things they wouldn’t even believe possible, like making the poorest people the most likely to be obese. There has never been a society like ours, we are the most passively entertained and least used to sustained physical labor of any people in history.
Freegards
Americans are good people, generous, kind and tolerant. Many consider themselves to be Christians, but do not know the Bible. They honestly believe their rights are protected by the Constitution and cannot believe the evil things that happen elsewhere can happen here.
The Bible is very clear about these “end times” and what will happen. And it is all carved in stone, not because God is letting it happen, but because WE are. He gave us free will and only intervenes when we ask Him to. We aren’t asking.
However, throughout Obama’s terms and into DJT’s, we have been learning and watching. DJT showed us the way to fight these traitors in our government, and we are beginning to get the message. This is Satan’s world and he is a dedicated taskmaster. He could not have come up with a better plan for our ruination than the democrat party and its enablers.
Too many ardently believe that Evil is a Christian ‘thing’ and eschew it as they do proselytizers knocking on their doors pamphlet in hand.
“5% of the people think; 10% of the people think they think; the other 85% of the people would rather die than think.” Thomas Edison
We deny evil because it is comforting.
IF there is no evil there no sin, and therefore no moral consequences.
We could not possibly be more wrong...
“Was Karl Marx a SATANIST?”
This is the spiritual war. The national Biblical consequence for legalized (king or law) child sacrifice is invasion and conquest. Not forgiven. 2 Kings 24 “And the LORD would not forgive” but a reprieve is given with outlawing. The individual is forgiven with repentance.
Satan knows this. Thus his minions wanting pre-born child sacrifice established in every nation so that he can have his blip in time ruling the world to do as he most desires, kill humans without redemption. He is the one who exacts God’s righteous judgment. He hates those created in the image of God.
Satanism is practiced by both parties in our government. So if we learn the truth about Marxism we can tell the truth.
https://grandmageri422.me/2019/10/21/was-karl-marx-a-satanist-3/
They are naïve because there has been a S - L - O - W motion descent into tyranny. It is quicker now, but it has been going on at least since FDR. All hidden in feel-good platitudes and resentment of the “privileged” people. Eventually, it all has to end in tyranny of some kind.
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