Posted on 01/27/2022 8:09:10 AM PST by Kaslin
When my children were young, we occasionally played a game we called: Good Idea—Bad Idea. It went like this. Good Idea: playing the piano. Bad Idea: playing the piano in a marching band. Or, Good Idea: fishing for fish. Bad Idea: fishing for school buses. You get the drift.
We also see this game played out in real life. Some years ago, a serial bank robber in Pittsburgh was noted for his red beard. In his version of Good Idea—Bad Idea, he thought it a good idea to disguise himself with a beard. But he chose a red beard just like his own and was quickly apprehended.
Then there was the fellow who thought it a Good Idea to avoid the transoceanic baggage charge on his airline by wearing all his clothes: six T-shirts, four sweaters, three pairs of blue jeans, two jackets, and two hats. That Bad Idea led to a trip to the hospital for overheating and dehydration that likely cost more than the $50 he hoped to save.
More deadly are the Good Idea—Bad Idea implications of socialism. To many, especially the young, socialism seems like a Good Idea. The ideal of “equality” is often mentioned. But the socialist view of equality requires treading on personal freedom, as the wealth of many are confiscated for the greater socialist “good.”
Other young people embrace socialism out of a profound sense of entitlement, believing that earned societal privileges are actually rights they should receive upon demand. They believe there is such a thing as a free lunch, and they want theirs now. Little thought is given to the obvious reality that if everyone is riding in the wagon, there are none left to pull it. As one journalist put it: “The bottom line is that most young proponents of socialism simply haven’t done the math.”
Death Toll
Socialism is the worst Bad Idea in human history, and younger proponents are seemingly blind to the human cost of socialist governments—one measured in blood. As Professor Paul Kengor tartly put it: “Communism has only killed 100 million people. Why not give it another shot?” But surely that’s hyperbole, yes? Afraid not.
In 1999, Harvard University Press published The Black Book of Communism, a respected research effort detailing the death toll from Communism in the twentieth century alone. Their grim toll:
U.S.S.R.: 20 million
Red China: 65 million
Vietnam: 1 million
North Korea: 2 million
Cambodia: 2 million
Eastern Europe: 1 million
Africa: 1.7 million
Afghanistan: 1.5 million
Latin America: 150,000
Other highly regarded researchers have labeled these horrendous totals as markedly conservative. Research scientist R. J. Rummel estimates that “Soviet governments were responsible for the death of 61.9 million of their own people from 1917 to 1987.” Years later under the glasnost inaugurated by Mikhail Gorbachev, Alexander Yakolev, a high-ranking Soviet official, was given the official task of counting the victims of Soviet communism. He estimated 60 to 70 million dead under Stalin alone. This number comports well with the prior estimate of Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
A similar underestimate emerges in North Korea. The Black Book of Communism failed to include the two to three million people that died in the late twentieth century famine precipitated by North Korea’s communist policies. A shocking context is important here. Two to three million dead is 10 to 15 percent of North Korea’s population. The equivalent number in the United States today would be 33 to 50 million dead. The same sad story emerges from Cambodia, where Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge government killed an estimated 40 percent of the population.
Professor Rummel’s total accounting for the number of people killed by their own communist governments in the twentieth century is an astonishing 140 million. This reality was surely the genesis of President Ronald Reagan’s descriptors of the Soviet Union as the evil empire and the heart of darkness. Reagan went on to say: “Communism is neither an economic or a political system—it is a form of insanity.”
Velvet Glove . . . Iron Fist
Socialism has been termed by some as an iron fist inside a velvet glove. Outwardly its ideas may seem attractive and even rational. Socialists argue that, once in power, the socialist state will “intervene directly to relieve all suffering, satisfy and anticipate all wants, furnish capital to all enterprises, enlightenment to all minds, balm for all wounds, and asylums for all the unfortunate.”
If this were true, who would not desire it? But it’s not true, for the simple reason that socialist (or any) government has nothing to give anybody that it does not first take from somebody else. Socialism is principally about the acquisition and concentration of power. And that appetite may well be the leading man-made cause of death in all of human history.
In fact, Marxism and all its derivatives have cost the lives of hundreds of millions. Marxism and derivatives are, indeed, nothing but a power grab. It replaces the old model of royalty with an international cabal of oligarchs. It has its roots in the early Industrial Revolution and the rise of ultra wealthy individuals with oligarchic tendencies.
Professor Paul Kengor tartly put it: “Communism has only killed 100 million people. Why not give it another shot?”
***That seems almost tagline worthy so I think I’ll update the tagline page.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3992415/posts?q=1&;page=338#338
I think we need to take it even further. Totalitarianism, minus political ideology is responsible for millions of deaths. I see Africa at 1.7 million. Rwanda genocide, anything Idi Amin Dada, Mugabe and the rest of the thugs had to have a higher number. They weren’t communists. They were genocidal maniacs. Communism for those maniacs was a political excuse. We can also add in purity of race, religion to the mix.
I would venture to say that 1.7 million number is closer to 5 million.
I think the word is ‘democide’.
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
20th century total is more than 260 million killed by authoritarian guvmints.
Left out the national socialists and every victim of the holocaust. AND add to that the number of civilians and soldiers killed during the world war. ALL from one rotten theme. Socialism
A socialist is merely a communist who hasn’t started the killing...YET.
Those numbers are way low. A quarter billion is more realistic.
Russian-style Socialism murdered one of my great grandfathers, and essentially imprisoned about 3/4 of his descendants for 3 generations. The only good thing about it is that it is gone. Oh, and Socialism is the same, regardless of the language of those trying to sell it - it will result in untold and incalculable misery if tried in this country...and I will resist it with every fiber of my existence.
Socialism was imposed in Russia and elsewhere at relatively low cost to those imposing it. I may not be able to stop the large forces of history from doing so here in this country, but I will be damned if those bastards will get away with it for free this time.
Socialism, Marxism, Nazism, “Progressivism” (whatever TF that is, other than putting lipstick on the pig of Socialism) are all part of the same basic philosophy: Collectivism. Most governments throughout history have adopted these principles, to the advantage of those pulling the levers of power. Rare, indeed, is the government run on the principles of Individualism - ours is THE shining example, with all of its flaws, and the Collectivists are desperate to eliminate our form of government because it shows their failures every day.
Absolutely. Collectivism, which is central absolute authoritarian rule to empower and enrich a small elite at the expense of the larger population, probably goes back to prehistoric tribes. Marx give it a pseudo-intellectual power-to-the-people gloss, but all he really meant was to shift power from rule by royalty to rule by oligarchs.
Collectivism is little different than slavery, except that its purveyors try to convince you that it is good to put on the chains. That’s why they have dumbed down the population over the last few generations and are erasing/distorting our history as quickly as possible. For them, “1984” is an instruction manual.
Even more broadly, it’s “control and power freaks.” Whatever the popular form of government de jure, they can and will abuse it to the detriment of at least some in their orbit.
Kings, dictators, elected, no matter the form, there is a way to abuse it all the way to killing masses. Socialism and democracy are both evil.
And a good fraction of these demons are out of view, using public front men to get the deed done.
Progressivism is just another word for taking away the one thing that has made this country so exceptional on the world stage-freedom. Not unrestricted freedom, but freedom with “guardrails”. (The Wall Street Journal, back in the Clinton years, had an excellent Editorial titled “No Guardrails”).
What’s notable today is that what we have now is Tyranny with NO guardrails, regarding the movement of our moral and social direction.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.