Posted on 11/24/2002 2:11:07 PM PST by Greg Swann
Redsby Greg Swann |
My son is a Cub Scout. A few weekends ago he had his yearly ScoutORama, a sort of Scout convention and trade fair. The theme of this year's event was 'American Heroes,' and it turns out that American Heroes, for the most part, build small catapults and cook in Dutch ovens. One Cub pack took the theme rather more to heart, with a huge display called 'Freedom In Unity'.
To an attending Cub Scout I said, "Is it conceivable to you that unity and freedom might conflict?"
After a moment's thought, he said: "Huh?"
As a father of an eleven-year-old, I fully expected this retort. Undismayed, I pressed on: "Isn't it reasonable to suppose that the quality best represented by the word 'freedom' is freedom from other people?"
"HUH?!
And my wife pulled me away, arguing, quite correctly, that it is unfair to expect children to regurgitate, much less competently defend, the horseshit they are force-fed by adults.
They do so eventually, of course, and thus become the adults who do the force-feeding of the next generation of helpless victims--unminded before they can be fully mindful, starved and stuffed at the same time, gorged forevermore on horseshit.
But: It's not the what, it's the where, the who, the how. And most especially: The why.
When the French, to pick an odorous example, rail against Individualism, we know what we're hearing. When radical feminists--or radical environmentalists, or radical vegans--heap scorn upon Liberty, it doesn't take much acuity to see right through them.
But to listen carefully--and I am cursed with the skill of listening carefully--to a Scout leader or a PTA president or a youth minister is to listen no less to the preachments of Herr Doktor Marx. Service and sacrifice, the sacrifice of all to any, any to all, with the only measure of virtue being elaborately effected egolessness.
It is everywhere. The National Honor Society, which by its name and its selection process is about nothing but selfish individual achievement, immediately demands of its honorees that they spit on their accomplishments and pursue instead endless collectivist sacrifice.
The real, genuine, actual purpose of the Knights of Columbus or the Elks Club or the Shriners is to provide a place where members can drink after hours and play poker unsurveilled. But the 'official' reason-for-being for fraternal organizations--for 'organized' activities of any kind--is charity. We will suffer the boys a snort and a draw to a straight, provided they dress it up with a sacrifice to the mob.
The country club, membership in which is the very hallmark of individual distinction and exclusivity, justifies its existence with ritualized charity balls and charity golf tournaments and cacophonous silent auctions for charity.
I could cite examples unending, and that's the point. I can think of almost nothing in the lives of ordinary Americans, nothing that is 'organized' or 'official', that is not thoroughly steeped in Marxism.
Is the youth minister a Communist? The PTA president? Emphatically, no--so much the worse. The theorists who lead the feminists and the environmentalists and the vegans know what they are doing--which is helpful, since their theory leads them to take stands so absurd that normal people are repelled. But when the Scout leader regurgitates the Marxist horseshit he was force-fed without even knowing it was Marxist horseshit, without even realizing he was being force-fed, without ever once thinking about what his words might mean--that man is the most effective recruiting agent the Communists ever had.
Oh, but the Soviets are dead and gone. And the Chinese are reforming. And Castro is a joke. And none of that matters. Communism--more properly Anti-Individualism--has never been healthier, death notices notwithstanding. Communism thrives not because some state waxes or wanes, but because its core philosophy is ubiquitous.
And in fact the West has never been safe. At times we have flirted with Individualism, but never openly, without shame or reservation. Our brother Cain was making Marx's argument and effecting Marx's murders long before Herr Doktor Marx rationalized Cain's pathology. And we have volunteered for millennia to despise our highest virtues in order to win, by bribery, the approval of the despicable--who we hope will spare us even as we tacitly concede that they have as much right as Cain to slaughter us.
But even this is not enough for Communism to triumph. So long as you have even one small place to go to be alone, to be a self, an ego, free and disunited--so long as there is even one little thing about which you can say, "This is mine and you can't touch it!--so long as there is even one tiny little corner in your mind that is not to be pawed, not to be mauled, not to be defaced and desecrated by all or by any--so long as there is anything in your life that is not to be shared, socialized, sacrificed--then Communism must fail.
And that is the why of the force-feeding Scoutmaster, why he spends all his time spewing unexamined Marxism, why he has been assiduoulsy indoctrinated to spend all his time spewing unexamined Marxism. He is not a Communist, but when he force-feeds that unexamined Marxist horseshit to innocent children, the PTA president and the youth minister smile. And they are not Communists. They are simply regurgitating the Marxist horseshit they swill everywhere--newspapers, magazines, television, the sermons and speeches they write by cribbing the same horseshit from other articles and sermons and speeches. If asked, they would deny that it is their claim that service and sacrifice are the only justifications for human life. If pressed, they would insist that they are not trying to destroy every redoubt of Individualism.
But we are what we do. They are the unwitting foot-soldiers, the useful idiots, of Communism. They're not coming for your guns; that's a distraction. They're coming for your children. They're coming for you.
Communism cannot triumph if you can repair to your family, if you can love your spouse or your children and not share that love equally with all or any. So the family must be destroyed. Undermined from within by feminism and divorce and the destruction of fatherhood. Undermined from without by films and jokes that demean the family and promote accidental, temporary relationships.
Communism cannot triumph if you can turn to your church, to a communion and consolation that is immutably private. So the church must be destroyed. Dismantled from the outside by ridicule and loathing, dismantled from the inside by the indoctrination of Marxism.
Communism cannot triumph if you can own anything. So ownership must be destroyed. Everything you own, from your house to your car to your things to your memories to your thoughts to your soul itself--everything you own becomes subject to review, to derision, to oversight, to criticism, to regulation, to confiscation.
Communism cannot triumph if you can escape it. One-world Communism doesn't require a global state. All that is necessary is for you to be unable to get away from it no matter where you go. To the church? To the school? To the country club? To the Elks club? To the legislature, even? There is nowhere for you to run, no place you can go where you are permitted to uphold your right to your own life as a matter of right.
But Communism cannot triumph if you can resist it. And that is the true battleground--your mind. They'll take your guns when they can, and your house soon after that, but the property they must take, in order to triumph, is your mind. That is why they took your church and your school and your family and every social organization you belong to and everything you see or hear about or read: In order to force-feed you Marxism and to leave you no alternative but to be force-fed Marxism.
You think they're beaten, but you're wrong. You watched it on television--a vast electronic rectum ceaselessly spewing Marxist horseshit--and you think they're defeated. You're wrong. The Soviets might be gone, but Communism--more properly Anti-Individualism--has never been healthier.
It's not a matter of controlling states or controlling weapons or controlling factories. The issue--the only issue--is controlling you. More properly, convincing you to surrender your self-control. To give up your mind and your body and your soul, to deny to yourself any right to the personal, the private, the not-to-be-sacrificed. To renounce your own ego because it is yours, because it can never be shared, because it is a treasure so precious it must never be pawed at by strangers. When they convince you to damn your own self for being a self, then Communism can triumph. The territory to be captured is you.
This is their goal, their only goal. They are relentless in pursuit of that goal, and they will not give up.
And they are everywhere... |
Hmmm...
What have I written here that leads you to believe that this is a sensible question?
Your agreement with the "article".
You disagree with it?
It is the most ridiculous piece of trash I have seen published around here for a long time and that takes some doing given the level of competition.
Nor, may I be so bold as to say it, is the individual the pinnacle of morality.
What you've really done is simply this: your son is going to rebel against your pedantics the first chance he gets. Count on it.
ROTFLMAO!!!! The "rules of law" as you've used the term, is a collectivist activity.
You said: Collectivism is the final resort of the weak. Moral men must be eternally vigilant in the struggle against those that would violate their rights. Collectivists are spawned in childhood and will be forever with us. The rules of law are created to efficiently dispose of them.
The rule of law does protect the rights of individuals -- in part. But it also serves a collective interest, in that it represents the rules by which the society chooses to operate.
The rule of law is set in opposition to the rule of the mob, on the one hand; and the rule of the individual, on the other. And the rule of law is particularly important for the protection of the weak, who would otherwise be taken advantage of by the strong.
You seem to be saying that the moral man must only be concerned with protecting his rights against others. But the moral man does not live in isolation -- he lives in a society, and as such has responsibilities to that society.
Thus, a moral man is required also to fulfill his obligations to society. He will, for example, strive to obey the spirit, and not just the letter of the law. (Consider Bill Clinton, who narrowly obeyed the letter, but egregiously violated the spirit of the law.)
The moral man will also curb his impulses in deference to those who may be merely offended by his actions -- the goal being to ensure a harmonious society, of the sort that is not tempted to take collectivist action against the fellow's bad behavior.
His only responsibility to society is to defend the rights of man and, by extension, his rights. What other responsibilities do you imagine?
Tex, I don't see any common ground between us for, or any profit to me from, a discussion here.
You go have a good day.
That's a bold statement, but it's wrong.
If, for instance, you are willing to turn over your guns so that the gungrabbers won't be able to confiscate them by force...
This would be a mistake, because individual gun ownership is good for the collective. On the other hand, donating your time or money to the nearest charity hospital is a good thing to do.
No, the government doesn't have a right to force you to be virtuous, but for a society to function there must be virtue. Virtuous people don't need the government to make them do the right thing. Virtuous people are worthy of their freedom.
From another email:
There's a gap between these examples and an individual choosing to give for another based solely on his discretion. This sort of sacrifice is at the heart of family.The question of what is called 'Christian charity' came up often in my mail, and it is a vitally important question for this particular weblog:
I guess the question that I'm getting at is this: is there something that ennobles man?
First, it would be accurate to say that in many (but not all) ways, the Nazarene Hellenized (Westernized) the East.
Second, it would also be accurate to say that Marx was seeking to Orientalize (Easternize) the West.
In what way is Christian charity different from Judaic charity? From Islamic charity?
And: How will the West, sleepwalkingly steeped in Marxism, resist the demand of the sacrifice of the self made by Islam, the loudest voice of the non-Hellenized East?
I answered only part of the email:
I guess the question that I'm getting at is this: is there something that ennobles man?Christian charity, Judaic charity, Islamic charity--these are all true sacrifices, the sacrifice of Abel to Cain, the sacrifice of virtue to vice. The sacrifice of industry to sloth, of truth to deceit, of honor to corruption, of the love of life to the contempt of death. The sacrifice of the magnificent human mind to the screeching monkeys of the veldt. The sacrifice of the ego to the mob...
Ask William Wallace. Ask the Nazarene. Ask Socrates.
People interpret these stories as self-sacrifice for the mob, but this is false. It is the self that each of them refused to sacrifice.
See me at Sacrificing Diana.
The human ego is the only object of sacrifice, and this is why it is the only enemy of the doctrines of the East--Christian, Judaic, Islamic or Marxist--and the only weapon that can defeat them.
This is an email I had, with the correspondent named, as I'm sure he is proud of himself, and as I'm sure he has every right to be proud of himself:
Unfortunately, I'm sure the part about "no one listens" is true. The good news is: The truth will out...
From: "al rabinowitz"
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 18:47:03 -0700
To: gswann@primenet.com
Subject: RedsGood on you. I've been saying the same for many, many years. No one
listens. Keep going.
Al Rabinowitz
This is a reply I had to my essay Reds, with the correspondent's name omitted as an act of (ahem) charity:
In the end, it is good for people to contribute for the good of the collective. This can be done voluntarily or it can be done through the force of law. The more it's done voluntarily, the less the socialists can make the case that it should be done through the force of law.Which says: They can't conquer us if we surrender first!
So, to me, the Scouts encouraging contribution to the group is a good thing. It actually prevents socialist encroachment by undermining the argument that individuals must be forced into doing what's good for the collective.
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