In Defense of Liberty (Part 2)

Socialism and Communism are existential threats to individual liberty and freedom.  They are an extension of and re-interpretation of the age-old idea that the individuals must be subservient to an all-powerful state or king.  In part one of this article, we discussed how socialism has failed every time it has been tried and yielded disastrous results.  With a well-documented history of causing misery and millions of deaths directly attributable to attempts to implement socialist ideas, it is gaining once more in popularity as something that sounds good.  One needs to look no further than Russia and China and see that they have abandoned socialism and are doing their best to eliminate any last vestiges of their failed social experiment.  The danger for us is there is an ever-constant pressure to replace individual liberty with group-think under the false pretenses of socialism and this is the greatest existential threat this republic has seen at any point in its history.  As the saying goes, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance”.

Read Part One of this article

Can Socialism and Freedom Co-exist?

The answer is a simple “NO”.  Socialism simply cannot exist without the use of force or coercion on the people to ensure adherence to the system.  Socialism by definition seeks to achieve homogeneity in living standards between people.  Ironically, even in those countries such as China and Russia that went for full socialistic societies, there was always a ruling elite living in luxury, a middle class supporting the ruling elites, and those people who fell to the bottom of the system.

Under socialism, those with more resources will have their resources taken away while those with less will be given what resources are left after the government and the ruling elite takes their “fair share”.  Everyone must adhere to this scheme or else the entire system collapses.  People must not be allowed to leave this scheme either or else the dominoes start falling again and collapse start.  It’s what happened to the Soviet Union. This is the very basic reason why socialism fails every time it has been tried.  The human condition cannot accept enslavement.  To counter this, socialist states have tried to re-educate people and indoctrinate the young (i.e brainwash) to accept and support state control but always to no avail.

Individual thought and freewill is what makes each person human and not a hive of single-minded bees or ants.  That freewill creates variability and differences between people.  Because capitalism seeks to harness individual drive towards improving their own situation while socialism seeks to command and control economic activity and suppresses individual drive, capitalism as an economic engine wins every time while socialized economies stagnate and fail.

Meme:  Stalin killed more Russians implementing socialism than the Germans killed during WWII.

Can Anarchy and Freedom Co-exist?

Does pure freedom mean anarchy?  A side question to which the answer is also a resounding “NO”.  Some think that the ultimate form of freedom and independence is anarchy where everything and anything goes (no rules), do as you wish because you want to.  This is a bad interpretation and is the opposite side of the same coin as a lack of societal rules result in a situation where the strongest gets to rule over the weak.  Freedom in truth is a delicate balance of a strong system of government and institutions centered around preserving individual liberty and freedom.  It is why the US is a republic and not a pure democracy.  A pure democracy will end up with a majority subjugating the minority.  Without a strong and fair structure of support, individual freedom cannot be guaranteed and will fail.  Bare in mind that a strong government protecting and preserving individual freedom is much different than a strong government protecting and preserving itself and its institutions.  The first, the government rules at the pleasure of the governed, the second the government governs/rules the governed.  Once a government goes down the second path, individual liberty is lost and the Deep State is born.

Cult of Personality

Political leaders throughout history have presented themselves as either gods or appointed emissaries of god(s).  This is because they need a reference for their source of power and a justification for their actions which in most cases is repression of people.  In a godless socialistic system, the leaders themselves are deified as the supreme omnipotent power and the actions of the henchmen serving such a leader are justified in his/her name.  Take North Korea and Kim dynasty for example.  When Kim Il Sung lead the communist military assault on South Korea, he was no more than a communist political leader.  After his military defeat and subsequent reinstatement by China as the leader of North Korea, he had to consolidate his power in North Korea by building the story that his communist revolution will build the ideal society only with his family as the head.  Subsequent generations of Kim Dynasty offspring built up their cult of personality until the family is worshiped as living gods who can do no wrong despite the irony of visibly obvious social inequalities within a socialist state.  We have seen this cult of personality whenever the people are required to suspend their rational thought and to give up their individual identity for a “greater good” even here in the US.

Photo:  The people of North Korea are reminded daily of their virtuous, god-like, all-knowing Kim dynasty

Socialism appeals to people with emotional and simplistic desires and perhaps maybe a bit of doubt in their own individual virtue and abilities.  They want to be part of a virtuous greater good to feel good about themselves.  Claiming moral superiority in virtue typically starts from a position that they are more virtuous than anyone who disagrees with their views.  Their cult-like beliefs in modern times revolves around things like Mao’s “Little Red Book” on US universities and campuses and Che Guevara t-shirts on the streets of Manhattan.  Mao and Che were responsible for killing the sort of people that are currently supporting them (homosexuals, academics, and artists).

Despite being despicable political operatives of DC with clear criminal intent (rigging the primary elections of her own party, taking debate questions from her operatives at the CNN and other election shenanigans), many still bow and worship at the alter to Bill and Hillary Clinton.  A similar cult of personality was built around Obama where he could do no wrong despite his administration’s heinous acts against the American people and the Constitution such as with Lois Lerner and the IRS being used as a political weapon against conservatives, “Fast and Furious” gun running to Mexican drug gangs, executive orders to prevent enforcement of existing immigration laws, handing money by the planeload to Iran, encouraging race riots targeting police officers and even declaring the US Constitution to be irrelevant in modern times.  Had a conservative done something of a similar ilk, there would have been an outright meltdown and dissolution of the government.  The cults of personality believes the end justifies the means because their deities and leaders are virtuous (despite all evidence to the contrary) and therefore they themselves are virtuous by association.

Photo:  Wikileaks emails show Hillary was already set up to be the forgone “candidate elect” by the Democratic Party even as the DNC primaries barely got started.

Virtue and Evil

Virtue is defined as having higher purity and righteousness but virtue has been used as the excuse to commit some of the most heinous acts upon mankind throughout history.  The higher calling of the greater good usually results in the targeting and sacrificing of certain groups of people in the name of a better future.  The built-in hypocrisy of virtue is that it starts with the assumption of the superiority of one’s religious values, decency, and morality over all others.  Hitler was virtuous by nature of his vision of a socialist Germany where the average worker shared in the resources and riches of the country.  His strong virtue gave him the authority in the minds of the German people to do what he needed for the overall betterment of his country.  Such leaders in history as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, and Che Guevara who we now define as evil were in their time exalted as virtuous leaders.  It was their ability to communicate a vision of a socialist paradise to their followers which allowed them and their followers to murder, torture, jail, and exile any who did not see the same vision.

To be continued in Part 3…(Read Part 1 of this article)