There are none so certain as those who know nothing
If you watched the news during the George Floyd and Antifa riots and similar incidents since, the participants had one thing in common: they refused to state what they believed or what their ideas for a better America were. Their immediate objective clearly was to destroy whatever they could.
They are unquestionably part of the attempt to bring atheistic socialism to America.
You have no doubt heard the adage, “Look before you leap,” meaning that you should consider the consequences of making a change that may be irreversible. This warning is especially relevant to the naive and uninformed, such as young Americans who are being taught that socialism will usher in a utopia. Apparently, most have little memory of Germany’s “National Socialists”—the Nazis—or of the Cold War and Khrushchev’s promise, made as he pounded his shoe on the lectern, “we will bury you.”
A compromised educational system that has not taught history for decades has left America’s youth with little knowledge of the multiplied millions slaughtered in the 20th Century in the name of socialist utopias, or the millions still imprisoned and enslaved by them today. And as someone has wisely stated,
“those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.”
Socialism’s history is not about one attempt and failure, but multiple attempts around the world and catastrophic failures in every case. While socialism replaced the monarchy in Russia in 1918, the only real changes were with respect to who held that concentrated power, Stalin rather than the Tsar, the horrific number of slain Russians and the tightened restrictions on their lives.
They went from the frying pan into the fire.
America suffered over 500,000 casualties, including over 120,000 dead, fighting atheistic socialism in WW II. Anyone who thinks the country will now quietly go into that darkness is badly mistaken. While many young people may not understand its evils, older Americans have seen the suffering socialism has caused and remember it from their history lessons.
One reason for George Washington’s rejecting the kingship of America, which many believed he deserved, was because of his abhorrence of so much power resting in the hands of one or even a few. He would certainly recoil at the notion of socialism for that very reason. How ironic that socialists carry “No Kings” banners even as they seek to replace democratically elected leaders with tyrants.
While in college, I heard a gentleman who had escaped the Iron Curtain, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (emphasis added). After his lecture I asked him what he would do if communism were to come to America. He responded,
“I would find the nearest telephone pole and hang myself.”
Communism is socialism with the masks off.
Utopia is not possible; and anyone who is familiar with human history will know that. Crime, conflict and wars are not the exception to the rule, but rather THE rule. The Bible states that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” and history doubly underscores the veracity of that text.
The notion that with the snap of a finger all of mankind will become beneficent and wise, working hard without reward and willingly accepting whatever the government gives them, is worse than merely ludicrous, it is delusional. It is like promising that if a certain doctor were put in charge of the entire medical establishment all diseases would be eradicated overnight. It is a lie that would benefit the doctor, but millions would suffer.
How many times do we need to hear them tell us that we “will own nothing and be happy,” before we take them at their word: that they intend to take everything away from all of us?
The promise of a socialistic utopia, where everything is free, is bait, the lie of power-hungry tyrants to trap the uninformed. One would think that only a fool would believe it, but millions of young Americans are buying it, lock-stock and barrel. They have apparently never heard the aphorism,
“If it sounds too good to be true, it is probably too good to be true.”
There really is no free lunch. . . really!
The question is, why are they so gullible, and how can they be reached with the truth before it is too late? History tells us that once socialists gain control, they quickly eliminate all means of removing them from power, generally with a great loss of life.
There are a host of reasons why socialism cannot work and why it inevitably becomes tyrannical. There is an abundance of books such as Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom,” and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago,” which lay out with clarity the dangers of socialism’s top-down “planned” economies.
But young people are woefully ignorant of those writings and are virtually prohibited from reading them. Thus, the gullibility.
Socialism contradicts fundamental and self-evident truths as well as human nature itself. It posits that there is neither God nor Truth and is therefore atheistic; and without accountability to God, socialists are relativists and have no scruples about lying.
They lie regarding the legacy of capitalism and the real and negative consequences of socialism. Karl Marx’s irrational dictum that everything must be “burned to the ground” so that from the ashes might rise utopia, understandably failed to attract a following.
Socialism’s credibility is also undermined by the violence which always accompanies it, as we witnessed in American streets during the “Antifa” riots. Functioning without the restraints that God and Christianity provide, socialism degenerates into a truly “dog-eat-dog” culture, a “survival of the most vicious” mentality.
Consider the slavery and torture that are endemic to North Korea, China, Cuba and every other socialist state.
These are the fruits of Marx’s philosophy. He died an unheralded pauper with reason: his “principles” were so demonstrably inconsistent with reality and so evil that no one bought into them. That a society based on his naïve “from each according to his ability; to each according to his need,” philosophy cannot succeed should require no explanation.
Yet here we are.
On the other hand, Christianity, and the Bible from which it gains its principles, provide not only an honest and accurate assessment of man and his fallen nature, but also real solutions to his problems. America’s Christian based economic model, creating the largest middle class in history, should be sufficient proof in itself. And the transformation of those who have turned to Christ in repentance and faith only strengthens the argument. God, Christianity, and the Bible are truly good!
The Bible provides guidance on how societies can deal with man’s corrupted nature day-to-day in order to experience both peace and prosperity. Just as airplanes would never fly if engineers did not take the laws of nature, such as gravity, into account, so also, we cannot create a prosperous and tranquil society if we do not reckon with God’s laws and man’s nature.
Children, from the time they are very little, will take whatever they want from others and need not be taught to do so. Rather, they must be taught, often with strong incentives, NOT to take what is another’s. Prisons across the world testify to the fact that many people never learn not to take other people’s possessions. The only thing gained from teaching children that stuff belongs to no one is that thieves have even less compunction about taking other people’s things because, well, it isn’t theirs in the first place.
Personal property, and the human desire for ownership are not inherently wrong and go hand in hand with another critical personal right, that of the right to life. If I have no right to own anything, I cannot protect myself, and so my life is put at risk.
Therefore, it is no accident that property rights vanish in a socialist society, and with them the sanctity of life.
In the socialist society, the individual is sacrificed for the “state,” which theoretically refers to all the people. Socialists love to speak of “the people’s this” or “the people’s that,” but in reality, the “state,” in the end, refers to those in power. It is the greatest and most diabolical of ironies that socialist countries have slaughtered millions of people, “for the good of the people.” They have “effected a cure but have killed the patient!”
The human inclinations for which socialism is supposedly an answer will not and cannot be eradicated by man or by law, but must be acknowledged and countered, just as gravity must be in the realm of physics. Christianity has done precisely that. Mankind will not be perfected here, but Scriptures provide guidance whereby his sin nature may be countered, providing not the elimination of his selfishness, but a methodology by which it may be held in check.
A free-market economy provides that a man can best achieve the highest level of economic success when he meets and satisfies the desires and needs of others. Generally, the more people he helps, the greater his prosperity. This curbs a person’s selfishness and channels his creativity and energy toward understanding the needs and interests of others and to then provide products and services that satisfy them. Thus, both parties benefit.
Under socialism there is no real relationship between the individual who produces a product or service and those who use them.
Under socialism, with no incentives to serve others well, citizens are motivated to satisfy only themselves. This, in turn, leads to little or nothing getting done, as an old Russian joke illustrates:
“They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”
American youth are not listening to the old channels of communication and are isolated from history. They are also being told by their handlers that they must not listen to anyone who disagrees with them. But we have a responsibility to warn these naïve young people of the catastrophe lying ahead if they continue unheedingly down the pathway to socialism.
Those of us who are wise to the Left’s lies must reach out to the youth in our spheres of influence to warn them. We must also support those individuals and organizations who have built bridges to them.
It might be said that we have five strategies for victory. We must humble ourselves before God, turn from the wickedness of our culture, and pray. We must also seek to warn the younger generation of the dangers of socialism; and then, we must vote for leaders with biblical and honorable character who will also resist socialism.
A tongue in cheek definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results the next time.” Socialists have tried repeatedly over the last one hundred plus years to create a successful society; but in every case their efforts have yielded only misery, poverty, and death.
Young people who declare that “it just hasn’t been done right yet,” have no idea what they are talking about. Their hubris puts all of our lives and liberties as well as those of our children and grandchildren at risk.
If socialists are successful in their ambitions, these young Americans will find themselves victims of the same violence and suffering that followed in the wakes of atheists like Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Castro.
It is inevitable.
We who love liberty and the blessed rights we have enjoyed as Americans, such as the right to life, to worship God as we believe we ought, and to make our own life choices, cannot simply assume those rights will always remain. Wicked people abound and are wielding significant influence among young Americans. We must pray, we must speak up, and we must all exercise our responsibility to wisely vote.
By God’s grace, our children’s future will not be encumbered by the suffering that accompanies socialism. But we cannot be idle. We have the responsibility to do our best to ensure that atheistic socialists do not succeed with their agenda.
Inaction is not an option!
