The Slacker Manifesto

Rolling Stone recently published an essay titled “Five Economic Reforms Millenials Should Be Fighting For” by twenty-something author Jesse A. Myerson. It won’t take long to read, though you might develop a headache while doing so.

Essentially, young Jesse wants communism, and he wants it now. There are several wonderful takedowns of this youngster’s astounding ignorance about communism and the misery, degradation, and death that result in the countries that have attempted to force it on their people, but I’d like to address the why.

Why does communism sound so lovely and appealing to teenagers and young adults? You can argue that our school systems and our universities are seething with Marxists, and you’d be right. But if all those teachers were agitating for forced labor camps and mass executions, you wouldn’t see young people getting excited and marching around holding signs.

Communism ends up with forced labor camps, starvation, and mass murder, but it starts out sounding like Mom’s house. Young Jesse wants a guaranteed income, housing, and food. This is what adults provide for children. Jesse’s entire “Five Economic Reforms” are a cry to keep living at home, to have his needs taken care of by parental figures, to remain forever a child.

That’s the appeal of communism to our youth, and with so many raised without developing a work ethic (See “Three Reasons Why Our Teenagers Can’t Get Jobs”) they are ripe pickings for the allure of a forever mother. Young people are naturally apprehensive about the responsibilities of growing up and shouldering the entire burden of living on their own. There’s nothing weak or wrong about being nervous about becoming an adult.

What is wrong is when communists put on the mask of Mom and pretend that their system of government is going to be just like home. Jesse A. Myerson thinks that his communist ideas will bring contentment and happiness, but he hasn’t seen behind the mask.

Those who grew up in communist countries, those who survived the gulags and the purges and the daily misery and fear of every day, those who stood in bread lines and those who screamed as their friends were shot or their parents were snatched by police in the middle of the night — those people know.

I’ve never suffered under communism, but I know too, because I have read The Long Walk, and I’ve read 1984 and Animal Farm and Brave New World and We the Living and The Giver. We adults need to expose communism for what it is to our young people before the Jesse A. Myersons of our country vote us into the horrors of communism.

Jesse, listen up. That’s not your mom. That’s a monster wearing her face.