As the great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed almost 50 years ago, socialism of any type is always pernicious and destructive. That is key because the majority of Americans, including conservatives, now believe in one or more socialist policies. This must stop if America is to survive.
In a now-famous 1978 speech, Solzhenitsyn declared, “Socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.” He had experienced it first-hand in his native Russia under Soviet rule. What is terrifying is that socialism has so successfully infiltrated American institutions that both major parties now have platforms with proposals that are unconstitutional and, in fact, socialist. While the Democrats are very obviously Marxist and anti-Constitution — the Party of Socialism, as it were — now all of us must be on our guard and not slip into the fatal trap of compromising with socialist ideas.
Democrats, of course, support welfare, gun grabbing, theft and/or destruction of private property, class (or race) warfare, and other blatantly socialist policies. But how many conservatives think the government should incentivize more childbirth with taxpayer money? How many conservatives believe passionately in the entirely unconstitutional — and socialist — Medicare and Medicaid? How many people on the right and the left believe government should solve problems that it is not even remotely the government’s province to solve? How many conservatives are quite happy to think of taxes being paid by Peter so that Paul might receive cash he never earned? The Founders, as much as Solzhenitsyn, would be profoundly disturbed.
Perhaps this is because socialism-light has made us less brave than our ancestors, less independent and self-reliant. We are also a much less moral society now than we were, and, as Solzhenitsyn said, “only moral criteria can help the West against Communism’s well-planned world strategy.” Courage is a virtue, but instead of striving for virtue, Americans are increasingly selfish, cowardly, and greedy. We are losing the qualities that made Americans unique and uniquely great.
In that same speech cited above, Solzhenitsyn soberly observed, “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days.” It is sadly true, especially of America. The very fact that Americans accepted the outrageous and deadly policies of COVID lockdowns without immediate mass protests and defiance tells us how radically our spirit has changed since our founding. Our most basic rights were trampled, and most people accepted meekly or fearfully. And countless people died alone, or unnecessarily, because of the idiotic lockdown policies.
My point with this is to say that the COVID lockdowns attempted to introduce many socialist policies — including an attack on religion and free speech, government control of every aspect of life, and the prioritizing of a vague “collective” over individuals and their rights. This was supposedly palliated by the extremely socialist redistribution of money through COVID-19 bonuses and funding. The powers-that-be were testing how far they could go, and they went very far indeed toward transforming us into a Soviet-style dystopia. Don’t be confident they won’t try again, and this time for keeps. That is especially true since many of our schools and politicians have received money from or are enamored of Communist China.
Again, to use the example of the lockdowns, it staggered me at the time to discover that both Republicans and Democrats believed it was the federal government’s job to “do something” about the flu-like virus we call COVID-19. The federal government should have done nothing. Healthcare is not the federal government’s province, nor should it be, because any perceived short-term benefits will always be outweighed by the negatives. Government rarely surrenders powers once it assumes them, and the insane powers allowed the U.S. government during COVID-19 would once have started a Revolution in this country.
Solzhenitsyn warned that declining courage has always historically been “the beginning of the end” for a society. The Founding Fathers knew this, which is why the Constitution so severely limited government’s powers, in comparison to our modern bloated bureaucracy. But because some Republicans and all Democrats have been tainted by socialism, their first thought in the face of an alleged crisis was immediately, “What is the government going to do? What money and benefits will the government give me?”
Related: Rush Limbaugh and the Crisis of Freedom Without Virtue
My fellow Americans, we cannot compromise on socialism. We cannot afford to. Socialism has always been popular because it tempts one with material benefits, get-rich-quick schemes, and utopian bliss. In reality, all that happens is an increase in government power and a loss of freedom. The Democrats are committed to socialist totalitarianism and are not likely to change. But if America is not to implode, not to suffer the fate against which Solzhenitsyn warned us, then we had better wake up and stop compromising with socialism. We must return to true liberalism — liberalism as practiced by the Founding Fathers, not as misdefined by Democrats — if we are to do what Solzhenitsyn said was necessary, namely, “to rise to a new height of vision … No one on earth has any other way left but — upward.”
