The REALITY About What Socialism Brings — And It Isn’t a Utopia
International Workers Day, known as Labor Day in some places, is a celebration of laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement, socialists, communists and anarchists and occurs every year on May Day. It is celebrated with marches and protests.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day
The United States celebrates the worker on Labor Day, a federal holiday that takes place on the first Monday in September.
This year’s May Day protests turned violent as it seems that people have lost the idea of peaceful protest.
In Seattle Washington, protests turned ugly as people marched holding banners that read:
“We Are Ungovernable!”
The violence escalated causing five police officers to be hurt and nine people to be arrested.
Seattle Mayor, Ed Murray said, “It is unfortunate and deeply regrettable that in a city that goes to incredible lengths to respect First Amendment rights, there are some who disregard our values and engage in senseless acts of violence and property destruction.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/02/us/seattle-may-day-protests/
That quote in itself is ironic, considering the international labor movement is supported by socialists, communists and anarchists who allow no such rights as the Constitution guarantees for citizens of the United States.
With Bernie Sanders running on a “Democratic Socialist” platform and so many young people self-identifying with socialism and communism, it makes one wonder if these Sanders supporters, et al, even know what socialism and communism really entails. http://www.ibtimes.com/bernie-sanders-2016-young-americans-say-they-support-socialism-do-they-know-what-it-1952787
Young people tend to think it is wealth distribution for the greater good, making things fair for everyone. They view capitalism as personal gain over the greater good.
The Millennial generation thinks that it is “old school” or “old fashioned” to view socialism and communism as their parents and/or grandparents viewed it.
The last generation that fought communism were the soldiers in the Vietnam War. They were told that they were fighting communism in Asia, as well as the Cold War and communism in Russia.
When speaking with a Vietnam Veteran about what he saw of the communist government in Vietnam, he recounts how it starts.
First the government recruits the police force to kick your doors in and confiscate all you own, taking you and your family to jail if they find anything of offense. Offense by their own definition, or those of their superiors, or if you look at them wrong, or try to fight back.
Second, when the military gets involved, men can be killed for little or no reason, women and children raped (some as young as eight years old) and then killed and tossed away. Then the same army will also confiscate your food and possessions.
That is just a sampling of some the violations of the people that he observed.
When asking a Cuban defector what happened when one applied to leave Cuba, they told of government confiscation of all of your household goods, as they were considered property of the state. If you wanted your family to have any of your things, you traded out your good mattress, stove, clothes, etc. with a family member in the middle of the night. Detection could bring reprimands and punishment for it would be considered stealing from the state.
There is a generational difference in the meaning of communism, but the “old fashioned” folks most likely have a better handle on what is communism or, its brother in denial, socialism.
Rousseau’s theory of the noble savage is quoted as follows, “Men in a state of nature do not know good and evil, but their independence along with ‘the peacefulness of their passions, and their ignorance of vice’ keep them from doing ill.”
This breaks down to his idea that man in a natural state is not selfish, or lazy or slothful nor has interest in practicing the seven deadly sins.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels maintained that the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society’s allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society.
Being that Marxist theory has been practiced in both Asia and Russia to the detriment of the citizenry and ultimately failing, it would seem that today’s youth are hoping to bring about a state of Utopia.
The definition of Utopian Socialism is socialism achieved by the moral persuasion of capitalists to surrender the means of production peacefully to the people. It seems that Margaret Thatcher’s words would be applicable here, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
Thomas Jefferson said, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
The meaning of Utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. The word was first used in a book by the same name written by Sir Thomas More in 1516.
Given that the actions on display in Seattle and around the world on May Day do not constitute the populace conducting themselves as noble savages who avoid doing wrong, and it is human nature to covet what another has, and practice all the sins of old, Utopia has little chance of manifesting itself in society.
What the youth of today need to learn is the value of the old saying, “Anything that seems too good to be true, probably isn’t true.”
Or in the immortal words of Will Rogers, “There is no free lunch.”
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1.Mai_2013_(8697603319).jpg