Why do people vote for Communists?
Communist Parties are still alive and well, even in post-communist countries. Luca Ferrini speculates that the state itself creates the psychological conditions that cause a certain subset of the population to imagine a world in which the state does all, cares for all, and keeps everyone in a permanent state of infantilized dependency. The larger the state, the more it corrupts the mind and the culture. Communism means never having to leave the nest. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (29)
Very interesting that so many Czechs support communism. I have my own theory as to why people support it: They hold to a limited wealth concept, what I call "Pie Economics." The general idea is that people see the wealth of the world as a fixed amount, as in a pie. Trade is a fight over the pie. If one person, or a nation, gains more of that wealth than he (or it) had in the past, it can have done so only at the expense of others, i.e., by taking away part of someone else's piece. Trade is a zero sum game, like poker.
Pie Economics goes back at least as far as the Middle Ages, and maybe further. Some of the great thinkers of the past, such as Roger Bacon, promoted it, and the idea was behind the many wars of the mercantile era. It's the basis for socialism and the anti-globalization movement. Third World countries are poor because we took all of their wealth.
I believe that Pie Economics dominates the thinking of the average citizen, but especially the press. There's no concept that wealth can be created by entrepreneurs; no understanding that the total wealth in the world today is much greater than a decade or a century ago.
The fault lies to a large degree with economists. We tend to talk to each other instead of the history, education and arts majors, or the majority who never went to college. We're constantly preaching to the choir. We need to learn to put out truths into language with feeling that the average citizen can understand. I think P.J. O'Roarke had done the best job.
Published: June 16, 2005 8:32 AM
Probably several reasons.
1) The end of communism isn't that long ago, and any system creates haves and have-nots - the former haves want to return to the old system where they had clout.
2) I'm sure many of them still believe in the purer form of Marxism, the one that never "really has never been put into place". From what I have read of Marx, he noted the epistemological connection between an individual and physical resources, it's just his conclusion, and the one several of these people still follow, was flawed - that the several and finite systems of value can be preserved BETTER through no ownership of means of production, which is false. The followers still can't grasp that individual liberty is BEST supported by private ownership of property of any kind.
3) There are those who never grasped that resources are limited. There are those who still believe that the cornucopia is endlessly bountiful, and that with the right assemblage of leaders, everything can be supplied to all. That, coupled with no ownership, leads people to be passive and helpless, which is the breeding ground for virulent Statism.
Published: June 16, 2005 8:42 AM
Let me rephrase the statement supposedly applying to the free societies in the West which the author of this Mises article worded as follows:
"If you make a mistake, you pay. If you succeed, you get the benefit and are free to choose what to do with it"
into the following form:
"If the government makes a mistake, you pay. If you succeed somebody else gets the benefit and does with it as he pleases".
I think that many will agree that it is the latter form which applies to most societies in the West. Its truth may be the reason why people
still vote for the communist party as an expres-sion of their opposition to systems in which, no matter what they are called, organized power, whether it is the government, the union, the banks, the corporations call the shots and distribute the fruits of labor as they please.
Published: June 16, 2005 10:17 AM
Excellent article.
Basic premise as I understood the article.
Domestic goats, bred and "cared for" for several generations; cannot be "changed" into "mountain goats", whose "freedom" to forage , fight other males for breeding rights,
gather into a group for mutual protection from mountain lions.
I think the author more or less, stated my above premise, although he stated it with greater and more erudite manner, than I could ever manage.
I think he implied that several generations of a sub-set of "domestic goats", i.e., those who want to BE "mountain goats", must survive; until at least an overwhelming majority both desires and strives toward becoming "mountain goats"; with the freedom AND responsibility that condition of being entails.
Hope the anology made some sense! LMAO!!
Respects,
Joseph Zack
Published: June 16, 2005 11:29 AM
Great article. I however disagree that people in India are less depressed because of lack of dependency on the State. The collectivist culture of India makes its people very dependent. They mostly never leave home. In the west it is romaticised as family values though.
It is true that people in India are less depressed. Given what I have written above they should be more depressed than those in the West. There are two reasons why Indians are supposedly less depressed: firstly, it is very important there to keep a good face in front of the society, so they make sure they look happy even if they are not. This is the case with the middle class women, primaryly.
The others are so busy dealing with everyday hassles that they have no time to feel depressed. While it makes them less depressed, at the same time, they do not even realise that they are human.
Published: June 16, 2005 11:53 AM
When someone 'gets a job' in the Western Society, he/she is not quite becoming independent yet. He/she goes from mom's home to under the employer's wings. Only as a free entrepreneur can a citizen be considered 'free'.
Published: June 16, 2005 12:11 PM
So the freedom movement needs more psychologists to help people become more responsible?
Published: June 16, 2005 12:22 PM
Great article. I agree with the premise. I'll take it a step further and say that those same attitudes of dependence on the state are pervasive in the United States. We always here about how there are so many people without healthcare. But the people at the bottom of the economic ladder have state supported programs and the people at the top have coverage through their employers or that they personally bought. So most of these uninsureds have no coverage because they don't place a high priority on it. They'd rather have a new car every 3 or 4 years, the latest Brazilian jeans, and satellite TV. They don't have enough sense to see the truth in the statement that "all you have is your health." So my question is this. When did become the state's responsibility to save us from ourselves?
Published: June 16, 2005 3:49 PM
The answer to the question: Why do people vote for Communists? is simple.
It's also the answer to the question: Why do people vote for Democrats or Republicans?
And the answer is: They are unaware of what is really going on. They believe or pretend to believe what candidates say they can/will do.
Why? In the US what passes for our public education system is an indoctrination system. In general, teachers are products of higher indoctrination systems.
Jesus (oops, I mean Mises) said: p. 900 (humanaction.pdf)
"In countries which are not harassed by struggles between various linguistic groups public education can work if it is limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic. With bright children it is even possible to add elementary notions of geometry, the natural sciences, and the valid laws of the country. But as soon as one wants to go farther, serious difficulties appear. Teaching at the elementary level necessarily turns into indoctrination. It is not feasible to represent to
adolescents all the aspects of a problem and to let them choose between dissenting views. It is no less impossible to find teachers who could hand down opinions of which they themselves disapprove in such a way as to satisfy those
who hold these opinions. The party that operates the schools is in a position to propagandize its tenets and to disparage those of other parties."
The typical voter is trained to believe what she is told, especially by those appearing to be authority.
The indoctrination system also works for ever present bombardment of media advertising which is the reason for the system's existence.
Published: June 16, 2005 8:45 PM
The desire to be cared for and to be free from responsibility is at the heart of the human psyche. The world's religions are founded on it. Every prayer is a request for a great power to rearrange the universe to suit you and provide for your needs. Human innovation and technology is largely built around the desire to be free from labour. Popular entertainment concerns itself with escapism and fantasy.
The state is no different. It cannot mold human nature (as the communists think), it is a product of it. It is a rare person who wishes to face the life's problems alone: sickness, retirement, health, education, security. Someone who promises to solve them for you, even at the expense of your liberty and your property, will woo many.
"In the end, they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" - Grand Inquisitor, Brothers Karamazov
Published: June 17, 2005 1:41 AM
I have posted this poem before though there may be those who have not had the pleasure of reading this fine piece of work by Philip Levine.
They Feed They Lion
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.
Out of the gray hills
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride,
West Virgina to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps,
They Lion grow.
Earth is eating trees, fence posts,
Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones,
"Come home, Come home!" From pig balls,
From the ferosity of pig driven to holiness,
From the furred ear and the full jowl come
The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose
They Lion grow.
From the sweet glues of the trotters
Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower
Of the hams the thorax of caves,
From "Bow Down" come "Rise Up,"
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels,
The grained arm that pulls the hands,
They Lion grow.
From all my white sins forgiven, they feed,
From my car passing under the stars,
They Lion, from my children inherit,
From the oak turned to a wall they Lion,
From they sack and they belly opened
And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth
They feed they lion and he comes.
By Philip Levine, published in "Contemporary American Poetry" (1990)
Published: June 17, 2005 2:22 AM
Why do people vote for Communists?
Because they are blind idiots who don't know history, have no ability to make their own conclusions from what they see, and are capable only of mindless repetition of somebody else's statements.
Why people are so stupid?
Published: June 17, 2005 3:25 AM
This fine poem by Allen Ginsberg is always refreshing for those with bitterness in their hearts. It also answers many questions the average American student can understand.
Capitol Air
I don't like the government where I live
I don't like dictatorship of the Rich
I don't like bureaucrats telling me what to eat
I don't like Police dogs sniffing round my feet
I don't like Communist censorship of my books
I don't like Marxists complaining about my looks
I don't like Castro insulting members of my sex
Leftists insisting we got the mystic Fix
L don't like capitalists selling me gasoline Coke
Multinationals burning Amazon Trees to smoke
Big Corporation takeover media mind
I don't like the Top-bananas that're robbing Guatemala banks blind
I don't like K.G.B. Gulag concentration camps
I don't like the Maiosts' Cambodian Death Dance
15 Million were killed by Stalin Secretary of Terror
He has killed our old Red Revolution for ever
I don't like Anarchists screaming Love Is Free
I don't like the C.I.A. they killed John Kennedy
Paranoiac tanks sit in Prague and Hungary
But I don't like counterrevolution paid for by the C.I.A.
Tyranny in Turkey or Korea Nineteen Eighty
I don't like Right Wing Death Squad Democracy
Police State Iran Nicaragua yesterday
Laissez-faire please Government keep your secret police offa me
I don't like Nationalist Supremacy White or Black
I don't like Narcs & Mafia marketing Smack
The Generals bulling Congress in his tweed vest
The President building up his Arimies in the East & West
I don't like Argentine police Jail torture Truths
Government terrorist takeover Salvador news
I don't like Zionists acting Nazi Storm Troop
Palestine Liberation cooking Israel into Moslem soup
I don't like the Crown's Official Secrets Act
You can get away with murder in the Government that's a fact
Security cops teargassing radical kids
In Switzerland or Czechoslovakia God Forbids
In America it's Attica in Russia it's Lubianka Wall
In China if you disappear you wouldn't know yourself at all
Arise Arise you citizens of the world use your lungs
Talk back to the Tyrants all they're afraid of is your tongues
Two hundred Billion dollars inflates World War
In United States every year hey're asking for more
Russia's got as much in tanks and laser planes
Give or take Fifty Billion we can blow out everbody's brains
School's broken down 'cause History changes every night
Half the Free World nations are Dicatorships of the Right
The only place socialism worked was in Gdansk, Bud
The Communist world's stuck together with prisoners' blood
The Generals say they know something worth fighting for
They never say what till they start an unjust war
Iranian hostage Media Hysteria sucked
The Shah ran away with 9 Billion Iranian bucks
Dermit Roosevelt and his U.S. dollars overthrew Mossadegh
They wanted his oil then they got Ayatollah's dreck
They put in the Shah and they trained his police the Savak
All Iran was our hostage quarter-century That's right Jack
Bishop Romero wrote President Carter to stop
Sending guns to El Salvador's junta so he got shot
Ambassador White blew the whistle on the White House lies
Reagan called him home cause he looked in the dead nuns' eyes
Half the voters didn't vote they know it was too late
Newspaper headlines called it a big Mandate
Some people voted for Reagan eyes open wide
3 out of 4 didn't vote for him That's a landslide
Truth may be hard to find but Falsehood's easy
Read between the lines our Imperialism is sleazy
But if you think the People's State is your Heart's Desire
Jump right back in the frying pan from the fire
The System the System in Russia & China the same
Criticize the System in Budapest lose your name
Coca Cola Pepsi Cola in Russia & China come true
Khrushchev yelled in Hollywood "We will bury You"
America and Russia want to bomb themselves Okay
Everybody dead on both sides Everybody pray
All except the Generals in caves where they can hide
and fuck each other in the ass waiting for the next free ride
No hope Communism no hope Capitalism Yeah
Everybody's lying on both sides Nyeah nyeah nyeah
The bloody iron curtain of American military Power
Is a mirror image of Russia's red Babel-Tower
Jesus Christ was spotless but was Crucified by the Mob
Law & Order Herod's hired soldiers did the job
Flowerpower's fine but innocence has got no Protection
The man who shot John Lennon had a Hero-worshipper's connection
The moral of this song is that the world is in a horrible place
Scientific Industry devours the human race
Police in every country armed with tear Gas & TV
Secret Masters everywhere bureaucratize for you and me
Terrorists and police together build a lowerclass Rage
Propaganda murder manipulates the upperclass Stage
Can't tell the difference 'tween a turkey & a provacateur
If you're feeling confused the Government's in there for sure
Aware Aware wherever you are. No Fear
Trust your heart Don't ride your Paranoia dear
Breathe together with an ordinary mind
Armed with Humor Feed & Help Enlighten Woe Mankind
Frankfurt-New York, December 15, 1980 By Allen Ginsberg
Published: June 17, 2005 5:50 AM
Mr. Ferrini,
This was an interesting article you wrote and I have often asked the same question.
It has taken me many years to answer that question and I am convinced that I am on the right
track to answer it.
To properly understand the mindset of people voting for communists one has to be aware of their
education as they grew into adulthood. Most people of the world as they grew up were (are) indoctrinated
into some form of religious ethics that they have accepted without question throughout most of their
lives. The ethics of self-sacrifice is universal and the base is derived from religious convictions.
All religions are at base communistic as are all political systems, non are based primarily on individual rights
but on collective rights. Communists have as their God the State, whereas religionist have as their
God someone in another dimension (supposedly). Philosophically speaking Politics derives its power
from Ethics as practiced by the majority.
So to properly understand what draws people to Communism one first has to understand that all
religions are in Ethics practicing Communism , in one case they look to God for answers in the other to the State, but both operate in essence the same..... The ignorant are easily lead to Communism for that reason,
as are most of the educated but they are called Democrats or various names like that.
The answer to your question can only be properly understood by understanding the branch of philosophy called Ethics. The answers you will find will lead you to answer your question.
I would suggest that for a clearer and more comprehensive answer you read up on the Philosophy of Objectivism developed by the greatest thinker of the 20th Century, Ayn Rand.
Best wishes
Mathias Fett
Published: June 17, 2005 9:35 AM
I am Czech citizen, live in Prague, in the Czech Republic. I will post comments from my point of view.
The number of "leftist" people is plus minus stable. The increase of votes for communists is also due to crisis in social democrats (property scandal of their leader)
Another erason is that a lot of people expect that government has to solve all their problems as it was before 1989 and non-existence of middel class.
They complaints about everything but in reality do nothing to improve own position - education (especially languages), to look for better job...
Due to too high social subsidies a lot of people prefer not to accept less paid work and prefer to stay at home and have only slightly less money.
Another reason is that people were not used to accept differemces in salaries. From the point if view of lot of people salary over 1 thousand euro per month (average is approx 600 euro)is unaccaptably high salary.
People outside Prague often cannot belive that it could take 1 hour to get to work - they used to walk 5-10 minutes. Everything else is not acceptable. However, they compalints about higher salaries in Prague...
Due to several medialized issues, word "entepreneur" is in mind of lot of people synonymum for "thief".
These things alltogether helps communists to gain such high preferences. I know a lot of people who will consider leaving country in case of communist triumph in election.
Slovakia is not so dar, languages are similar, we are EU member...
Published: June 17, 2005 3:17 PM
Thanks for your comments.
As strange as it sounds it is definitely true that "the freedom movement needs more psychologists to help people become more responsible". What I mean with this is: a few people will be driven to believe in libertarian principles because they once read Mises or Rothbard and that changed their lives forever. This intellectual discovering process can work for a small minority. Most people believe in what is convenient for them and, after all, we cannot blame them for this.
In order to convince people that libertarian principles are not only philosophically well founded (most dont care about this), but also convenient to adopt in every day life, they must be convinced that a life based on responsibility principles is a healthier life, a life that is more likely to be happy. "Misesian psycologists" might help!
The point I try to make in my article is that we need to be responsibilized in order to be happy. And the state does not help us with this.
Published: June 17, 2005 5:25 PM
A very interesting and fresh analysis.
Published: June 17, 2005 6:13 PM
Oh, yeah, arrive now a new Caruso tenore to enlight the mass with his poor toughts perhaps more convincing himself than others. To spread personal resposability (it's not the same of Bushites?) to be happy. This is the kind of cultural goal an italian student or so reach in the middle of one of the bleak economic era in Italy. When italian comunist party was 40%, italy know the economic "miracolo", now that's 6% is in recession. What logic bring this guy? First of all under comunistic regime, for one, no one pay taxes,not for nothing sometime libertarians are called "comunist of the right". Secondly, Czechs, vote comunist for notalgic reasons. Slave for slave one prefer the state to a robber-baron, so what? This guy Ferrini seems to confound a fascistic attitude to freedom. I personally has been in Prague in the '70 and the country was not so depressed as some may believe: music, pilsen beer all over the night, friendships, free sale of antique prints, good food etc. The reason why people vote comunism is only upon personal feeling. Period. Bushism and neocons with all the statism growing is much better? I don't think so. States never desappear alone, hence you have to choice between one kind of state or another. The poet Ginsberg was right, real freedom is freedom from ANY intervention of arrogant powers, not the poor Ferrini who believe to have discovered the warm water.
Published: June 18, 2005 11:58 AM
I am (unlike some of the posters to this thread) an Austro-Libertarian of the sort that may be considered "mainstream" in the context of the Mises Institute.
But I voted for John Kerry in the US Presidential elections of 2004, even though I regard Kerry as America's mainstream equivalent of a Communist. Why? I've already made clear why and how I abhor the analog of Communism that Kerry represents.
Because George Bush and his Republicans are America's mainstream equivalent of Nazis (at least in my view). I felt exactly like a German voting in the elections of 1933, and I didn't want to vote for Hitler.
Analysis of why anyone votes for a Communist at any time and place may be pretty much impossible without some knowledge of exactly whom or what he may be voting against.
Published: June 19, 2005 2:12 PM
Why don't you ask why people vote for George W Bush? Though he might have your precious free markets in mind, he is bent on imposing his religious doctrine on every form of legal restriction we have in this country and has no compunction about growing the state to enormous proportion to do it. the man believes in private property and legal contracts, he sides with indistry on everything from environment to labor to welfare and taxes. He should be the one who is making you scratch your heads and wonder at the psychosis that can see liberty in all of this.
The fact is that not everything that is good or worthy or useful in the human condition can be summed up by appeals to economics or politics. Sometimes there are other cultural aspects of human existence that are worth preserving and the moment a dictator or politician appeals to the things people take to be fundamental to their existence and tells them that they only must fear the threat the opposition party poses to vote away their freedom--or at least the freedom of other citizens to think in a different way--and their you get totalitarianism at its root, whether of the eastern European or North American variety. The state only becomes so big and bureacratic when it has so many people within it that it must monitor to protect itself and so many enormous corporations that depend on docile workers and pliant populations delivered to them by the state--or, alternatively, those same people see the enormity of the state as their only protection from that private industry that can no longer be either competed with or controlled by the traditional means of community or individual action. The Entreprenuer is dead and even the few that still exist have to exploit someone. Your philosophy is at best middle class at its heart as it avoids the nasty truth of the underclass you must exploit to make your market objectivism successful. You can make all sorts of moral and ethical appeals but the truth of the matter is that it relies on the desparation and impoverishment of someone to make them work. that's why it doesn't really begin until England repeals its poor laws.
Socialists aren't much better but at least they recognize someone is getting shit on. You just say that they are unadapted and need to have psychological retraining. Brilliant: except that this is basically what Freud is arguing shortly after people are forced to give up their entreprenurial existence and work for someone else. This creates all sorts of neuroses that are transplanted onto the family. His answer, like yours, was to figure out how to re-train people to think correctly about their condition. Then they would accept it and the industrial revolution could continue apace. I just love that kind of liberty.
Published: June 20, 2005 12:58 AM
perrosuelto,
Your English is so bad that no one understands what you're saying. The words are all English words, but they're not arranged in a meaningful way.
- Josh
Published: June 20, 2005 1:55 AM
Dear Josh-ua, i will try tonite to apply the literate bush to "arrange words in a meaninful way" for you, as requested. Anyway read last paragraph of Sean post and you sould get an idea, if you can get one.
Published: June 20, 2005 10:27 AM
The majority of young adults in the western Europe and North America (Japan, Formosa . . .) have never seen a day of hard times or unintentionally missed a meal. They have no personal experience with being not "free." To them, poverty means "no sports channel."
The next generation of leaders and voters want consumer goods and a dependable economic system that will allow long term planning.
Published: June 20, 2005 11:24 AM
Mr.Perrosuelto
The guy riding the flying Pegasus fell off his horse and cracked his head. Your english is much more developed than a large % of Americans.
Rolf
Published: June 20, 2005 3:25 PM
Just a small nitpick: the Communist Party of Australia has less than 500 members in a country of 20 million. I put it to you that Australian support for communism is at an all time low.
Published: June 21, 2005 5:40 AM
[Disclaimer: my parents fled communist Czechoslovakia about 40 years ago]
I think the explanation is much simpler by necessity, and does not require any extensive academic proof or gymnasitics.
About 20% of the population in Czechoslovakia - prior to communist collapse - was part of the communist party, and enjoyed benefits over and above the rest of the population (and not just like a 5% discount at Walmart or something, but better schools for their kids, better jobs, higher payings jobs, etc.etc... its how you got ahead).
I'm guessing this 20% who used to belong to the communist party (and still do today) would love to have the "old days back", as opposed to today, where they are shunned, looked down upon openly and have very little power or prestige.
Seeing as communism wasn't outlawed, and the people are free to vote as they wish, the 20% communist hardliners are true to their roots.
What the author of the original article does not speculate about is what the other 80% think. My guess is that they still don't like communism, and if it came down to it in an election and it looked as though the communists were going to win you would see VERY high turn out in the 80% of population to vote against the communists. Communism is dead in the Czech republic and that is a done deal.
I remember what my relatives and parents say about people who belonged to the communist party. In exchange for membership, party members were expected to "spy" on their family, neighbors and friends... To report any political dissent to the higher-ups in the communist party. I don't need elaborate on how this information could be used by the secret police. Nobody liked communist party members, they saw them as sell-outs to the dark side, but you couldn't say this out loud or your family and you were in serious trouble.
The communists were a bunch of thugs who had no clue what they were doing. The only saving grace in America and the rest of the relatively 'free' west is that we can get rid of entire political parties and stupid leaders every four years. Beyond that I don't see a significant difference.
Published: June 21, 2005 10:55 AM
Why do people make name-distinctions between the top killers of all time: 62 million killed under the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; 35 million under the Peoples' Republic of China; 21 million under the National Socialist German Workers' Party. It was so bad that Holocaust Museums could quadruple in size with Wholecaust Museums to document the entire slaughter.
If Clinton was a socialist, what is someone who outsocializes Clinton by double (in social spending alone)?
And on top of the massive spending, the current government follows other traits of socialism/communism/whatever. Any Constitutional amendment against flag desecration is bad. State laws already dictate a pledge of allegiance to the flag daily in many schools. Why is it that flag fetishists who tout flag laws don't chant the pledge every day? Their hypocrisy masks the old dark desire to make children and adults worship government daily at the ring of a government bell. Please oppose the amendment, and educate everyone about these new historical discoveries:
1. The original Pledge of Allegiance to the USA's flag used a straight-armed salute and it was the source of the salute of the monstrous National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis). The gesture was not an ancient Roman salute. http://rexcurry.net/pledgesalute.html
2. The Pledge began with a military salute that then extended outward toward the flag. Due to the way that Francis Bellamy (the Pledge's creator) used the gestures, the military salute led to the Nazi salute. The Nazi salute is an extended military salute. http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html & http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html
3. Bellamy was a self-proclaimed socialist in the nationalism movement and his dogma influenced socialists in Germany, and his pledge was the origin of their salute. Many people forget that "Nazi" means "National Socialist German Workers' Party." A mnemonic device is the swastika (Hakenkreuz in German). Although the swastika was an ancient symbol, it was also used sometimes to represent "S" letters joined for "socialism" under the German National Socialists. Hitler altered his own signature into the same stylized "S" letter for "socialist." http://rexcurry.net/bookchapter4a1a4.html
How the discoveries were made is a fascinating story in itself. I made the discoveries by accident during legal research involving litigation about the pledge. As a libertarian lawyer, I do pro bono work educating students and others about the right to reject the ritualism.
Fight the flag hags and their flag fetish and self-flagellation. Government's schools should not teach kids to verbally fellate flags each morning. It is like a brainwashed cult of the omnipotent state. For adults it is childish. Remove the pledge from the flag, remove flags from schools, remove schools from government.
A flag desecration amendment would desecrate the Constitution. Our leviathan government and its schools, and Bellamy and the Department of Education could inspire a comatose person to desecrate the flag, to pledge disallegiance, and to recite the declaration of independence.
Francis Bellamy and his cousin and cohort Edward Bellamy (author of the bestselling novel "Looking Backward") espoused "military socialism" worldwide. The Bellamy dogma was the same dogma that led to the "Wholecaust" (of which the Holocaust was a part): 62 million killed under the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; 35 million under the Peoples' Republic of China; 21 million under the National Socialist German Workers' Party. It was so bad that Holocaust Museums could quadruple in size with Wholecaust Museums to document the entire slaughter.
In the USA, the Bellamy dogma supported a government takeover of education. The government's schools imposed segregation by law and taught racism as official policy. The USA's behavior was an example for three decades before the Nazis. As under Nazism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and blacks and the Jewish and others in the USA attended government schools that dictated segregation, taught racism, and persecuted children who refused to perform the straight-arm salute and robotically chant the pledge. Some kids were expelled from government schools and had to use the many better alternatives. There were acts of violence. When Jesse Owens competed in the 1936 Olympics in Germany, his neighbors attended segregated government schools where they saluted the flag with the Nazi salute. The U.S. practice of official racism even outlasted the horrid party. And the schools and the Pledge still exist. The Pledge is still the most visible sign of the USA's growing police state. Stop the USA's flag Nazis.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt repeated the Bellamy errors with his massive socialism, including the Civilian Conservation Corps and its military regimentalism ( as previously reported on Opinion Editorials at http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/rcurry_20050603.html ), as well as social security and its Nazi numbering ( as previously reported on Opinion Editorials at http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/rcurry_20050204.html ).
After segregation in government's schools ended, the Bellamy legacy caused more police-state racism of forced busing that destroyed communities and neighborhoods and deepened hostilities.
The flag desecration amendment is proof that government schools must end because they produce people and politicians who hate the Constitution and limited government.
Listen to a new talk-show appearance by RexCurry.net about the flag and the pledge http://rexcurry.net/rexcurry4.mp3
A more detailed version of the article above is at http://rexcurry.net/book1a1a1pledge-ch8a1a2.html
Published: June 23, 2005 2:01 PM
U know nothing about true communism ... u say that private property of fatories is good imagine your self in position that your boss dont give your earned salary and that for months and u dont have right to protest because of fear your going to be fired ... or you cant organise the strike because its iligal ... every capitalist imagine them self in position of power and dont look into problems of the common worker ...
Published: January 17, 2006 2:24 PM
The problems of the common worker are the same as the rest of society--government intervention. However, instead of passing out privileges, such as guaranteed jobs or guaranteed wages (which are, quite frankly, impossible to guarantee), the playing field needs to be leveled the other way. Instead of forcing employers to provide jobs and wages, it should be easier to form competing companies. This is good even if you, personally, have little desire to start your own company. More competition means companies will have to treat their employees better or lose quality employees and be stuck with less productive workers, risking the company's ability to make a profit.
It would be nice if government could force employers to do right and assure everyone a good job, good wages, good benefits, decent health care, etc., but reality just doesn't work that way. Freedom is the best security for the common man.
Published: January 17, 2006 3:24 PM