Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

Hey, you gotta be able to laugh, right?

Laugh One, Laugh Two, Laugh Three…

Why isn’t there a single example of a successful ‘People’s Paradise’? How is it that the best of intentioned revolutionaries was never able to produce a single, sustainable and functional society? Why is it that societies that espouse economic equality and predicated on well meaning ideals, either secular or religious, have proved to be abject failures?

We answered those questions in our earlier post, Sometimes, What Is Below Ground Is More Important Than What Is Above Ground. We want to pick up on some of what we discussed earlier, in a broader context.

Leftists mistakenly believe that a collective ‘unity’ of belief, thought and ideology empower a society. Their strength, they believe, are in the numbers of those who share their ideologies. Leftist believe that they have every right to design a society based on what they believe is in the best interest of that society. They also believe that an unwillingness to conform to their ideals, poses a threat, and quite possibly, a danger.

For example, those state that embrace various leftist ideologies, take a dim view of anyone or group that might demand lower taxes, or changes in the state welfare benefits. Millions of Frenchmen turned out to protest an employers right to fire them from their jobs- even if their job performance was sub par. The upcoming French election is no small measure revolves around that nation’s stagnant economy and what painful changes will be needed to revive and repair that economy from the deep damage socialism has inflicted. Where the Socialist Segolene Royal and right of center candidate Nikolas Sarkoszy differ is in the method and approach to change, not on the need for change.

Leftists naturally see themselves as ‘progressive.’ They believe their way of viewing the world is an improvement over the ‘old way.’ The idea of hard work for greater personal gain an dsatisfaction, for example, is passe, and in their eyes, destructive, racist and representative of ‘colonialist’ thought. Personal gain is selfish and narcissistic.

It is interesting to note how ‘progressives’ have aligned themselves with Hollywood types- some of the most narcissistic and self centered group of people on the planet. These same Hollywood types, venerated by leftists, are also among the most removed from the real world, believing themselves to be a kind of aristocracy, entitled to material things that only they are entitled. There is much truth to the old saying. ‘You are known by the company you keep.’ The ‘progressives’ have made clear their attachment to the phony aristocracy of Hollywood trumps the relationship they might have with the rest of us, ‘the little people.’

Of course, the attachment of the left to Hollywood pales is no more than simple hypocrisy.

The attachment the left has to every dysfunctional, racist and bigoted regime and leader is indicative of a far more dangerous pathology. When leftists speak of ‘freedom’ and ‘progressiveness,’ they do so standing on the corpses of millions, as they toast the leaders of regimes that have authored the slaughter of millions. As long as the leftist is feted and honored, the sins of the devil himself can be washed away.

It is the progressives that want to present their own versions of history, religion and ideologies- versions that only serve to endorse their views and their hypocrisies. Disagree with them and the fierce and frenzied wrath of the ideologues descends. No room for anything but group think.

In reality, the ‘progressives’ are actually regressive. It is because of their single minded, lockstep thinking that we find ourselves in some of the messes that have engulfed us. They believe in the ‘my way or the highway’ kind of thinking. Disagree with them and the world is coming to an end. The vitriol and visceral hatred directed of the current administration is a good example. No difference of opinion will be tolerated. Disagree and the well oiled machine of personal destruction comes out. The shameful display of that truth was evident during the confirmation hearings of Samuel Alito. It mattered little that Quran desecration story was untrue. The vitriol was released nonetheless.

Over the decades, tens, if not hundreds of millions have died because of ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies. Disagree with the powers that be or want to be, and there are calls of, “Death to…” Disagree loud enough and you are marked for death. We all got a taste of that as the cartoon riots unfolded. It was ‘my way or the highway’ unleashed on democratic societies. It was my way or the highway in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, Vietnam and in regimes in the Middle East. Antisemitism, virtually unknown in Venezuela, has reappeared simultaneously with the advent of Hugo Chavez.

‘My way or the highway’ is a nothing more than a regression to a more barbaric time, when disputes, disagreements and different ideas were settled only when blood was spilled. That is a derivative of ‘my way or the highway.’ Mankind evolved and advanced when societies came to tolerate those with different ideas and beliefs. We advanced because we allowed each of us to exercise the freedom and the opportunity to achieve whatever it was we were capable of, in any endeavor we chose. No one told us what to do, what to think or what to invent.

The Soviets produced ‘my way or the highway’ engineers by the millions. They built the world’s largest hotel, the Rossiya, in Moscow, meant to be showcase of Soviet superiority. Instead, the Rossiya is ahuge monument to ineptitude and failure. There are walls that are crooked and floors that are uneven. It is true the Russians led early on in the space race. It is also true that many tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, died over the years because money that was spent on the space race was diverted from providing food to Soviet citizens.

The leftist malaise infected Communist eastern Europe. Once a net exporter of grain, Poland reached a point where she could barely feed herself. To put that in perspective, at one time Poland grew more grain than France or Canada. Finally free of socialist shackles, Poland is one again reclaiming her potential.

As we noted,

The Judeo-Christian ethic understands what freedom really means. We have accepted freedom and democracy as a way of life. In fact, free societies not only exist, but they prosper and progress as well. If there were no free societies and democracies, our world would look exactly like much of the Islamic world today (so embraced by the left- SC&A)- torn apart by internal strife and political mayhem, with almost a billion people languishing in a netherworld, where their only purpose is to serve the needs and whims of regimes that cares nothing for them and attaches no value to their life.

Think about it.

Portions of this post have been previously published.

Yesterday, the Anchoress wrote of her disappointment with current political reality (on reading her post, it is clear that it is really a metaphor for her disappointment in cultural reality). First, she quotes Eric Hoffer, in The True Believer:

The weakness of the soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.

The Anchoress goes on to note

In our enlightened, post-modern era, we’ve moved waaaay beyond something as quaint as objective truth. Truth is now pretty much whatever you want to believe.

The Anchoress is right. In fact, when truth has become a fungible commodity, so does wisdom. That too, must become redefined to fit those malleable truths. The free and unimpeded search for truth and the search for wisdom, wherever they may be found, are the foundation stones of a free society. Those foundation stones are being eroded away by the political ideologies that tolerate no dissent and no objective truth.

There are two kinds of wisdom.

Wisdom can be derived from learning and study.We study religion, philosophy, art and history, so that we can make sense of the world around us. Most of us have the necessary ingredients that define the character we need to live a good and fulfilled life. Where we often fall short is in understanding ourselves. Sometimes, we cannot accurately measure the various parts of our character that in the right amounts, are necessary for us to be the best we can be. We fall short. We turn to religion, philosophy and other disciplines for the ’secrets’ to a life well lived. The instinct to better ourselves, as opposed to simply survive, is uniquely human.

There is another kind of wisdom, the kind born of experience. That wisdom is usually the product of failure, or dashed hopes, or mistakes we have made and forever wish we could take back. That wisdom learned is bittersweet. There are no do overs in life, no matter how much we desperately want there to be. No matter what we have learned, no matter how we have grown, there are some things we do not get to do over and fix. In Time Faith And Progress, we wrote

…there are no do-overs. There is no shortage of forgiveness and penance, but there are no do-overs, because we must learn to be accountable. It is only by being accountable that we really learn. To learn mercy, we must know the pain of weeping and to know forgiveness we must know the shame of our own deliberate blind eyes and failures. If we were able to go back and ‘fix our mistakes,’ we would never learn the things that validate and confirm us as being ‘made in God’s image.’

Redefining truth and reality are not an opportunity for backdoor do overs. Redefining current reality does not make past evils less evil.

The evils of leftist ideology cannot be lessened because there are those who attempt to redefine the current reality. The murderous excesses of Che, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Arafat and their supporters and apologists cannot be washed away because reality and truth can be so easily rewritten. T

The left have noting to offer civilized society if the only way the left can recast themselves is by demonizing those who disagree with them. They are not morally superor to anyone. In fact, they are inferior. Dr Sanity, speaking of the kind of toxicity offered up by the left in Tales From The Dems Leftist Cantina:

This is characteristic of the peculiar derangement of the borderline/narcissistic person. It is all about them, you see. The world is not big enough for their needs and anyone else’s at the same time. All situations must be filtered through the feeling prism of “what’s most important for me?” or “how can I most benefit from this?”. Compassion can be faked if necessary to achieve one’s ends, but expressing the rage and hatred inside is even more important.

Again, Dr Sanity, from Why I Can’t Take Socialists Seriously:

Whoever coined the term “useful idiot” was being far too kind…you are accomplices to murder.

In short, I have nothing nice to say… Why don’t you go read some history–the kind that hasn’t been doctored by your comrades, preferably. Self-respecting socialist or anarchist? The terms are mutually contradictory and utterly oxymoronic.

I personally hold idiots like you responsible for the incalculable harm that socialism. communism, and all other totalitarian ideologies have wrought on this planet.

I wonder how you can possibly live with so much blood on your hands?

In the end, the point the Anchoress makes is clear. The ideologues that are attempting to foist themselves on us reek from a stench that cannot be washed away. Those ideologiues are the unwashed and unbathed, with generations of failure and doused in perfume and saying ‘We are the beauties!’ Not everyone will be fooled.

What some people are actually starting to say is:

When the evidence of something is right in front of my face, why do you insist on telling me that what I am seeing is not what is real, that what I am hearing is not really being said, that what my own reason can sensibly deduce makes no sense? Stop telling me I don’t know what I’m encountering and that my reason is faulty.

The left cannot make evil palatable without sugar coating it. The Left cannot make the hate and bigotry of the causes they support go away because without sugar coating that, either. The left cannot make the justification for violence perpetrated by those they support go away.

Truth and wisdom are anchors. They cannot be made to dance very well.

Dr Sanity, once more:

In the classic movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness plays Colonel Nicholson, a British POW in a WWII Japanese camp. The British prisoners are given the task by the Japanese of building a crucial railway bridge that is essential for the Japanese in their war effort. Col Nicholson takes this task seriously and uses the opportunity to help his fellow prisoners regain some self-esteem in spite of their prisoner status by by not only building an incredible bridge, but by showing the Japanese how they can run the whole show. But, unknown to Nicholson and the prisoners, the allies have marked the strategic bridge for destruction.

The final scene in the movie shows Nicholson proudly walking up and down the bridge, making his last inspection when he discovers a wire connected to explosives that were set by an allied demolition team. He and the Japanese Commander follow the wire downstream, flushing out the allied soldier set to detonate the bridge. The soldier stabs the Japanese commander to death; but Nicholson–who is supposedly on the soldier’s side– begins to yell for help and then personally tries to stop the soldier from detonating the explosives in order to protect “his” bridge. Suddenly, Nicholson, in horror, comes to his senses and exclaims, “What have I done!?!”; falls from a mortal wound, and accidentally detonates the explosions that destroy the bridge. As an observer in the movie notes, it is madness.

…Colonel Nicholson becomes so narcissistically invested in the Bridge and his role in creating the structure, that he loses all perspective of the larger picture and ends up betraying his country and the very values he believed he was supporting by working with his captors. The moment when he suddenly realizes that his commitment to an abstract ideal has led him and his fellow POWs down the path of betrayal is the climax of the movie.

Nicholson was not a bad man–on the contrary, there was much about him that was quite admirable. He simply gave into fantasies of his own self-aggrandizement and rationalized it as something heroic.

‘What hath we wrought?’ indeed.