―America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves‖
President Abraham Lincoln THE MAJOR DIFFERENCE We have discussed many of the more common differences between the Leftist and the Conservative thinking in Chapter 2 and the inconsistencies in Leftist thinking in Chapter 3.
It is time to address the most significance difference and that has to do with their respective choices in Government. Essentially the two choices in the United States are; Socialism/Communism (a form of government which controls all aspects of life.); and a Constitutional-Republic. (A form which does not try to control all aspects of life.) Conservatives, in American, want the latter and understand government is necessary to provide common necessities (such as roads and ports) and defense. Leftist want Socialism. In full bloom Socialism always fails taking with it too many lives and gobs and gobs of value. In spite of all the lessons of history, Leftists are attracted to it like moths to a flame. It is their fatal attraction.
This type of major difference has always existed from the beginning of social living. Of course it has had different names and occurred at different places. For example in the earliest of tribes the members gathered together to cooperatively do the common needs and to provide defense from the enemy.
A solo act was sure death. There has always been an enemy.
Other human beings will always want what you have. Even in a Tribe this greed and desire to live off of others work was a problem. The earliest Shamans figured a way to have others provide food and shelter. They learned to presume to predict the future, with incantations and assemblage of rocks and stuff.
When they did, they went on welfare, under a different name. Of course they had to lie good and that too has not changed. Some non-shamans tried their best to secure comforts from others.
The Chief or head guy‘s main problem was keeping the hunters and warriors in line.
Keeping them in their own Hogan or bed, keeping them from not taking others food, tools and weapons etc. Some were gung ho and others were laid back. In all the thousands of years of human existence these differences have always been there. In any population there has always been about 1/3 who want to be taken care of, about 1/3 in the middle, and about 1/3 who want to do their own thing, as much as they can. It is the same in the United States even now. A way to use this 1/3 analysis in today‘s world is to look at the polls attempting to show a President‘s Popularity. The President will automatically get at least 1/3. If his popularity is 43 % then only 10% of the middle or other side also supports him. In a Republic or Democracy a Presidential candidate cannot just run for the Middle 1/3. If he or she does they will fail. Such a candidate has to go for the automatic 1/3. That is they have to declare they are Leftist or Conservative. Then the trick is to try and pick up enough of the others to win. Sometimes there is a lot of misleading going on.
The most notorious example today is Candidate Obama, saying he would not raise taxes on certain folks, and he represented Change. Somehow he failed to mention the Change was to Socialism. He won partly because his opponent refused to say or do the things to keep his 1/3 in line.
Socialism/communism are names given to the Leftist of today. There is a slight difference in the two. In Socialism there can exist private property. In Communism, at least in theory, no private property beyond your personal effects can exist. In other words Communism is simply the ultimate togetherness.
The concept and definition of Socialism as we know it did not exist until well into the Industrial Revolution. There is no agreement as to the exact year the Industrial Revolution began, but it is agreed it started in England and Scotland and then spread to Europe and America. It began sometime in the 1700s and ended in the late 1800s. What caused it were the major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport.
The change had its linchpin in harnessing energy to multiply a man‘s labor and change materials from one form to another. It was not wind, hydro, or solar power that supplied the energy, but coal and gas. Fast, efficient, and affordable.
During these dramatic changes in how we did things, cultural shock took its toll. No longer were we land bound. We had to gather in places of industry and travel became common.
What happened to our families and the general conditions of labor were extraordinary and certainly never experienced before.
There was no history to fall back on. There was no real comparison to ancient empires, such as the Roman, Greek, Egyptian, or Assyrian. This was different and many strains and sprains occurred. Certainly one of them was the relationship between the business owner and the worker. The owner capitalized and invented the business, and developed the network of supply and demand. The workers came to make it happen. Their goals were not the same and the advantages and disadvantages were likewise askew. In some places the conditions of the worker were ignored by the owners. Many times the workers lack of cohesiveness and togetherness was taken advantage of by some.
In one place a new concept grew where the owners would act like government (there was very little Government in those days) and provide better conditions for the workers. Now this should not surprise you. Some owners would surely realize that if the workers were happier they would work better.
Understand government in those days did not provide much oversight, sanitation, etc.
Governmental responsibility seemed to end with the fall of the Roman Dictatorships. If workers were to have a better place to live, raise a family, educate the kids etc., the Governments of the 1700s were not going to do it.
Private enterprise was the only one which could, financially and through leadership.
In Scotland, the seed of socialism was born. The man‘s name was Robert Owen. He was born in 1771. As was the custom he began labor at age 10, and soon moved to the developing textile industry. Because he was honest, hardworking, and responsible, he became the youngest Mill manager in Manchester, England. When he was 20, he bossed over 300. He saw that a happy worker produced more. As a developing owner he wanted to take advantage of that fact. He became an advocate of creating the happy worker with benefits and a share of the profits.
Soon, Mr. Owen obtained the chance to buy the New Lanmark textile Mill, in Scotland.
This place is still there. It is near Glasgow and is now open to the public. Owen was a part of a partnership at that time, but his was the dominate voice. He set about taking advantage of the ―happy worker‖. He improved housing with company built facilities, stopped employing young children, installed safety equipment, and opened a company store which did provide the lowest possible prices for his workers. In 1816 he opened his first infant school, two years before Karl Marx was born. It was the first of its kind in all of England and Scotland. Owen was swimming upstream. Some owners did not want to go this extra mile and grumbled. Many of his workers did not like his regulating how much alcohol they could drink or that they could not work their children in the mill for additional income. They grumbled. However, he persisted and other owners came to copy him. His workers went along, especially when the Mill had to close for 4 months, because of no raw material. He paid their wages anyway. He went public with his ideas and was the most important man to push and obtained the 1819 Child Employment Act which regulated their employment.
He was not a religious man and the churches were not fond of him as he made no special arrangements for his employees except to not work them on Sunday, most of the time.
He did help workers form trade unions in line with his belief that ―Labor, not capital, is the wealth‖. Of course labor is nothing without capital, but he did not see that. Probably just too close.
Mr. Robert Owen is considered by most as the father of modern Socialism/communism.
After Owens death in 1820, his son or son in law continued his humane concepts until the mill was sold. He son or son in law, took the idea of Utopia to American. After all things would be better there, and certainly these idealistic feel good concepts could be taken to the extreme, (communist like) and all would be well. He founded ―New Harmony‖, Indiana in 1824. He purchased it from a failed communal group known as the Harmony Society. Of course harmony was elusive. New Harmony was a pure socialist/communist place. It lasted two years when infighting brought it down. It is S.A.D. that Robert Owen himself could not have lived to see what happens when you try to do the nice things from the bottom up. It fails each and every time. He was successful because he had the power and the capital from the top down.
Mr. Owens ideas stayed alive in England and Scotland and the failures in the U.S. did not seem to damper the efforts.
Mr. Owen was not alone. Other philosophers and writers saw the same scene and wrote about it.
In Germany, Karl Marx was born in 1818 and lived to 65.
He began to speak the same way Owen had acted and was eventually kicked out of Germany. He went to Paris and there met Fredrick Engles. Engles was also an expatriate of Germany.
They collaborated and eventually the French told them to leave.
They went to Brussels and bounced around in England and Brussels most of their productive lives. Both attempted to return to Prussia, but eventually were kicked out and ended their association in England. Karl was the son of a lawyer, but made his living out of sedition. Engles was the son of an industrialist and was sent to Manchester (the first major job for Owens) to work in a very poor Mill. It was here he formed his anti-capitalist ideas. Engles was two years younger than Karl but had money from some books he wrote. He was the main support of Marx.
In 1848 Karl, with Engles help, wrote the Communist Manifesto.
They were in Brussels at the time. In short, they were not your idea of law and order types. They regaled in anti-social behavior and writing.
The Communist Manifesto essentially establishes the attitudes and ideas of modern socialism and communism. In it you are struck by the glorification of class conflict. The Proletariat (workers) vs. the Bourgeoisie (the job makers), this same play on class conflict goes on in American today. Karl said in his Manifesto; “the development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore, produces above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”
In this small part of the work, you can see the core beliefs. First the owners steal, ups! I mean ―appropriate‖.
These dolts who had the power and wealth and made jobs were stupid and would die.
Those who did not have power and wealth and did not make jobs would win. Now if you think this is logical, then I bid you adieu. How can the worker work without a boss and risk taker? It is impossible Every failed commune stands in mute testimony. It is impossible. Every failed communist experiment screams out, it is so.
All right, we have explored the origins of Socialism and Communism and I hope you can see the lack of logic in its manifesto. I hope you accept history to the point that it has never been successful. Where it has been tried it destroys property and life. The millions killed by Hitler, Stalin and Moa are milestones on the road to hell. The billions of property they took is another. The people killed and displaced by Castro is mind boggling. What is currently happening in Venezuela is an open book of suffering created by the Communists. They do not care about your property. They will take it.
A little time ago a clock repair man told me this story. It was of him and his father in Romania. At the time the teller was a child. When the Communist took control (with the Soviet Union assistance) two of the party members came to his father‘s shop of jewelry and clocks and told him that it was their time and he was to leave. When he returned several days later, all of value was stolen. Oops!!! Appropriated, if you are a Communist.
Don‘t you remember, there is no private property to steal in Communism? His father tried to renew his company but the Communist would not have it. He fled losing all his life labor and property. The son, the teller of the story, told me it was happening in the United States and soon we would all have to …… He simply moved his index finger over his mouth. He meant keep shut up.
Socialism/Communism is the major difference between a Leftist and a Conservative.
From a Conservatives point of view the adherence to a proven failed system is crazy.
Why do Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Waxman, Boxer, Feinstein, Obama and on and on believe in such a terrible result? The only explanation is that they are in denial of history.
It tells them nothing. It is like the response of the late Edward Kennedy, when asked why he believed in a system of government which has failed for thousands of years, and he replied ―because it will not, when I run it‖. Isn‘t that wacko? How can someone believe that all those who failed before were dunces and idiots and only you can do it right.
Somehow the lessons of history mean nothing to them.
On the other hand, a Conservative pays attention to history and has paid attention to the mistakes of the past.
Wherever a Conservative sees a consolidation of power in government in history, he sees its abuse and he sees great suffering of his fellow man. It does not make any difference what you call the consolidation. It will be abused. The Roman Republic worked until it was taken over by the dictators (called Caesars). Then the power was abused, the strength used up and it fell. The Soviet Union is no more. Its failure leaves a dismal path of destruction of property and lives. A man by the name of Hitler led the German National Socialist Workers party to stardom. It was a socialist experiment. The power was consolidated and he took it. One can say that the Holocaust was the direct result of a failed socialist experiment.
The Founders of our Constitution (who lived but 8 generations ago) were not dumb. They were not naïve. They were just like you and me. They were property owners, family men, learned in history and the way of governess. They had rebelled from consolidated power in England. They had seen its abuses in Europe. They were aware of why Rome fell, why the Greece states exhausted each other and fell. They understood history and set about to create a government that would not be eaten up by power-mad dogs. In gathering at the convention, they also knew that too little power at the center was not good.
The Continental Congress had fallen into bickering, and was ineffectual for national defense. How could they come up with a system which could endure and provide the best possible peace and comfort? They settled upon a Republic which divides power into three branches. The Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial, in that order. They tried by the use of checks and balances to prevent one being dominate over the other. No one can argue with me on this point, unless they have read the Federalist Papers and studied these men and their lives. They knew what could bring it all down and said so.
Once the electorate directly or through their representatives learns they can vote themselves the money of others, from the treasury they will. It is stealing, stealing, --
stealing the work product of others to replace that which is lacking in your own back yard. It always has brought a country down and it will bring the United States down, if it is not stopped.
It is S.A.D.
Consciously or unconsciously (I prefer the latter) a Leftist believes in centralized power in spite of the history lessons. It is not a question. History‘s Socialist failures are at 100
percent. All such experiments have failed. There is not enough wealth in any nation to sustain copious handouts, begging and takings. No tribe survived where many members of it sucked off the strong.
Why does a Leftist insist on failure? How can a Leftist believe it will not happen when he or she does it? Why does a Leftist believe in peace, ―if we just all get along‖, when history is four square against such a dream? Are they just simple dreamers who deny reality, or is there something basically wrong with their thinking?
I am of the firm belief, after a life time of trying to debate with them, that leftist suffer a wiring defect. They are not evil. All of us will admit their dream of ―peace in our time‖ is wonderful to contemplate. We all do that. Why do they not grasp the reality, that there can never be peace in our time so long as humans remain as they are? And why are there so many of them? You and I, who see life in real time, simply have to admit they cannot be allowed to control. You cannot leave them in charge of your children. You cannot let them secure your home and belongings. Leftist will take you down with them if you let them.
Finally, I want to return to the Conservative common sense mind and address our weaknesses. In rough and trouble times, we prevail because we have the strength and resolve to meet reality head on. In war, we are the great leaders, because we can see the battlefield as a killing zone, and we will take all steps necessary to see to it that the enemy dies, and we do not.
If this means stealth, then so be it. If it means killing innocent women and children, then so be it, if it means being down right unpleasant, then so be it. If the enemy will not field armies, but attacks us hiding as civilians, then any suspicious person dies.
We know the enemy will change tactics if their camouflage no longer works. We will smoke them out until they leave us alone.
It is Reality. If a religion aids and abets the killing of our people, we will force that religion to change or be itself eliminated. In short, Conservatives will not pretend and place their heads in the sand so that their posteriors get blown off.
But Conservatives have a weak spot which has been taken advantage of over and over again. Conservatives know it, but like an Achilles‘ heel, it is a weak spot. Conservatives are by their nature Conservative. That means they do not want to get into other people‘s faces. They do not want to get involved if they do not have to do so. They want to be left alone to take care of themselves and their families and live a good life. That is not realty either. Conservatives must, in the future, set aside a portion of their life to community service where they work to keep the Leftist in minority. Having peace means checks and balances in all aspects of life. Conservatives must set them up and must maintain them.
The war, President Obama wages on Arizona, is just such an example. Conservatives have to get out of the bottom of the boat and take over the rudder and sails and point the bow into calmer waters. That is what Conservatives have done in Arizona and hopefully it will continue.