...live in a world where perfection is possible (I mean, even Roger Federer loses tennis matches), perfect or "proper" communism isn't possible, so we have no choice but to judge it by its results to date. You'd have to be mad, stupid, ignorant or evil (or all four) to judge those results as anything other than catastrophic - or the "ideas" underpinning what is a quasi-religious belief system rather than a practical blueprint for organising societies as anything other than utopian/dystopian pipe-dreams. For those of us who don't positively loathe humanity - and despite a profusion of worthy contenders - communism has proved itself to be the worst form of government yet devised.
If you agree - as I do - with Mrs Thatcher's view that the problem with socialists (socialism is communism's smiley-face sibling) is that they always run out of other people's money, then the only really meaningful current arguments about the best way for society to organise itself are those between conservatives and right-wingers. Personal freedom is spiffing - but to what extent should the state be allowed to curtail it in order to stop people harming themselves and (more importantly) others? Capitalism has proved itself to be enormously beneficial for the vast majority of those fortunate enough to live and work in market economies - but what measures should be taken to protect the weak, the incompetent and the sick? Governments exists to protect people from foreign attackers and domestic criminals - but what else should they be allowed to control? What is a "reasonable" level of taxation (20% tops, I reckon), given that governments are so utterly useless when it comes to getting value for our money? As public sector institutions are invariably staffed by otherwise unemployable socialists, who use our taxes to implement daft left-wing policies, how far and how fast can we shrink the public sector without damaging the social fabric - and to what extent is the public sector already damaging the social fabric?
Arguing about any of the above with all but a handful of intelligent, patriotic, practical-minded socialists is almost entirely pointless: the very terms we use mean entirely different things to each side - a left-winger's ideas of equality, fairness, justice etc. are entirely different from mine, so what's the point of arguing over whether a certain tax rate or the current level of NHS funding is "fair" or not? What most political arguments tend to be about these days is language. Maybe you can stand to listen to yet another self-righteously shouty dickhead demanding "justice" for the Grenfell Tower survivors (or members of any of their other numerous pet victim groups) without any attempt to define what the word means in this context - but I really can't. On the other hand, I'd be perfectly happy to listen to a genuine conservative and a right-winger discussing the subject, because there's a chance they might actually agree on a definition of "justice", get beyond hysterical moral posturing, and start discussing practical ways of delivering it. But as no media discussion on this sort of issue - or of any political issue, come to that (apart, occasionally, from those presided over by Andrew Neil) - doesn't also involve a majority of communists, socialists or Blairites talking utter cock, radio and TV "debates" are of absolutely no value or interest.
The fact that the leadership of Britain's second largest political party seems to consist of nothing but dim-witted socialists, communists and cultural Marxists, and that its main support comes from people under the age of 40 who are evidently entirely ignorant of history (thanks to our schools, universities and broadcast media), conservatives and right-wingers have to stop thinking up ways of making the world a better place and - for the umpteenth time - make the blisteringly obvious point that communism is, without a hint of a shadow of a doubt , a system of government which invariably does dirt on the human spirit by imposing poverty, torture, slaughter, hopelessness and misery on a population of slaves. There really should be no need to remind people here in the West that communism stinks - but as we're faced with the distinct possibility of a communist prime minister, I guess we're going to have to keep doing so, in the hope that the penny finally drops:
Not only has Communism been tried , it has been found guilty , executed and returned, zombie - like, in its lack of amenability to reason.
ReplyDeleteCommunism is simply Christianity stripped of its supernatural elements.
I've considered your second statement, and I'm utterly bemused, given that, while one can just about make an argument for replacing "the Lord" in the first two of the Ten Commandments with "the State", communism pretty much rejects every one of the other eight commandments. For instance, where does Christianity condone killing unbelievers, stealing your neighbour's property, ratting your friends out to the authorities, or lying to further the cause? Communism is Christianity stripped of its supernatural elements - and practically every one of its fundamental tenets.
DeleteWhy the hell are we still having to make the case against communism?
ReplyDeleteFunny you should ask that just before an advisor to the UK government whose companies make a fortune out of government contracts and who is also a senior lecturer at the Cambridge Judge Business School wrote a manifesto and a green paper saying "we think Marx, and the notion of economic rent, is as good a place as any for us to start". There's more.