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Jewish World Review Sept. 22, 2010/ 14 Tishrei, 5771 Two Words for Republicans to Remember: ‘I Won’ By Arnold Ahlert
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
On September 30th, 2009, the Empire State Building was lit up in red and yellow lights to celebrate the 60th anniversary of China's Communist revolution. Whether or not it will be done again this year for the 61st anniversary is anyone's guess. Yet can anyone imagine the same building celebrating any anniversary of the Third Reich?
An absurd question? Certainly most people reflexively consider Adolf Hitler to be the epitome of evil. Yet in the historical annals of genocidal maniacs, Hitler doesn't even place second. His murder of six million Jews, along with five million others, relegates him to third place among the world's all-time butchers. Communist Russia's Josef Stalin comes in second with a total of twenty million killed, although some historians contend it might be twice that number. And then there's Chinese Communist Mao Zedong, who's literally in a class by himself: he gets "credit" for between forty and seventy-seven million exterminations.
So why is Nazism utterly reviled even as Communism gets a historical pass? Because the philosophy of communism remains popular in the precincts of progressive America.
How is this possible? How can an ideology responsible for the deaths of more than a hundred million people maintain even an ounce of respectability? It comes down to one breathtakingly arrogant conceit. It is the conceit of those who look at the trail of bloodshed, economic destruction, the crushing of dissent and freedom, and the repeated historical failure of totalitarian collectivism and come to this conclusion:
The wrong people were in charge.
Anyone wondering whether a Republican blowout in November will chasten Democrats in general, and president Barack Obama in particular, can stop wondering. Perhaps progressivism hasn't yet degenerated into full-blown Communism, but those who champion ever-expanding government have made their intentions clear. These are not your father's Democrats. They're not even Bill Clinton Democrats who ought to examine how a president whose party was blown out in 1994 managed to get himself re-elected.
These particular Democrats are hard-core ideologues. As far as they're concerned, they are the "right people in charge" and their only impediment is the fact that the electorate is not sufficiently enlightened enough to see it. It is why, for example, they were willing to ram an odious health care bill down the throats of Americans who made it clear they wanted no part of it. They were absolutely positive that a post-ratification education campaign would make the public see the error of our ways. That public disapproval increased as a result of that campaign?
We're even dumber than they thought were were.
The stimulus train-wreck? Americans are too stupid to understand Keynesian economics, and they can't appreciate that a job "saved" is just as valuable as a job "created." Such intellectual deficiency also explains why we failed to appreciate the fact that we've been in the midst of a "Recovery Summer," even as unemployment continues to hover steadily near ten percent.
A lame duck session in Congress if Republicans win big? It is not inconceivable that by the time Republicans gain control in January they may have a lot more on their "repeal platter" than most Americans could imagine. Lame-duck Democrat ideologues may be more than willing to pass a cap-and-trade bill and amnesty for illegal immigrants in the cynical hope that even repeal-happy Republicans can't handle multiple issues effectively. Even if Republicans take both houses of Congress, the Ideologue-in-Chief will veto anything and everything antithetical to his agenda.
Reality check: government gridlock for a two-year period is likely the best one can hope for.
Yet the quality of gridlock matters. A recent comment by Ohio Republican John Boehner is illustrative. With regard to the upcoming expiration of the Bush tax cuts, Mr. Boehner said this:
"If the only option I have is to vote (for tax cuts) for those (making) 250 (thousand dollars) and below, of course I'm going to do that."
Wrong answer, Mr. Boehner, and precisely indicative of what's wrong with the Republican party. You don't meet hard-core ideologues "half-way." The Tea Party movement didn't gain the kind of national traction it has because Americans are mildly dissatisfied with the progressive agenda. They are overwhelming angry and fearful that their country is being hijacked by radicals who have demonstrated utter contempt for the peoples' wishes.
Apparently, unlike many myopic Republicans, Tea Partiers understand that there is no middle ground between those willing to fundamentally alter the character of this "broken" country, and those fighting to preserve the greatest success story ever written.
Communism is nothing more than Nazism with better PR. And despite all the high-minded nonsense about re-distribution and social justice, progressivism is little more than a way-station on the road to the former with the self-professed "right people in charge."
Americans opposed to this agenda have been characterized as Islamophobic, racist, bigoted and/or xenophobic by a mainstream media which has abandoned any pretense of balance or intellectual curiosity. Many so-called journalists (or is that JournoListers?) have literally adopted the Saul Alinsky tactic of "picking the target, freezing, it personalizing it and polarizing it," and applied it to the majority of citizens who have made it clear they oppose the agenda of American progressives.
If a thorough revulsion of Communism were as ingrained in the American psyche as that of Nazism, its ideological cousin, progressivism, would be as dead as the proverbial doornail. Again, for perspective's sake, imagine if a substantial number of faculty members at American universities were full-blown Nazis, instead of the Marxist ideologues many of them freely admit to being. Would there be any doubt that our so-called citadels of higher learning were anything other than indoctrination camps for an insidious ideology?
This is one American who has no interest in finding a middle ground with such people in whatever arena they operate. If Republicans win big in November they might consider that such a victory--so shortly removed from the America left's predictions of multi-generational progressive ascendancy--is indicative of the electorate's desire to obliterate progressivism, not accommodate it. If they need courage, they might want to ponder how often Democrats accommodated them in the last four years. It might even be useful to remember what president Obama himself said about accommodating the wishes of the opposition, which can be summed up in two words:
"I won."
That phrase cuts both ways, Republicans.
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© 2010, Arnold Ahlert |
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