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The Big Picture
by William R Alford

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Letters: Crocodile Tears for
Leftist Complaints of Media 'Bias'

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Christina F from Ohio wrote:
Why don't you just call it COMMUNISM, huh?

My response:
As to why I don't call Leftism Communism, that is a fair point. However, from a strictly ideological point of view, communism is the Utopian goal of socialism wherein the people have been successfully transformed by the elites. At that point, everyone is living voluntarily ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need.’ Communism as a state of being has never existed and never will. The point that I was making, given the constraints of space, is that an ideal state of communism is not even their real goal. The possession of absolute arbitrary power is an end in itself for the Left.

Christina F had a follow-up question:
I had been meaning to get back to you and ask you about your comment 'Communism has never existed and never will.' Can you please clarify your statement? What about Marx, Lenin, Stalin; Khruschev?

My response:
To quote my first response, 'communism is the Utopian goal of socialism wherein the people have been successfully transformed by the elites. At that point, everyone is living voluntarily 'from each according to ability, to each according to need.' I would further add that the Utopian State of communism is also characterized by the lack of government that has, according to Marx, 'withered away,' being no longer needed. What I am saying is that it is impossible for this Utopian State to exist. The more successful that socialists are in implementing their agenda, the more the entire society is brought to ruin.

The dictators (and would-be dictators) whom you cited were all socialists who were using the broad powers that they had to attempt to ‘transform’ their society. The hapless population would be offered the false promise that if they endure the strictures of a socialist society, someday they [or their great-grandchildren] can aspire to dwell in the Promised Land of communism.

Transformation of society is the means that all Leftists have in common. They all advocate that the coercive power of government be used to 'socially engineer' the population to live and think according to an arbitrarily-devised ideal. This is true of the homosexual activist groups [Heather's Two Mommies being surreptitiously taught to school children], the race-baiters [quotas], the redistributionists [welfare], etc. The fact that in practice their policies always achieve the opposite of their stated goals only whets their appetite for more power. Power is the actual goal.

Jeff [from one of the Carolinas] had a question as to why Robert Heinlien was mentioned in the ‘Crocodile’ piece [I am still looking for his original e-mail]

My response:
Insofar as Heinlein is concerned, I was thinking about his book Stranger in a Strange Land, which was recommended to me as a must read. I found it to be a lifestyle manual for the sixties generation, especially the part about trading sex partners and the indifference and romanticism of suicide.

Jeff’s follow-up:
So true. I read it back during my teen years and it was very influential on me. (I was a "democrat" until the 80s, but largely because I didn't think about politics that much and thought that the media was actually giving us
"news"; my, how times - and perceptions - change.)

The best thing, to my mind, about Heinlein was probably his limitations as a writer, particularly his rather shallow characters and his inevitable inclusion of some old guy who could perform surgery on himself while cooking supper, pondering the merits of some piece of art, and chopping wood all at the same time. Self-sufficiency seems to be an idea whose time has come and gone.

But this old guy would inevitably be a biblical scholar...with a comprehensive knowledge of the inherent contradictions and (to the modern mind) barbaric aspects of some passages, e.g., the bears eating the children who had ridiculed Isaiah (I think: I'm no biblical scholar).

I see your point about the "lifestyle manual for the sixties generation," but also appreciate the fact that he wrote space operas for Boy's Life, the Boy Scout publication to which I subscribed. He always preached self-reliance, strength and courage in the face of seemingly hopeless situations, and honor...without all the sexual shenanigans of "Stranger," say.