(Continued from above)

The American journalist Louis Fisher, once an enthusiastic chronicler of Soviet economic advances, recounted how much the Soviet Union had changed: “Ubiquitous fear, amply justified by terror, had k**led revolt, silenced protest, and destroyed civil courage. In place of idealism, cynical safety-first. In place of dedication, pursuit of personal aggrandizement. In place of living spirit, dead conformism, bureaucratic formalism, and the parrotism of false clichés.”

So it was in the Soviet Union under Stalin; so it has been in every socialist experiment since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Soviet-N**i agreement was the cracking point for many intellectuals in the West, including the American Louis Fisher, who accused Stalin of building an imperialistic militaristic system in which he is, and his successor will be, “the Supreme S***e Master.” How then, Fisher asked, can anyone interested in the welfare of people and the peace and progress of humanity support such a system? “Because there is rottenness in the democratic world?” he asked and answered, “We can fight the rottenness. What can Soviet citizens do about Stalinism?”

It took decades, but the citizens of all the nations behind the Iron Curtain finally threw off their chains in 1989, and wrote finis to Soviet c*******m. Tragically, there are still more than 1 billion people living today under the Marxist socialist regimes of China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos.

Socialism is responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million victims.

If you were asked how many Jews died in the Holocaust, you would probably respond, “Six million.” We learned the correct answer in our schools and universities, through the books and articles we have read, the movies and television programs we have watched, our conversations with families, friends, and colleagues. There is a continuing campaign to remind us of the Holocaust and to declare, “Never again.” And rightly so. The holocaust carried out by the N**is — their deliberate campaign of genocide — was the greatest evil of the 20th century.

But if you were asked, “How many victims of c*******m have there been?” You would probably hesitate and respond — “Five million? Twenty million? Fifty million?” Few of us would know the right answer: at least 100 million men, women, and children, more than all the deaths of all the major wars of the 20thcentury. C*******m committed the great crime of the last century.

It is a number difficult to comprehend, let alone accept. Surely, you might say, there could not have been that many. But we can be certain of saying that there have been at least 100 million victims of c*******m because of the painstaking research of the editors of The Black Book of C*******m, published by the Harvard University Press. They document that each and every Marxist socialist regime has prevailed by way of a pistol to the back of the head and a death sentence in a forced labor camp.

There is no exception whether in China under Mao Zedong, North Korea under Kim Il Sung, Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, Cuba under Fidel Castro, Cambodia under Pol Pot, or Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam.

According to Stephane Courtois, the editor in chief of The Black Book of C*******m, the leading mass murderer is Pol Pot, whose attempt to communize Cambodia resulted in the deaths of one fourth of the country’s population. His closest rival is Mao, under whom as many as 40 million Chinese died in just one socialist campaign — the grossly misnamed Great Leap Forward. Of the Soviet Union’s first two dictators, Lenin and Stalin, Courtois says, “The blood turns cold at its venture into planned, logical and ‘politically collect’ mass slaughter.”

What price socialism? We must not limit ourselves to numbers.

The Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang listed the “little terrors” that prevailed in China — making children of 12 subject to capital punishment, sending women to work in underground coal mines, harassing workers during their lunchtime with threats of prison if they were late returning to work.

There were the costs in terror. One Soviet defector wrote about Soviet life: “We lived in a world swarming with invisible eyes and ears.”

There were the costs in thought control. The content of everything in print and broadcast was limited to authorized “t***hs.” The Soviet press dismissed the 1932-33 forced famine in Ukraine that took the lives of seven million innocents as an anti-c*******t myth. One Western apologist for the regime, Edouard Herr**t, wrote: “I have crossed the whole of Ukraine, and I can assure you that the entire country is like a garden in full bloom.”

There were the costs to the world. There was no crisis anywhere in the world from Southeast Asia to the Caribbean, from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East, in which the ideological ambitions of Moscow and its imitators, driven by Marxist-Leninist thought, were not involved throughout the 20th and into the 21st century.

This is the reality of socialism — a pseudo-religion grounded in pseudo-science and enforced by political tyranny. This is the case against socialism — a god that failed, a science that never was, a political system headed for the ash heap of history.”

By: Lee Edwards, Ph.D.

(He is Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought
Lee Edwards is a leading historian of American conservatism and the author or editor of 25 books.)

Well, do you know what socialism is? I mean really: I’m interested in hearing what you fear or like about it. Public Schools are good, right? Public Works- road maintenance, parks, electric. And public service like police and fire, courts, tax assessors- all of it to support We The People. And the places that privatized public services screwed us. The Prison system is the perfect example.
But we *are* a socialist country. The root word, social, refers to Society. We are tribal people. We do not do well on our own- isolated. And the US hasn’t fought an honest war since 1945. I have so many younger friends who enlisted and served tour after tour in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some died there, others died after they returned. What does the Middle East War (2003 -present) have to do with our way of life? What were my friends fighting for?
I seriously welcome the opportunity to learn from you; to share our ideas.
Let’s start with “socialist.” For 17 of my 32 years working I taught public school. I served the public. I’ve been in the trenches of service to my country. Instead of a rifle I carried a baton, lesson plans, and an iPod. But service just the same.
Are services that benefit the whole society a bad thing or a good thing and how are we defining “social”?

Bravo Radiance!! ...There Have been a Mulititude of the Definitions of Socialism On this thread.. But Libs refuse to go and verify those definitions, but instead call us H**ers and our posts mean nothing because, they are Freakin Lazy!! They'd Much rather bash conservatives than look into the philosophy that will have them S***es to their gov't..it is called a number of things.. apathy..complacency.. Laziness.. Party line spew.. etc etc.. but the bottom line is libs are lazy about verifiying anything be it Our posts or their own... they read something and cherry pick one word or sentence and blast that instead of reading the entire post based on merit, not the party line.. it would be very refreshing if any of these libs looked Anything Up.. ok.. maybe when pigs fly.. Not holding my breath!

Bravo Radiance!! ...There Have been a Mulititude of the Definitions of Socialism On this thread.. But Libs refuse to go and verify those definitions, but instead call us H**ers and our posts mean nothing because, they are Freakin Lazy!! They'd Much rather bash conservatives than look into the philosophy that will have them S***es to their gov't..it is called a number of things.. apathy..complacency.. Laziness.. Party line spew.. etc etc.. but the bottom line is libs are lazy about verifiying anything be it Our posts or their own... they read something and cherry pick one word or sentence and blast that instead of reading the entire post based on merit, not the party line.. it would be very refreshing if any of these libs looked Anything Up.. ok.. maybe when pigs fly.. Not holding my breath!