Jefferson’s Declaration vs. Marx’s Manifesto – Latest News
We have a alternative between two conflicting worldviews: one of freedom and dignity, the opposite of a regimented society primarily based on submission to the ideology of a ruling elite.
One liberates, the opposite enslaves.
One factors the best way towards a new daybreak for humanity, the opposite towards the darkish night time of collectivism.
These visions had been set forth in two of probably the most important paperwork in historical past, written simply 72 years aside: The Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776, and “The Communist Manifesto,” revealed in 1848.
The wrestle, which is occurring throughout us, is a manifestation of these two mutually unique worldviews.
The Declaration mirrored the pondering of probably the most good minds ever assembled in a single place: retailers, planters, legal professionals, inventors, a doctor and a member of the clergy, most distinguished of their particular person fields.
They didn’t need a trigger, however they believed in a single.
“The Communist Manifesto” was written largely by Karl Marx — a depressing failure, an offended, bitter crank who sought greatness by attacking a system he didn’t perceive.
He known as for the abolition of capitalism with out ever setting foot on a manufacturing unit flooring.
He was additionally a racist and an antisemite.
The Declaration of Independence is only one,320 phrases, and most of that’s taken up with a checklist of the colonists’ grievances towards King George III.
The preamble, which incorporates the essence of the doc’s political philosophy, is 133 phrases.
“The Communist Manifesto” is roughly 12,000 phrases.
Later, Marx and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels, expanded on it in “Das Kapital,” a stultifying three-volume work of 2,500 pages.
Like “Mein Kampf,” it’s best used as a doorstop.
Compare the data of these two worldviews.
The imaginative and prescient of the Founders took America from a colonial backwater to the nation that dominated the twentieth century.
From our factories and workshops has flowed an countless stream of innovations which have formed the trendy world and eased the burden of humanity, together with the incandescent gentle bulb, the airplane, the phone, tv, the fridge, the microchip and the web.
Our prosperity lifted all boats: After World War II, we rebuilt the economies of our enemies.
Our Constitution served as a model of consultant authorities for rising nations.
The file of communism is drenched in blood and reeks of human struggling.
Since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, communism has been accountable for 65 million to 100 million deaths worldwide.
Get opinions and commentary from our columnists
Subscribe to our day by day Post Opinion publication!
Thanks for signing up!
Marxism-Leninism has enriched our vocabulary with phrases and phrases comparable to gulags, killing fields, deliberate famines, death camps and purges.
A big half of humanity is trapped in communist nations comparable to Cuba, China and North Korea.
The Berlin Wall was not constructed to keep West Germans from fleeing to East Germany; Cuba has not taken in 2 million refugees from the United States.
Yet in America, communism — repackaged as democratic socialism — is making alarming inroads.
Our largest metropolis and America’s financial hub has a Marxist mayor.
Our capital metropolis, the District of Columbia, will quickly have one too.
Marxists simply received Democratic primaries for two congressional seats in New York, one in Pennsylvania and one in Colorado.
One of the winners in New York needs to abolish personal property, borders and prisons; at Columbia, she led a pro-Hamas occupation.
History has come down to a life-and-death wrestle between Americanism and communism.
Communism is monolithic. Americanism is individualistic.
Communism calls for obedience. Americanism seeks to steer.
Americanism says rights come from God. Under communism, rights come from the state.
Americanism welcomes debate. Communism tries to crush it.
Americanism embraces human nature. Communism fights it at each flip, making an attempt to pound sq. pegs into spherical holes.
That is why it fails each time.
Still, intellectuals flock to its banner.
The much less somebody is in contact with actuality, the more communism appeals to them: A sociology main is more prone to communism than an engineering pupil.
Intellectuals wish to be the commissars of the new order.
I’ve a fantasy about Karl Marx coming back to life.
In it, the prophet of communism appears to be like on the world his ideology created.
He appears to be like on the lights of the night time sky in South Korea and the darkness in North Korea.
He compares the repression in communist China with the liberty in Taiwan.
He surveys the rubble of what was as soon as the Berlin Wall.
He appears to be like on the struggling in Cuba.
He compares the gross home product of the United States and Russia.
And after he digests all this, the daddy of communism says to himself: “Man, what was I thinking?”
Reprinted with permission from The Washington Times.
