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Friday, July 19, 2024

Karl Marx and the American Left

In recent years the Democrats have moved so far to the left that it's increasingly difficult to distinguish them from Marxists. At Townhall.com Mark Lewis provides us with a number of quotes from Karl Marx himself, many of which sound like they've been lifted from a contemporary academic journal or Democratic party memos.

Not all Democrats would subscribe to the sentiments Marx expresses, but many would and certainly almost all leftists would.

I list the quotes here. The amplifications are mine. You'll have to go to the link to see Lewis' explanations:

1. “Keep people from their history, and they are easily controlled.”

2. “Take away a nation’s heritage, and they are more easily persuaded.”

3. “If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded.”
I.e. don't teach kids history or if it's to be taught only stress the disgraceful aspects of Western and U.S. history.

4. “The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother’s care, shall be in state institutions.”
Resist granting parents the right to send their children to private schools, especially Christian schools.

5. “Communism begins where atheism begins.”
Communism is incompatible with belief in a God. For the communist the state is God.

6. “My object is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.”

7. “The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.”

8. “As socialism grows, religion will disappear. Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which education must play a part.”
Nothing that carries any religious overtones, and no one who holds ideas that have positive religious implications, should be permitted anywhere near the public square or near children.

9. “Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
All morals are subjective to the individual or relative to the culture in which people live. There are no objective moral truths. The closest thing to an objective moral principle is whatever the government declares to be right at any given time.

10. “The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.”
For the left compromise means agreeing with them.Those who resist socialism are engaging in some sort of quixotic culture war. They're resisting the inevitable progress of humanity.

11. “Democracy is the road to socialism.”
Once people realize they can vote into office people who will raid the public purse on their behalf it's just a short step to a socialist economy.

12. “A heavy or progressive or graduated income tax is necessary for the proper development of Communism.”
Tax the rich. Who cares whether it makes good economic sense to do so?

13. “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.”
Well, that's probably true. Our corporations are eager to do business with China and lots of other countries that would happily destroy us as soon as they could.

14. “We have no compassion, and we ask for no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
Sounds just like Antifa and a lot of those who've been lamenting that Trump wasn't felled by the would-be assassin in Butler, PA.