The Left’s Chilling Refusal to Stop Flirting With Marxist Ideas

The New York Times just can’t stop talking about communism.  Recently the Times ran an editorial headlined  “Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!”

The piece, written by Jason Barker, a professor in South Korea, is about what one would expect from a defense of communism. As one Federalist writer noted, it was “beyond parody.”

Hilariously, the article was behind a very capitalistic paywall.

The New York Times hasn’t shied away from publishing Marxist boosterism.

In 2017, the Times dedicated an entire section of its website to the 100-year anniversary of the communist revolution in Russia. It featured an assortment of absurd pieces running the gamut of declaring Lenin a hero environmentalist to claiming that women had better sex lives under socialism. This romanticized account of life under communism is a delusion.

Of course, while the most ridiculous claim in the most recent piece is that Marx has somehow proven to be correct, it’s notable it goes a step further to say that essentially nobody questions his fundamental critiques of capitalism. “While most are in agreement about Marx’s diagnosis of capitalism, opinion on how to treat its ‘disorder’ is thoroughly divided,” Barker wrote.

It seems fair to conclude that actually there is widespread doubt about Marx’s claims about capitalism—unless, of course, one lives in a neatly sealed left-wing bubble.

The fact is, Marx was wrong about everything. He was wrong about economics, wrong about the flow of history, wrong about religion, wrong about where his ideas would lead, and most importantly, wrong about human nature—which he believed could be reshaped under a communist regime.

If there was one thing that was illuminating about Barker’s piece, it was his description of modern social justice crusades as fundamentally Marxist.

“Social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo owe something of an unspoken debt to Marx through their unapologetic targeting of the ‘eternal truths’ of our age,” Barker wrote. “Such movements recognize, as did Marx, that the ideas that rule every society are those of its ruling class and that overturning those ideas is fundamental to true revolutionary progress.”

This is an interesting admission that these movements are essentially “cultural Marxism,” a phrase that the left so often stridently claims is a figment of conservative imaginations.

Given the profound failures of and misery created by communism in the past, we probably shouldn’t be too hopeful about the success of its modern iterations. Unfortunately, many young people don’t know about the depths of these past failures, or have a skewed idea of what communism means in practice.

We should all worry about the consequences of historical ignorance. At least Marx could conceivably say that “real communism hasn’t been tried yet.” His modern proponents don’t have an excuse.

After nearly two centuries of experimentation with Marxist ideas, communism has failed to produce a brotherhood of man or a classless society in which everyone worked in blissful harmony.

Instead, it has produced societies notorious for their cruelty, dysfunction, and violence. It has led to the estimated death toll of just under 100 million people in the last century.

One only has to look at the Korean Peninsula to see the astounding difference of a society under communist tyranny and freedom.

As historian Sean McMeekin wrote in his book, “The Russian Revolution”: "Today’s Western socialists, dreaming of a world where private property and inequality are outlawed, where rational economic development is planned by far-seeing intellectuals, should be careful what they wish for … they may just get it.

Communism offers nothing to humanity but suffering and hopelessness.

This is not to say that life under communism was all about starvation and murderous purges.

Even at its least malignant, living under communism’s inevitable system of enforced conformity and equality where decisions are only the purview of government authorities and bureaucratic managers is hardly a system of human flourishing. This is more akin to living a lifetime stuck in the DMV.

Marx was wrong, hopelessly wrong. His ideas have been tried, tested, and spectacularly failed. It’s time to leave his legacy on the ash heap of history.

SOURCE 

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Donald Trump pulls the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran, renews sanctions

President Trump said Tuesday the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement and re-impose sanctions on Iran, a decision likely to anger allies who fear the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the heart of the Middle East.

"The Iran deal is defective at its core," Trump said during a speech at the White House.

Trump denounced the 2015 agreement as "disastrous," saying it gives Iran too much room to cheat on nuclear weapons development, though in the past he has delayed steps that would effectively render it moot.

Democratic lawmakers and other supporters of the agreement said the decision would alienate allies and encourage Iran to disregard the deal and pursue nuclear weapons.

In his speech, Trump bashed Iran for what he called support of terrorism and threats toward Israel.

SOURCE 

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The War on Wisdom
 
Dennis Prager
 
There is more knowledge available today than ever before in history. But few would argue people are wiser than ever before.

On the contrary, many of us would argue that we are living in a particularly foolish time — a period that is largely wisdom-free, especially among those with the most knowledge: the best educated.

The fact that one of our two major political parties is advocating lowering the voting age to 16 is a good example of the absence of wisdom among a large segment of the adult population. What adult deems 16-year-olds capable of making a wise voting decision? The answer is an adult with the wisdom of a 16-year-old — “Hey, I’m no wiser than most 16-year-olds. Why should I have the vote and they not?”

America has been influenced and is now being largely led by members of the baby-boom generation. This is the generation that came up with the motto “Never trust anyone over 30,” making it the first American generation to proclaim contempt for wisdom as a virtue.

The Left in America is founded on the rejection of wisdom. It is possible to be on the Left and be kind, honest in business, faithful to one’s spouse, etc. But it is not possible to be wise if one subscribes to leftist (as opposed to liberal) ideas.

Last year, Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, coauthored an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer with a professor from the University of San Diego School of Law in which they wrote that the “bourgeois culture” and “bourgeois norms” that governed America from the end of World War II until the mid-1960s were good for America, and that their rejection has caused much of the social dysfunction that has characterized this country since the 1960s.

Those values included, in their words: “Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.”

Recognizing those norms as universally beneficial constitutes wisdom. Rejection of them constitutes a rejection of wisdom — i.e. foolishness.

Yet the Left almost universally rejected the Wax piece, deeming it, as the left-wing National Lawyers Guild wrote, “an explicit and implicit endorsement of white supremacy” and questioning whether professor Wax should be allowed to continue teaching a required first-year course at Penn Law.

To equate getting married before having children, working hard and eschewing substance abuse and crime with “white supremacy” is to betray an absence of wisdom that is as depressing as it breathtaking. It is obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense that those values benefit anyone who adheres to them; they have nothing to do with race.

But almost every left-wing position (that differs from a liberal or conservative position) is bereft of wisdom.

Is the left-wing belief in the notion of “cultural appropriation” — such as the Left’s recent condemnation of a white girl for wearing a Chinese dress to her high school prom — wise? Or is it simply moronic?

Is the left-wing belief that there are more than two genders wise? Or is it objectively false, foolish and nihilistic?

Has the left-wing belief that children need (unearned) self-esteem turned out to be wise, or morally and psychologically destructive? To its credit, last year, The Guardian wrote a scathing exposé on the “lie” — its word — the self-esteem movement is based on and the narcissistic generation it created.

Is it wise to provide college students with “safe spaces” — with their hot chocolate, stuffed animals and puppy videos — in which to hide whenever a conservative speaker comes to their college? Or is it just ridiculous and infantilizing?

Is the Left’s rejection of many, if not most, great philosophical, literary and artistic works of wisdom on the grounds that they were written or created by white males wise? One example: The English department of the University of Pennsylvania, half of whose law school professors condemned Amy Wax and almost none of whose law professors defended her piece, removed a portrait of William Shakespeare (replacing it with that of a black lesbian poet).

Is multiculturalism, the idea that no culture is superior to another morally or in any other way, wise? Isn’t it the antithesis of wisdom, whose very premise is that certain ideas are morally superior to others, and certain literary or artistic works are superior to others?

And the veneration of feelings over truth, not to mention wisdom, is a cornerstone of leftism.

Here’s one way to test my thesis: Ask left-wing friends what they have done to pass on wisdom to their children. Most will answer with a question: “What do you mean?” Then ask religious Jewish or Christian friends the same question. They won’t answer with a question.

SOURCE 

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Sessions GETS TOUGH With Illegal Border Crossers

Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a massive announcement that DHS will now refer anyone caught entering the U.S. illegally through our southern border to the Federal Justice Department for prosecution.

“If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple. If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you.”

“If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child may be separated from you as required by law.”

Sessions’ announced his new zero tolerance policy which includes the possibility that immigration authorities could separate parents and children whenever a family is apprehended attempting to cross the border. This will act as a deterrent to any illegal aliens attempting to gain access to the United States.

“We’re here to send a message to the world that we are not going to let the country be overwhelmed. People are not going to caravan or otherwise stampede our border. We need legality and integrity in our immigration system,” Sessions stated

He also warned that lying to an immigration officer, filing a fraudulent refuge claim or assisting others do any of the above would be treated as felonies and prosecuted as such.

“I have no doubt that many of those crossing our border illegally are leaving behind difficult situations,” Sessions added. “But we cannot take everyone on this planet who is in a difficult situation.”

Sessions claimed the Trump administration’s actions were necessary because of “massive increases in illegal crossings in recent months.”

SOURCE 

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