POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

36% of Americans Have Positive View of “Socialism”

The Gallup Poll is here.

By the way, Michael Totten has a wonderful long post about Romania 20 years after the fall of the communist regime. It ends this way:

I've always wondered what democrats who grew up in communist countries thought of communists who grew up in democratic countries. Hardly anyone in the West ever voted with their feet, so to speak, by moving to a communist country, but communist dictatorships created millions of refugees who fled their homelands for Western democracies. East Germans were willing to risk being shot to make a run over the wall, Cubans are still willing to risk drowning to reach Florida, yet once in a while I still meet Westerners who have a warm spot in their hearts for regimes like Castro's.

"What do you think," I asked her, "of people in the West who think communism is a good idea but haven't actually experienced it? There are quite a few people who admire the system in Cuba. You know the types I mean. The people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts."

"Ah, yes," she said. "They are ridiculous. But somehow I can understand them. Let’s take the example of France. In France they were all socialists when they were young. Sartre was a close friend of Castro's. Gerard Depardieu was a close friend of Castro's. They believed in this ideal, but after they saw what Stalin did they couldn’t look to the Soviet Union. So they turned their hopes to Cuba. Then they saw what Castro did. The only one who still seemed to live up to the ideal was Che Guevara. So they turned to Che Guevara. I understand them. They were wrong their entire lives, and it is difficult to admit this."

Communism is based on two faulty premises: 1) That the ideological elite are much brighter than they are; 2) That the masses are much dumber than they are. Despite the talk about the glorification of The Worker, it is structurally elitist.

In its advanced stages, this induced moronicity can result in Hanks Syndrome. No analysis of what provoked the Rape of Nanking.

"Everyone who didn’t agree with Lenin was a shithead." Some things never change.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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