News from those who would tinker with the Constitution and pro-social views of justice remains thin. Those in the public eye are still celebrating time off work. Maybe they’re driving around the country with somebody else’s kids in the back seat asking, “Are we there, yet?” I say we are.
Today, I will share a reminder from the boss’ inbox. It is illustrative of how The Wee People have tolerated, celebrated, and embraced the camel’s nose; namely, the forty-five “Current Communist Goals” enumerated in 1963 by conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Cleon Skousen. For all you young’n’s, Skousen came from an unenlightened era with devolved notions of humanism. Back then, just about everybody thought there was a Power higher than the human race, a Creator who gave meaning to life. They believed people got along better when they worked together, or at least didn’t boss each other around. They taught that no one of us is as smart as all of us, and feared the audacity and inefficiency of centralized control. They knew dictators could go bad and abuse their power. They appreciated life in a free country where everybody could be tolerated in following their conscience. People could wear funny hats or read funny books in the name of religion, and it was all good. Microgovernments, called families, kept each other in check with their own standards, curfews, groundings, etc.; because that was so much more efficient than sending folks to prison. There was such a thing as universal right and wrong; gray areas merely being composite dilemmas of good and bad. It was natural to want to leave the planet more beautiful, peaceful, comfortable, or otherwise “advanced” for the next generation.
Threatening our American way of life was Communism. It was viewed as satanic because it crushed personal independence and responsibility, reducing people to pawns on government’s chessboard. It claimed to achieve fairness, but always had to do so with huge military force. While it was a paper utopia, it discouraged those who would have worked hard while rewarding free riders. It knew no God other than big, faceless government. Rather than encouraging innovation, it always brought everybody down to the same miserable level.
We’ve come a long way, baby. I first read the forty-five planks twenty or thirty years ago and thought some of them were just plain outrageous impossibilities. Now, the whole schmoo is pretty much a done deal. The scariest thing is today’s youth will read the list and think Skousen was carrying water for the greedy Koch brothers so they could oppress everybody into giving them their money while changing global climates. Have a look here. And, if and while you’re at it, check the hyperlink on that page for the planks of the Communist Manifesto.
