What's "Left Wing" Anyway?

You guys have put up with me going on and on about the dangers of left-wing thinking. Well, I guess it's about time we explored exactly what "Left Wing" and "Right Wing" mean, and do some comparisons. But first comes first: Thank you all for tuning in to the blog and putting up with me.

The terms come from the French Nationalist Assembly (pre-revolution) in the late 1700's. The more conservative members sat on the right side of the chamber, led by the nobles. The left side was occupied by the more revolutionary and liberal members. The terms just kind of stuck throughout the years, and have come to generally mean the contrast between liberal and conservative schools of thought.

Conservatives in general desire less government involvement in business, fewer regulations and less government spending. In social circles, they favor a more pro-family stance, pro-faith (Judeo-Christian) and the values commensurate with those faiths. The accusations conservatives usually face are these: Being pro-Judeo-Christian values automatically means hatred of anyone not a Christian or a Jew. Being pro-business automatically means being desirous of environmental destruction. Being for limited government automatically means kids and old people starve and die from medical neglect, and being pro-family automatically means hatred of anything else.

Now, all you folks who define yourselves as liberal, feel free to correct me. I'm actually going to try to be fair in my analysis her (I know, I can hear the gasps). Liberals in general desire more government involvement in business, for purposes of "fairness." No one gets a Cadillac until everyone has a Prius. They call themselves the "Party of tolerance" and decry any definition of standards applied to the terms "family." Faith is something you either have or you don't. It doesn't matter; it's between you and your god or gods. Moral absolutes are outmoded and unenlightened. And Mankind is the worst thing that ever happened to Planet Earth. The accusations most often leveled at liberals are these: They are the "Party of Tolerance" for anyone except Jews and Christians, and anyone who doesn't forcefully agree with them. They are accused of being for "Big Government" regulations at the cost of individual liberty for the good of all.The Government is our "Sugar Daddy" who takes care of us, feeds us, gives us jobs, and makes sure Mother Nature is protected.

Here's the dangerous part of Liberal thinking: The roots of the Modern Liberal Movement originate in Communism.

I took the liberty of download and reading the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Freiderich Engels, and I found some disturbing parallels.

Communists have declared that a state of class warfare exists bewteeen two groups defined as "the proletariat" and "the bourgeoisie." The proletariat are anyone who works for a paycheck. The bourgeoisie are anyone who signs that paycheck.

They demand the abolition of personal property by "the bourgeoisie," again defining the bourgeois as anyone who strives to make more than anyone else. Any private property owned by the bourgeoisie are to be confiscated by The State. They don't specify what gets done with it after that. I wonder if Marx and Engels counted on becoming "The State."

Communists also stand for a steeply graded, progressive tax on income. It's not about simply supporting government, which our Constitution specifies. Taxation is about "making things equal." Let me ask you now, which American political party stands for this type of tax structure? Which party has declared class warfare?

Communists demand the dissolution of the traditional family. The State should raise children. Marriage is an outmoded tradition. No relational exclusivity need exist. All women are commonly available to anyone and everyone (How do you feel about that one, ladies?). "It takes a village to raise a child." That wasn't a quote from the Manifesto, but someone prominent in politics has said that. And our public school system has been steadily edging out parents as the final authority in children's' lives.

In fact, here are the ten points from The Communist Manifesto in bullet-point (I'm quoting directly from the manifesto):

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavily progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extensions of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form Combination of education with industrial production, etc, etc, etc.

Does anyone remember Pol Pot's regime? The Soviet Union? The Cultural Revolution under Mao? Not only is Communism a train wreck as an economic and political system (The Communists themselves claim that it is a political system, as the state "the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie is a political struggle."

The only things that Communism breed are universal poverty and the deaths of millions. Stalin was responsible for 24 million deaths in his purges, but it was Hitler whom everyone remembers. Pol Pot's wonderful attempts at Point 9 were exposed in a book called The Killing Fields.

This is "The Left," folks. It's dangerous, it's wrong, and it's a miserable failure. It's just too bad we have so many in Washington who think it only failed because they haven't tried it yet.

Please, in our desire to serve the common good, can we simply use common sense and human compassion, and not worry so much that someone else makes more money than us? In other words, let's be Human beings.