JRN Blog
22 May 2005
The high-minded man must care more for truth... |
...than for what people think. - Aristotle, Ethics |
An
Every Day Deception Askar Askarov, in an article titled "The Empire of Tyranny ," recently stated that Russia's "current economic output" is less than that of Los Angeles County. A clarification is always in order when such things are written. Wealth is only one dimension, one aspect of life. Another dimension is the number of nuclear weapons you've got. When judging men or nations be careful not to confuse real power with wealth. The two things are not the same. If you're a billionaire who has everything invested in having a good time, a carjacker who invested $650 in a 9mm pistol has the power to take your car if not your life. Don't fool yourself with monetary comparisons. And don't fool yourself with democratic labels. Once upon a time we accepted the authenticity of the "democratic" revolutions in one Communist country after another. But now we find that the revolutions weren't authentic after all. People are worried about the KGB lieutenant colonel who presently leads Russia. And so they cheered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the fall of "former" democrat, Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, forgetting that these countries had been accepted as "democracies" more than a decade earlier. Now we accept them again. Ross Hedvicek is one of those who suspects the worst with regard to his native Czechoslovakia (now divided into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Ross has written for this Web site, and a Czech reader recently sent me the following comment: "I do not know where Mr. Hedvicek came up with those 'facts' about the Czech Republic not being a democratic country." The reader went on to call himself "a proud citizen of the Czech Republic," asserting that the Velvet Revolution overthrew the Communist regime: "and I have seen a great amount of democracy so far." The reader continued: "being a member of the Communist Party was the prerequisite to get any reasonable job, higher education, be an actor or represent your own country at any sporting event. So getting a person untarnished by communist membership is 'kind of hard.'" The reader goes on to explain how his parents resisted joining the Communist Party. But they wanted him in a good school, so his parents became Communist Party members. "Trust me," he explains, "most of the people with any communist background had very little to do with it, if anything at all...." Of course, this is perfectly reasonable (and naively sinister). Someone's parents joined the Communist Party to get them into a better school. Let us choke back our surprise at man's willingness to accept and to join. Most people join a club for the benefits. Does that make the club any less effective? (Would the Nazi Party be less evil if your mom joined it?) Here is a point to consider: In politics it doesn't matter what you believe. It only matters what you do. A dictator couldn't care less what you think as long as you go along with his plans. Those
who believe in scientific socialism (i.e., the scientific management of human affairs) have demonstrated
that their methods work, and those who control the state apparatus in Eastern
Europe today are the same personalities that controlled it under Communism. In
this context, what would it mean to say that Communists are pretenders who don't really believe in
Marx and Lenin? Should it give us any comfort that they now pretend to be
democrats? What could be more nominal than this sort of nominal democracy? |