Witnessing progressives melt down because someone dared to challenge their beliefs never ceases to amuse. The funniest part of it is watching them display their complete lack of knowledge while trying to portray themselves as intellectually superior. Perhaps purely for the amusement of the sane, then, Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) on June 19 decided to post a condemnation of Marxism on Twitter. Cue The Triggering.
What did the senator say that made so many history-challenged leftists lose their minds? Well, nothing that cannot be backed up by documented facts. “Marxism divides people into either oppressors or victims, calls for the overthrow an ‘evil’ system & then seizes complete power in the name of ‘fairness’,” he wrote – and, indeed, the historical record shows that this is exactly what happened in every country that adopted what it describes as “Marxism” or any other flavor of socialist ideology. “The old Marxism used class warfare to divide people,” Rubio went on. “The new Marxism uses identity politics But the goal is the same.”
Opinions Are Like… Well, You know
Some of the many responses were supportive, such as that of Mr. Alexander S Silva, who replied: “Having lived in a Marxist system for 20 years, you couldn’t be more certain on this tweet. It’s a beautiful, social fairness system which doesn’t work for anyone other than the rulers. No country should try it out.”
Others ranged from personal abuse to laughable deflections and entirely inaccurate portrayals of what Marxism means. John (just John) replied: “Marxism can be implemented in innumerable ways it is a baseline belief that no one should be able to take the rewards of the labor of others how does that not scream fairness to you?” Clearly, John has been led to believe that Marxism is nothing more than another word for “fairness” and that it has no specific methodology to it – and no specific agenda beyond making everything “fair.”
The Danger of Ignorance
Indeed, the greatest risk of a resurgence of this dreadful ideology derives from the fact that people like John have absolutely no understanding of what Marxism does to a nation in reality – not in theory. Collectivism is based, supposedly, on the idea that every person has an equal share of ownership of the means of production. The only way to ensure this, of course, is for the central government to own everything and pretend that it’s really “the people” who have ownership.
In reality, the people have nothing but what the government decides they need to barely survive. This is how it has always been with collectivism; call it Marxism, communism, socialism, Maoism, or even fascism. The latter of these differs from the others only in that the means of production is privately owned – and the owners, knowing what’s good for them, operate entirely at the will of the government. Thus, China is now a fascist country, even though the ruling party still calls itself “communist.” In fact, the Chinese abandoned communism almost three decades ago, realizing it would be their ruin, and took the relatively small step to fascism.
Rubio received so many remarkably uninformed or simply dishonest responses that to unpack and dispose of them here would require several thousand words.
Michael Drake, for example, decided to chime in with: “Damn dude who knew asking for no one to starve over medical bills would get you so triggered!” It seems that Michael isn’t aware of the millions who have starved to death under communist regimes. They died not because they couldn’t afford their medical bills, but because they couldn’t afford food – and often couldn’t obtain food even if they could afford it.
Suffice it to say that most American leftists have no idea what Marxism does to a country – and the ones who do are concealing what they know from the general public. Presumably, they are confident that, in their new Marxist utopia, they will be rewarded for their activism with privileged places within the new ruling class. They might be out of luck, though. The first goal of both the Soviet and Chinese communists, once they took power, was to eliminate the very people who got them there; the journalists, the intellectuals, and the union leaders. After all, these people had incited a revolution and, so, could not be trusted.
As for Rubio, whose own knowledge of Marxism qualifies him to opine on the subject; he will probably not lose any sleep over the response to his observation.
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Read more from Graham J. Noble.
