SOCIALISM: You can see it now
My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that the generation that lived through the roaring ‘20s, depressing ‘30s and the warring ‘40s didn’t teach my generation the mistakes learned from those times. They wanted to protect us, probably so as not to traumatize us. I don’t think they wanted us to live the fear that they lived.
We were not to be told about the atrocities put upon the Chinese population by the Japanese armies in the years prior to the war, the millions murdered in concentration camps by Hitler, the millions murdered or sent to Siberian prisons by the Communist governments of Russia or the millions murdered by Mao Tse Tung. They wanted us to live free and unencumbered by tragedy in a country that allowed us to pursue that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness written in the Constitution.
They decided to make an attempt to suppress communism/socialism by making it illegal and pushing it “underground” to our colleges and universities to be taught to a young population that knew no better. As a result of all these attempts to protect, we finally fostered a generation that elected someone who will crank up the locomotive that will drive this country to its demise. The glee with which some Democrats have been dancing on the grave of the Republican Party since the presidential election makes it seem like some sort of game.
Norman M. Thomas ran for president a half a dozen times and was one of the founders of the National Civil Liberties Union, the precursor of the ACLU. The following statement has been attributed to him:
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.’ I will no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”
A major segment of the population has decided to trade some freedom for benefits. Unfortunately, the rest of us got lumped into that mix. The rest of my generation who voted for a president who gave this new fantastic hard to believe it’s true health-care program, you will get exactly what you asked for and that will be rationing enforced by the Independent Payment Advisory Board. You may recall a certain politician calling it the Death Panel, which is exactly what it is.
PAUL CIRUSO
Athol
Editor’s note: Researchers have been unable to find when or where Norman Thomas ever said or wrote the above quote, even though it’s frequently attributed to him.