Utah's Republic

When you throw around the “M” (Marxist) word, I tune out. 

Oak, once again you are making some weird connections.  I don’t see how this bill is seizing personal property or redistributing wealth.  I would certainly like to see less federal intrusion in our schools, but you can’t keep making these outrageous conspiratorial connections in everything you see.  You are also labeling the entire Occupy Wall Street movement as Marxist because a few of them want free university educations.  That is like saying the entire Tea Party movement believes in Darwin’s theories of natural selection because a few in the audience at a Tea Party debate shouted “let him die” when referring to a 30 year old man who was not smart enough to buy health insurance, but that is what the left-wing media did and now you are doing the same thing from the right.  You need to quit playing these political games and put away your label maker.  I agree with Professor/Father, you throw around Marxism too much.  Oak, the Cold War is over.  I know you have a nostalgic longing for a return to the days where Congress convened sessions on un-American activities.  Do you really want to return to those times?  Like Joe McCarthy, you may find yourself without a chair when the music stops playing.  In your zeal to “save” America, you could end up destroying it.  You can love something so dearly, that you can actually squeeze the life out of it and kill it.  We are a country of diverse people and opinions.  Attacking others as if they are an “enemy of the state” because of a viewpoint different from your own is more dangerous than anything I know in a “democratic republic” (a place where people freely elect those who represent them). Don’t forget that Rome lost her Republic and it wasn’t due to communists.  Power and greed are the downfall of nations and empires more often than an attempt to redistribute wealth equally.      

My advice to you is to go ahead and be part in the political process but not of the political process.

I’m very aware of the Communist Manifesto and I’m quite familiar with it.  I’m also good at reading things with the context in which something was written.  Where I disagree with Oak is in his correlation of the Communist Manifesto with current day politics and his lack of context in his interpretation of meaning. Certainly there are similarities in “some” of the viewpoints of Democrats and even some Republicans with tenets of the Manifesto.  You can do the same thing with Fascism in that there are correlative elements in the tenets of fascism and the ideologies of Republicans and even some Democrats, but I stop short of making the “giant leap” of logic where Obama or any other politician has a secret plan to make all of America into a communist nation. The same thing goes for making leaps of logic in teasing out conspiracy theories where Republicans are trying to create a fascist state. Calling Obama a Communist is just as irresponsible as calling George Bush a Nazi. 

As a historian, I’ve seen the same thing played out before any time the economy goes sour.  The crazies on both the left and the right start going after each other, and as expected the majority in the middle act like helpless captive audience.  Well, I’m a well-educated independent that does speak out against both the extreme right and extreme left (both end up in dictatorships).  If you are trying to convince me of an argument, I need more than just conspiratorial rhetoric from mindless talk radio show hosts, I need proof.  What I mean by proof is not some sort of living room association with Bill Ayers or John Goodlad.  I need proof that Obama is trying to create a communist state by seizing private property, nationalizing corporations, setting up collectives, and eliminating all political opposition (like the Utah legislature does with gerrymandering).  If you can do that, then I will be more amenable to your persuasions.