Totalitarian Democrats

Two Steps Forward

October 10, 2010October 10, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

10/10/2010 – Jeffrey Folks –
Lenin famously described his strategy for communist domination as “one step forward, two steps back.” Of course, by that he did not mean to suggest steps of equal length. The step forward was a lot more like two large steps, and the two steps back were more or less symbolic, designed to diffuse opposition.

Clearly, in the past two years the United States has moved two giant steps in the direction of socialism. We have seen the redistribution of hundreds of billions of dollars, the seizure of major industries by the state, the re-emergence of a hard-core welfare state, the virtual nationalization of healthcare, takeover by regulation of the energy and financial sectors, and much more. This resurgence of state control has been accompanied by the new power of labor unions, environmental lobbyists, tort lawyers, and state bureaucracies. But now, having reached the limit of what the public will stomach, the Leninists who run the Democratic Party see that it is time for two baby-steps back. [Read more…]

Progressives and Communists: Out of the Closet — Together

October 4, 2010October 4, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

10/4/2010 – Paul Kengor –
A close look at the Saturday “One Nation” rally in Washington reveals something quite telling. It was a major gathering of the “progressive” left, highly billed, vigorously promoted. And it happened to include — in fact, it warmly accepted — the endorsement of Communist Party USA.

Expectedly, a bunch of the rally’s endorsers carried the word “progress” or “progressive” in their title, from People’s Organization for Progress to Progressive Democrats of America. More still unhesitatingly describe themselves as progressive, from racial eugenicist Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood to Norman Lear’s heirs at People for the American Way, plus the usual suspects from the “social justice” Religious Left. [Read more…]

The Ideology of Totalitarian Humanism

September 25, 2010September 27, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

9/23/2010 – Keith Preston –
Many on the alternative Right are inclined to refer to PC as “cultural Marxism.” In some ways, this is an apt metaphor, as the PC ideology bears a resemblance to the reductionist concept of class antagonism that orthodox Marxism advances. If the dualistic class dichotomy of “proletarians and bourgeoisie” is replaced with a newer dichotomy pitting feminist women, minorities, gays, immigrants, the transgendered and others having been or believed to be oppressed against the “hegemony” of “straight, white, Christian, males,” then similarities between PC and Marxism do indeed emerge.

However, PC could in some ways be compared with totalitarianism from the other end of the political spectrum. If the duality of “Aryans” believed to be oppressed by and in mortal struggle with “the Jews” is replaced with the aforementioned dichotomy advanced by PC, a reductionism of comparable crudity likewise becomes apparent. Yet it would seem to me that such metaphors as “cultural Marxism” or “liberal Nazism” are not really the best characterizations of PC. [Read more…]

Reality and the American Left

August 1, 2010August 1, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

8/1/2010 – Steve McCann –

Europe, the birthplace of socialist/Marxist theory, is rapidly retreating from this failed ideology — and has been for some time. There is now an open discussion among the most die-hard of Leftist ideologues conceding the fact that a political or economic system which guarantees prosperity to that country’s citizens, and operates a massive central government model, cannot work in the modern age of global economy and communication.

In the United States, however, the Left, including those in the White House, are determined to go where others have failed. [Read more…]

ObamaCare Mythology: One Man’s Life Is Another Man’s Loss

July 22, 2010July 22, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

7/20/2010 – John Griffing –

If President Obama is to be believed, health care is a dwindling, finite resource that must be rationed. According to Obama, quality health care for some deprives the less fortunate of quality care. The only good health care in Obama’s worldview is that which is “redistributional.”

So says Dr. Donald Berwick, Obama’s new health care czar, appointed to oversee the distribution of $800 billion worth of benefits payments. This mostly means denying life-extending treatment to seniors, in practice. Of course, Obama lacks the constitutional authority to appoint an individual with this kind of authority without Senate confirmation, but using the “recess appointment” ruse, shocking even Democrat senators, Berwick now holds vast power over who gets what medical treatment.

But no matter. Obama has decided. Illegality has not stopped other contentious Obama appointments. Obama does what he wants, when he wants, regardless of his sworn oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. [Read more…]

America’s Road to Serfdom

June 21, 2010June 21, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

6/21/2010 – Terry Paulson –

Thanks to the attention from Glenn Beck, a recent top seller on Amazon.com is Austria’s Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. The book was written in 1944 to fight the drift from individual freedom and free-market competition to a growing dependence on economies controlled by central planning authorities. To Hayek, Stalin’s Soviet Russia was no better than the Nazi “National Socialists.” In all its forms, the increasing spread of socialism has and would always be a threat to individual freedom and economic progress.

Hayek’s book remains a wakeup call to apathetic citizens who take for granted that the improvements achieved through democracy, individual freedom and capitalism have been “acquired once and for all.” Hayek knew what history confirms; freedom must be earned and reearned in every generation. [Read more…]

Documents Show Kagan is Far-Left

June 9, 2010June 9, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

6/7/2010 – Connie Hair –
Documents released Friday from the Clinton library, along with memos from her time as clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, reveal Elena Kagan as someone far to the left of the mainstream of political thought in America.

Over 46,000 pages of the nominee’s paperwork produced during her service in the Clinton White House were released from the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.

“From issues such as guns to abortion to crime control, Kagan’s memos unambiguously express a leftist philosophy and an approach to the law that seems more concerned with achieving a desired social result than fairly following the Constitution,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Ms. Kagan’s record is exceptionally thin. She has never been a judge and only practiced law for a brief period — spending much of her career as a liberal advocate.” [Read more…]

‘Leader with a Plan’ Invites a Health Care Nightmare

June 7, 2010June 8, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

6/6/2010 – Chuck Rogér –
The American people are too simple to choose from “an array of products” in “a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do.”

Behold the words of Donald Berwick — doctor, Harvard professor, and Obama’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), arguably the most powerful position in U.S. medicine, directing the flow of almost one trillion dollars a year.

Speaking to a British National Health Service (NHS) audience in 2008, Berwick said that people must not believe in “market forces.” Instead, “leaders with plans” should design the people’s health care system. [Read more…]

America’s Death by Professor

May 21, 2010May 21, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

5/20/2010 – Stuart Schwartz –
Where professors rule, life is cruel.

That is the bottom line for the average American in this, the transformative age of the president the New York Times and Washington Post has called “Professor” Obama, who “schools” the ignorant at home and abroad. Never before have so many with so little humility gathered together in our government, each believing he “is the smartest guy in the room.”

This is an administration stuffed with academics. And not just any academic: These are educators from elite universities, the kind of experts prized by a political and media elite seeking confirmation of a worldview that expects, notes the Washington Examiner, “the rest of us … to shut up and do as we are told.” [Read more…]

The Consequences of Religious Apathy

May 20, 2010 by Orthodox Editors

4/30/2010 – Ken Connor –
“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.” Alexis de Tocqueville

In his treatise, The Christian Manifesto, published in 1981, Francis Schaeffer suggests that the gradual shift away from a Judeo-Christian (or at least a Creationist) worldview towards a materialistic view of reality has broad sociological and governmental implications for western society. His is an interesting thesis to ponder in light of a recent article in USA Today discussing religion and the Millennial Generation.

The article cites a recent survey conducted by Lifeway Christian Resources, which reveals that Millennials (defined as Americans born approximately between 1980 and 1995) are distancing themselves from traditional religious forms in favor of a personally-defined, nebulous kind of “spirituality.” These individuals are less likely to pray, they don’t read the Bible, and they don’t go to church. Among the 65% who identify themselves as Christian, “many are either mushy Christians or Christians in name only. . . . Most are just indifferent.” Theological indifference may seem like no big deal in an age where moral relativism and the cult of the individual reign, but it’s worth considering Schaeffer’s argument that – whether we realize it or not – our understanding of religion and its role in society has a direct impact on our politics. [Read more…]