Thank you for such a thoughtful question (Tele-Talk, June 20 edition) on this special July 4th holiday. Thomas Jefferson’s sentence was incredibly unique for the 18th century.
Very enlightening indeed. Few people born here can appreciate what your grandparents intuitively understood. So many take for granted the immense proposition that this Country affords when it comes to hard work, freedom, equality, and opportunity to advance.
This new youthful fascination with Socialism/Communism is problematic. The reality is that Communism, as implemented in the 20th century, delivers neither prosperity nor freedom. Regimes in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere resulted in one-party dictatorships, centralized economic planning, and an estimated 100 million deaths from famine, purges, gulags, and repression. No major Communist state achieved the promised classless utopia; most collapsed or quietly adopted market reforms to survive. In open, prosperous democracies, violent revolution has little chance, so ideological successors turned to gradualism.
Thinkers like Antonio Gramsci and later activists such as Rudi Dutschke advocated a “long march through the institutions.” Rather than storm the barricades, committed actors would enter and transform universities, media, schools, NGOs, corporations, and government bureaucracies from within. By reshaping culture, language, and “common sense” through critical theories and identity-based conflict frameworks, they could erode support for private property, individual rights, merit, and limited government. Democratic freedoms—speech, assembly, academic inquiry, and legal processes—become tools: entryism in parties and unions, incremental expansion of state power via regulation and redistribution, and cultural pressure to narrow acceptable opinion.
The core danger lies in the asymmetry. Open societies tolerate dissenting ideas; totalitarian ideologies do not. Gradual shifts can normalize group equity over individual liberty, administrative fiat over rule of law, and narrative control over evidence-based debate. Economic dynamism suffers as incentives weaken. Dissent is reframed as harm, justifying institutional exclusion.
History shows that utopian projects promising liberation through concentrated power tend to deliver the opposite.
Vigilance is essential: Honest teaching of Communist history remains the best safeguard.
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Very enlightening indeed. Few people born here can appreciate what your grandparents intuitively understood. So many take for granted the immense proposition that this Country affords when it comes to hard work, freedom, equality, and opportunity to advance.
This new youthful fascination with Socialism/Communism is problematic. The reality is that Communism, as implemented in the 20th century, delivers neither prosperity nor freedom. Regimes in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and elsewhere resulted in one-party dictatorships, centralized economic planning, and an estimated 100 million deaths from famine, purges, gulags, and repression. No major Communist state achieved the promised classless utopia; most collapsed or quietly adopted market reforms to survive. In open, prosperous democracies, violent revolution has little chance, so ideological successors turned to gradualism.
Thinkers like Antonio Gramsci and later activists such as Rudi Dutschke advocated a “long march through the institutions.” Rather than storm the barricades, committed actors would enter and transform universities, media, schools, NGOs, corporations, and government bureaucracies from within. By reshaping culture, language, and “common sense” through critical theories and identity-based conflict frameworks, they could erode support for private property, individual rights, merit, and limited government. Democratic freedoms—speech, assembly, academic inquiry, and legal processes—become tools: entryism in parties and unions, incremental expansion of state power via regulation and redistribution, and cultural pressure to narrow acceptable opinion.
The core danger lies in the asymmetry. Open societies tolerate dissenting ideas; totalitarian ideologies do not. Gradual shifts can normalize group equity over individual liberty, administrative fiat over rule of law, and narrative control over evidence-based debate. Economic dynamism suffers as incentives weaken. Dissent is reframed as harm, justifying institutional exclusion.
History shows that utopian projects promising liberation through concentrated power tend to deliver the opposite.
Vigilance is essential: Honest teaching of Communist history remains the best safeguard.
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Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.