The wise Dennis Prager lectures in a 5-minute Prager U video on Communism. The video was made public on April 11, 2021. Its title is: Is Communism Moral? I took notes on his remarks and then responded to them.
Here is Prager: "Communism has produced poverty and crushed freedom. So why is there still a debate as to which system is moral? Capitalism has produced freedom and crushed poverty. Communism has produced poverty and crushed freedom. So why is there still a debate as to which system is moral?"
My response: Dennis has an eerie knack for stating an argument in a few, clear words, and then assigning moral status to its--valuing it approvingly or disapprovingly--based on its merits or the lack thereof--with capitalism so morally superior at producing wealth and freedom, and communism so central to crushing freedom and producing poverty, whey is there even a debate? Here are some reasons, though not exhausting the subject.
First, people are born depraved. To be our natural selves is to be selfless, selfish and groupist--these are inherent psychological states. We are instinctively herd creatures: we preferred tyranny, slavery, group, poverty, hunger, suffering and being terrorized by state police, the economic, the hierarchical class and institutional assignments in uncivil society,
We dislike and shun capitalism because we despise freedom and wealth. We loathe ourselves, and being masochists and fatalists, we believe we deserve nothing but rough treatment, so our natural affinity for communism as a powerful, self-destructive force at work in our wills, singly, and as a society in our collective willing.
Second, we hate God and love Satan. Capitalism and individualism come from God, and communism and crowdism come from Satan. Being born depraved and reared in a depraved civilization, we thus choose communism. Endorsing communism is strengthening Satan's hold on people.
Third, we love lies because our entire lives and way of life is one big lie. Advocating life under communism is an effective governmental and social means of keeping the truth hidden and distant.
Dennis: "Motives are much less important that behaviors. Everyone knows this. If some have good intentions but treat people badly, those good intentions mean nothing. As it is with individuals, so it is with governments.
Capitalism might sound less noble than communism. The individual pursues success to the best of his abilities. That is capitalism versus everyone shares everything equally. That is communism. But it is capitalism that has produced freedom and it alone has lifted millions from poverty versus communism which has kept millions impoverished."
My response: How we act trumps what we intend. Communism sounds noble and idealistic but this passionate ideology has turned nations into brutal nightmares lasting for decades. Capitalism sounds grubby, low-brow, mean and materialistic and selfish but it produces free, happy prosperous people and societies. From mundane motives like self-interest, such fine things are produced--you know the tree by its fruits.
Dennis: "and without exception crushed freedom. Capitalism for all its imperfections enables a decent society. Communism whatever its stated intentions leads to evil. Yet people increasingly ignore or deny the evil of this ideology which with a period of 60 years created modern totalitarianism, deprived most people of human rights and tortured and killed more people that any ideology in history."
My response: We that favor the American Way, capitalism, individualism, liberty, plenty and constitutional republicanism--we have not spoken up loud enough, long enough to defend free market economics. People still buy the Big Lie that self-interest is selfish, the source of all evil, and that capitalism is the economic system favored by self-seekers.
Leftists too long have gotten away with brain-washing our people, especially the young, that Communism is noble, other-centered, peaceful and gentle. It is morally superior to low, grubby, self-seeking capitalism, supported by the self-absorbed and the self-interest.
We must teach the young that the Mother and Father are individualists, individuators, free marketers and civilized. Once we begin to spread this message, we blunt the Leftists attack on all that is American, in all ways.
Dennis: "How can we explain this? There are two ways.
Ignorance: People just don't know the truth about Communism.
Willful Blindness: People know the truth about Communism's horrors is just too painful to confront.
Given the sad state of our educational system we can assume most people fall into the first category. They just don't know. So let me offer some facts that first I must address another question: Why is it so important that everyone know what Communism did? "
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My response: People are sheep, and they do not like themselves, so these fearful cowards easily crumble before pressure from illegitimate, corrupt, bullying authority, so they will support almost any foolish theory, or cruel policy that their government and authority figures back.
People do not realize how bad Communism is because they just do not know, In their willful blindness, they choose not to pay attention to what they know to be true--that Communism is a vicious, unholy, radical doctrine that Americans must soundly repudiate.
Dennis: "here are three reasons:
First, we have a moral obligation to the victims of Communism not to forget them.
Just as Americans have a moral obligation not to forget the victims of slavery, we have the same obligation to the billion victims of Communism, Especially the hundred million that were murdered.
Second, the best way to prevent an evil from reoccurring is to confront it in all its horror. The fact that many people today--mention Communism as a viable option for modern society, proves they don’t know Communism's moral record. Therefore, they do not properly fear Communism. Which means this evil can happen again. And why could it happen again? And that brings us to reason number three.
Third, the leaders of communist regimes and vast numbers of people that helped their leaders torture, enslave, murder were nearly all normal people."
My response: "We do have a moral obligation never to forget the suffering of the victims of the Communist holocaust. Only we if fully, openly, and truthfully face such evil, can we be strong enough to withstand it and preventing it from springing back. We must acknowledge, as Jordan Peterson suggests, that we ordinary people, born depraved, would have been the prison camp guard at Auschwitz rather being that heroic minority resisting such cruel, barbarous, official acts.
Ultimately, the people are to blame for the government that they are stuck with. God gave each of them the gifts of individualism, reasoning and liberty. That should enable all to forsake their selfish, cowardly, groupist affinity for backing the status quote, no matter how unjust it is. We must set our people free, and teach them not to be afraid, too accepting, to submissive to whatever the government commands and prescribes. Courage to say no to evildoers. Then bottom-up reform of society can commence.
Dennis: "Of course there were some psychopaths but most were not which means that any society, including free ones, can devolve into Communism or some analogous evil."
My response: You have not encountered truth, real truth, unless you delve deep to discover our based, treacherous and iniquitous the average person is, and under group or governmental pressure, they will not only not stop cruel acts, but will gleefully, voluntarily participate in hurting other people badly. Accepting and studying these truths are the only ways to keep them for arising again.
Dennis: (MY NOTE: Dennis describes how the book's French authors, in The Black Book of Communism, describe how 100 million or more civilians were slaughtered under these totalitarian regimes.
"Now for some facts based on the Black Book of Communism . . . These statistics do not describe the suffering of hundreds of millions not murdered--systematically stripped them of their rights to speak freely, to worship freely or even start a business, or even travel without the Party’s permission. No non-Communist judiciary or media, the poverty of almost all Communists countries, the imprisonment of vast numbers of people, and the trauma suffered by hundreds of millions of friends and relative of the murdered and imprisoned. These numbers do not tell you about the frozen millions in the vast Soviet Siberian prison system. Known as the Gulag Archipelago. Or the Vietnamese Communist practice of burying peasants alive to terrorize others into supporting the Communists. Or Mao Zedong's regular use of hideous torture to punish opponents and intimidate peasants."
My response: If you can defend Communism after hearing what he recites about what Communist butchers did to their millions of victims across the globe, then you are a true believer, a reality-denier, stupid or so wicked yourself that you would love to try unleashing Maoism upon the world once more, so these demons could finish what they started. Communism must now be as discredited as Nazism as unfit for a political strategy for running countries going forth. No more. The discussion is over. It needs to be abandoned by good people everywhere, period.
Dennis: "People associate evil with darkness. That is not accurate. It is easy to look into the dark. It is difficult to stare at a bright light. One should therefore associate evil with extreme brightness given that people rarely look at real evil."
My response: I still like associating evil with darkness and goodness with light. Still, there is no denying Dennis's bleak criticism that terrible evils are practiced repeatedly daily out in the open all over the world, and no one notices, objects or intervenes to stop the wicked in their tracks.
Dennis: "And those that do not confront real evil often make up evils like systemic racism in 21st century America, or toxic masculinity or the patriarch that are much easier to confront."
My response: These self-righteous liars, cowards and avoiders of encountering, identifying and withstanding real evil like easy fights, like taking fictional, paper-tiger injustices like systemic racism or toxic masculinity against Western powers that are tolerant, liberal, gentle lovers of free speech that give free reign to their bad critics with diabolical intentions.
Dennis: "The Book of Psalms states: "Those of you that love God must hate evil.' If you do not believe in God, here is another way of putting it: 'Those of you that love people must hate evil.'
If you don't hate Communism, you do not care about, much less love people."
Good people must recognize, label and vigorously resist evil in their presence. If you love God, yourselves and others, you will hate evil.
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