People escaped the communist Iron Curtain in many ingenious
ways since the Bolsheviks closed borders to the West. They were not allowed to
see how much better people lived under free market governments. Some would be defectors
made it and some did not. They escaped by boat, U-Boat, hot air balloons, chair
lifts, cars, small planes, crop dusters, swimming, crawling, hiding in the car engine
compartment, hiding inside passenger seats, evading their guards at sports
competitions abroad, digging tunnels under the border, and traveling with fake
passports. The human ingenuity to escape oppression and to seek freedom is
boundless.
Checkpoint Charlie Museum documents many escapes and fails,
including the death of Peter Fechter who bled to death in front of the white
border line and before the eyes of the entire world on August 17, 1962. He
became the symbol of what is wrong with socialism and communism – the communist
party government keeps people fenced in like a prison and, if they try to
escape, they will meet a swift death. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum claims that
1,303 people were killed until 1989, trying to escape from the German
Democratic Republic, a communist stronghold, to the Federal Republic of
Germany.
Few stories of successful escapes are as complicated as
Albani’s. I wrote the two-part account of his 1969 escape from communism and
the return a year later to help his wife defect as well. Albani became a
successful engineer who worked for years in New York. http://canadafreepress.com/article/albanis-escape-from-communism-and-his-free-life-in-america1 http://canadafreepress.com/article/albanis-escape-from-communism-and-his-free-life-in-america
I never understood why young liberals yearn for socialism
with such passion when none of their activist “role models,” Hollywood types
and political figures, is in a hurry to move to the paradise they advocate for
the rest of the millennials who are gullible enough to believe them.
I did not see Bernie Sanders move to the socialist paradise
he promoted during his campaign and still does. On the contrary, he is happy in
Vermont, with his expensive cars and homes.
I never saw a Hollywood star or a public person, activist,
community organizer, or politician seek medical treatment and surgery in Cuba,
Venezuela, or North Korea. Michael Moore told us they had the best medical care
in the world and it is free. What a
deal!
Never mind that their hospital wards are decaying in a
pathetic state of disrepair, neglected, dirty, with urine, feces, and caked on
blood stains. Never mind that Venezuela, once a prosperous nation, after 18 years
of Chavez’s and Maduro’s socialism, cannot even produce enough food, toilet
paper, medicines, and gasoline for its people, even though it has one of the
largest oil reserves in the world.
Venezuelan millennials demonstrate against the regime weekly,
to no avail. Their parents believed the socialist lies and voted in the
rapacious socialists who stole the country’s wealth and became billionaires at
the expense of the hapless poor to whom they threw a few freebies now and then
as pacifying bones. As the regime keeps printing money without the backing of
goods and services, the inflation rate in Venezuela has already skyrocketed to
720 percent after so many years of socialist “paradise.”
Community organizers, agitators, and socialist apparatchiks
are not very good at planning centralized economies successfully. They have
failed everywhere they tried on their way to communism. They have the gift of
gab, policing, theft, and oppression.
Who knew that standing in endless lines in hot or cold
weather for food, medicine, toilet paper, and other essentials spoiled American
leftists take for granted, makes us better humans and enrich our lives?
I am still waiting to see western citizens crossing the
border illegally into North Korea or Cuba because socialism is so great and
desirable. The few Americans who were dumb enough to visit North Korea and ask
for political asylum are imprisoned there.
According to Petrisor Peiu, shortly after the communist
regime took power in Romania, 1945-1960, the country lost, by historians’
account, most of the intellectual elites. Those who remained and/or survived
were reintegrated (indoctrinated) into society with many restrictions to their
freedoms. Communism destroyed the fabric of society to such an extent that
recovery has been very slow. It is hard to erase decades of fear,
indoctrination, and welfare dependency mentality.
After 2000, according to United Nations’ estimates, 3.5
million Romanians, 17 percent of the population, left for greener economic
pastures. Since the integration into the EU in 2007, 14,000 doctors and 30,000
registered nurses left, leaving behind only 57,000 doctors. In the massive
brain drain, 300,000 engineers and other technical personnel sought residence
and employment in other countries as well.
If socialism and communism are so great, why are so many
people leaving? And once they get wherever their destination is, why are they
trying to install through voting the very socialist or communist society they’ve
fled? My educated guess is that the deep socialist and communist indoctrination
from schools and colleges, coupled with youthful idealism, are hard to
overcome.
If Fabian socialism of Western Europe is so enviable and
desirable, why are they such a basket case of failed multiculturalism, drug
culture, Muslim rapes, and bankrupt governments who tax their citizens to
death?
Smart and cautious Venezuelans, who have seen the writing on
the wall for a long time, are fleeing to neighboring countries in expectation
of worse to come. Nobody wants to leave their loved ones and friends behind but
have no choice. I should know, I left everything behind in 1978 and seldom do I
regret that decision. But the freedom from communism exacted a heavy toll
nevertheless.
Whitaker Chambers, in his book, Witness, made it clear that to accept socialism is much more than simply expressing a political preference. It is a religion. A belief system. A philosophy of man. The acceptance of the very mistaken idea that forces beyond our control are moving the world forward. That progress WILL occur to move man toward equality, eliminating all hierarchical governments and religions, particularly the Christian faith which has always held belief in the right of man to private property.
ReplyDeleteOne cannot be both a collectivist and an individualist. So as long as you put the herd above all else, it is impossible for any socialist to see why the world is better off with the freedom to determine your own future in peaceful cooperation with others.
There are THREE natural forms of society. 1. The family. 2. The State. 3. The Church, which guards the first and should and must influence and moderate the second. When #3 is eliminated from people's lives the state will always fill the void. Without the Church to guide government with morals it will always run to evil ends.
Excellent points, Chriss!
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