One of the earliest news event memories I have is the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. I was six years old, and even then I understood the significance of the crumbling of that concrete. People in East Berlin were happy to rejoin the rest of Germany and be freed from the crushing boot of socialism.
Now that I'm older, I realize that was also a day that made Leftists very sad. Nearly four decades later, they still love their Karl Marx and won't let it go.
'True socialism hasn't been tried,' they argue as a defense of the horrors their ideology wrought.
How many times have we heard a Leftist say that, in an attempt to excuse the violent, oppressive, and impoverishing ideology that is socialism?
Far too many.
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They will argue, with straight faces, that every socialist regime (and here, I lump in communism too) -- from Lenin and Stalin in Russia to Pol Pot in Cambodia to Mao in China and even Castro in Cuba -- simply got it wrong, and this time they'll get it right.
But only if they're in charge.
If that seems suspicious to you, good. It should.
Everywhere socialism has been tried, it has been two things: 1) actual socialism and 2) a bloody, deadly failure.
Because socialism ignores the fundamentals of human nature. Namely, that people are motivated when they are rewarded (be it by money, freedom, praise, or something else). It pretends that if we all are equal -- that no one owns more, or works harder, or gets treated differently -- we will live in harmony. That is a facade and always has been.
Socialism is about ensconcing power in the hands of certain people, and then holding onto that power by repressing the rest of the people. We know this is true because that's the course that every socialist country has taken.
But the Left is nothing if not persistent. Despite the deaths and economic destruction, they keep coming back to socialism as their utopia endgame.
Even they admit they have a messaging problem, however. I guess a body count equivalent to one-third of the current population of America will damage a brand.
So they plan on calling socialism something else to hide its fetid, fascist history:
— Power to the People ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) April 10, 2025
Having to rebrand your ideology to get people to buy it isn't the winning argument the Left thinks it is.
Let's call it "being kind and polite"
— idk I just work here (@windowinthevoid) April 10, 2025
Kind and polite? There is nothing kind and polite about socialism.
In the 20th century, that ideology killed northwards of 100 million people, whether by starvation, war, or government-sanction persecutions. It takes a special brand of ignorance to pretend that body count consists only of the bourgeois class; the majority of the dead are -- or, more accurately, were -- members of the proletariat the socialists pretend to love so much.
This is an old meme so I'm sure some of those numbers have gone up. pic.twitter.com/T3sQ8pb6wT
— Vin Tanner (@VinTanner417682) April 10, 2025
It undoubtedly has.
Since the socialist takeover of Venezuela in 1999, it's estimated some 580,000 to 650,000 people have died, either from skyrocketing crime, protests, the collapse of the healthcare and food systems, and 'extrajudicial killings.'
In the Left's world, those people are just the sacrifices they're willing to make to advance their agenda. And that violence persists on the Left. Today, 55% of self-identified Leftists think political violence -- including assassinating President Trump -- is justified. They are the heirs of Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot. The same ideology that led those dictators to kill tens of millions of people still simmers on the Left.
That is what socialism was, is, and always will be.
And we must reject it wholesale, not matter what they call it.
