A Ravaged Century

A ravaged century, one hundred years, 100 million lives lost under Communism. Today, a memorial is unveiled in Washington by two freedom-loving men, so that we will never forget, and never repeat the horrors of the 20th century. Quin Hillyer, The American Spectator:

DESPITE WHAT SO MANY American lefties would say even today, the vision outlined by Marx and Engels is not wonderful but terrifying. The leveling impulses itself is a mistaken one. It is evil, not Utopia, to say that all people should forfeit their individuality, their family ties, and their unique dreams in order that the material circumstances --yes, the wealth -- of all people be the same. Granted, society should provide care for "the least of these," and none of us should treat the poverty of another as an acceptable existence. But the goal should not be equality of result, of material circumstance; instead, the goal should be the expansion of opportunity, and of the possibility for human growth and achievement.

Furthermore, that opportunity is not merely material, but spiritual. The Communists, the Utopians, belittle the human spirit, all in the pursuit of what they call a "common good." But that which inspires human striving, in the self-chosen pursuit of a greater good rather than one chosen, dictated, by the greater society, is of far more value than is any "good" achieved by the gray and enervating sameness of the Communist vision.

Communism is profoundly dehumanizing, for those who survived. And any politician who even flirts with the idea of the common good is prepared to suck all the joy out of life.