The Left has failed at social activism by my standards

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, May 15, 2006 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

Last week I tried to make the case that the words are the problem in our society. This week I'm going to try something else.

There was a guy who pointed out in one of the on-line magazines that I read that for mathematicians, if someone said that 1+1=3, then the man is an idiot. If the man convinced five of his friends that 1+1=3, then all six of them are idiots. If the man convinced 1M people that 1+1=3, then to a mathematician all one million and one of them are idiots.

The problem arises when a political movement is based on the premise that 1+1=3, that is: What happens when people believe something that is demonstrably untrue, yet they refuse to acknowledge that the premise and the entire argument is untrue?

Communism, Socialism and Liberalism are from the same root. They all believe that a strong central government will bring about social justice. That term social justice is a strange concept because it presupposes that everyone can agree that the outcome of any event was correct.

Karl Marx had a problem when he defined Communism. No one had ever tried to base a society on Communism. Every experiment that had been tried using something close to Communism had failed catastrophically. Marx in his writings made it clear that for Communism to rise above Utopian dreams, there had to be some basis in Reality. As near as I can tell Marx expected the modern day equivalent of the Peasants War to overturn Capitalism and replace it with Communism. It was just inevitable.

The Peasants War in Germany was not covered when I was in school. I ran across it just recently. This happened in the 1500's in Germany. The peasants were paying all the taxes and rents, the nobles and the Catholic Church were living off the taxes and rents in luxury and the peasants had no say in how the money was spent. The peasants were owned by the person who owned the land. In certain cases the rent plus taxes required a peasant to fork over 80% of their crops. That did not leave much for them to live on.

What I am getting at is that Marx assumed that modern Europe was made up of classes. He assumed that these classes were homogenous and had loyalty to each other rather than to the nation state they lived in. He assumed that the poor were a class. The poor would revolt once the profits of Capitalism fell to the point that Capitalists were forced to exploit the poor like the nobles and clergy did prior to the Peasants' War. He also made the point that this immiseration had to come about before the coming of true Communism. If immiseration did not come about, then Communism was just another Utopian dream which could never be attained. If the poor did not overthrow Capitalism, then Communism would never have legitimacy. Communism was supposed to be scientific socialism. The whole point of Communism is to help the poor by insuring that the land, the labor and the capital are in the control of the workers. In short, everyone could get what they needed and no one would suffer from want of anything.

The problem for Marx was that the United States spoiled everything. Our poor have never been consigned to poverty for life. Through hard work a person from a poor family can move up to being a millionaire in their life. In order to be immiserated, the poor have to stay poor. The poor in our country have not gotten with the program and stayed poor. Less than 10% of the US populace start poor and stay poor for their entire life.

All right what I am getting at is that no one has listened to me for the last 24 shows. Or rather one of two people have listened to me, but done nothing to help me get the program to work the way I want it to.

SOoooOo I'm going to tell you this Erma Bombeck joke to make my point.

Erma Bombeck was a housewife who wrote columns about raising children. She said in one column that she was astonished by what she read in the Dr. Spock books and other child rearing books about how to raise children. She decided that she was an open minded person, so she wanted to give them a fair shake.

One of the sections in a children rearing book she saw, said, "Do not order children about. It hurts their self-esteem. It shows no respect for their self-actualization. It might damage their self-image... When something must be done, what you should do is point out the problem and the child will happily remedy the situation."

So Erma put this huge dictionary on the floor in front of the door where her children would pass once they got home from school.

The eldest, a girl, wanders in. Erma says, "There is a book on the floor."

Her daughter looked at the big book and then back at her and said, "Yeah, there sure is, someone should do something about that." So she goes on up to her room.

Her second child, a girl, comes in and trips over the book. Erma says, "There's a book on the floor."

Her daughter says, "Yeah, I tripped over it. Someone should do something about that." So she too goes up to her room.

The youngest, a boy, comes in the door. Erma says, "There's a book on the floor." The little boy looks at her, then looks at the book. Then nods his head rapidly up and down, smiling a silly smile.

By that time. Erma'd had enough of this, so she says sharply, "Well, pick it up and put it on the shelf behind you."

The little boys eyes get real big and he says crossly, "Why didn't you tell me to do that in the first place?" So he picks up the book and puts it on the shelf.

All right. You're saying, "What's that got to do with anything?"

Well, we are going to play a little game tonight. As I have said, I have a blog. I have bemoaned the fact that my invitations to you to come to my blog and make comments have not worked. The blog is at: mastercraftsmon.blogspot.com. Mastercraftsmon is one word spelled, .

I am now going to make my case for various social policies. I want you, yeah, you to go out and make comments or rebut my assertions. I am assuming that there is at least one person out there listening. By my standards that may be too generous. KEOS looks to have about 300 people donate in our last pledge drive, so the audience has to be thin on the ground for this station, much less my right-wing meanderings.

Again, I want you to go out to my blog is at:
mastercraftsmon.blogspot.com.

Mastercraftsmon is one word spelled, .
Wait... You people do know that there is a http:// in front of that.

I give up. Either you figure this one out or you don't. I am attempting to get people, that means you, dude or dudette, to come help me fix some problems in our society. The Internet has the capability to marshal resources and get things done. Well, get involved. Life is a full contact sport.

The lament that "someone should do something about that" is idiocy to me. In the history of the world, I am the radical. The Liberals of this country are the status quo. I believe that people can take care of themselves. I believe that people working together in community service groups can do a better job of providing a social safety net than the government. If you believe otherwise, then make your case.

The Liberals of this country have in fact failed to achieve their goal of social justice. Period... 1+1 does not equal 3. If you believe that social justice can be attained by a nanny state, then you are insane by my standards, because NO ONE IN HISTORY HAS EVER MADE ANY FLAVOR OF SOCIALISM TO WORK. Over 70 nations have tried various forms of socialism and communism. All 70 failed to achieve much of anything except have their economies collapse and increased the suffering of the poor.