Good Intentions, Historically Ignorant

By Al Benson Jr.

The advent of the Marxist regime of Barry Sotero or Barack Obama, or whatever his real name is,  awakened many in this country to the menace of a Soviet-style government and some started to realize how perilously close we are to that. Most of these folks had no idea that we were anywhere close to that while the Republicans were in office. We were and have been, but the Republicans were much better at concealing their collectivist actions with a little conservative rhetoric and that seemed to fool most people. The Democrats’ Marxist agenda was and is an in-your-face agenda that doesn’t kid anybody as to the real intent of its perpetrators.

Unfortunately, there are many recently awakened folks that seem to feel that the best way to deal with Obama’s Marxism is to just get rid of the Democrats and re-elect Republicans. These folks need to hang around long enough to learn that just getting rid of our current Marxist-in-Chief and his czarist henchmen will not be enough to solve our problems. Our problems today have to do with both parties and the fact that they are really separate in name only, not in ideology. I once told someone who had implicit faith in the Republicans that they were nothing more than “slow Democrats.” They are headed for the same place but they are content to get there a little slower. That fools more people.

I have been  barraged daily with email messages from all manner of well-meaning and sincere conservative and patriotic folks who, somehow, had  the idea that 2010, or 2014, or 2016 will be the dawn of socialism in America. They feel that, up to this point, this country has been a bastion of free enterprise where someone who was willing to work hard could make it and enjoy the fruits of his labour. They realize what Obama/Sotero is all about and they don’t like it. I surely can’t fault them for that. I don’t like it either. What they need to do, though, is to learn enough history to realize that the problems we have now didn’t start with Obama, or even with George Bush or Slick Willie–they started with Abraham Lincoln.

This country didn’t go socialist in 2008 or 2010 or 2012. It had already gotten far down the road of socialism and it started in 1861 with the election of Mr. Lincoln, the consummate 19th century collectivist and centralizer. Lincoln’s program of “internal improvements” and tariffs was socialist. During the War of Northern Aggression he enacted several programs that were identical to those listed in Karl Marx’s infamous ten points in the Communist Manifesto.

Our patriotic folks, the Tea Party and the rest, have got to take the trouble and make the effort to learn some real history and not to depend on the drivel they were taught in public schools. At this point many of them confuse patriotism with nationalism. How many of them would be genuinely shocked if they learned the real roots of the Pledge of Allegiance? Most I’ll bet. They have no concept of where this socialist pledge came from. They just mindlessly spout it at meetings, never having done any homework about it. I took the trouble to find out where it came from. Once I knew that I never said it again anywhere.

Patriotic and conservative intentions are great, but if they are not backed up with accurate history many of the patriotic folks just end up supporting what they should be opposed to and they never know the difference.

Take the trouble to find out when socialism really started in America–and it was a lot earlier than you have been led to believe.

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