Governmental Cancer
A cancer has entered our body politic. This cancer was small at first but now it is metastasizing. We have seen it ever since man first organized governments to rule, control and support the governed. It has many names: collectivism, progressivism, democratic socialism, socialism, communism, Naziism, and fascism. In this spectrum there is a common thread as it moves toward fascism. This thread is authoritarian control. Government expands, control centralizes, your voice loses purchase, and a small group of elites offer you shrink wrapped happiness in an earthly utopia.
In ancient Greece, around 450 BC, we see the beginnings of a vaccine, a cure for this governmental cancer. Athens and Sparta represented opposite ends of the governmental spectrum. Sparta represented the ultimate in governmental control – the people served the government. Athens began the first experiment in what became known as democracy – the government served the people. This experiment survived, expanded and grew in the west. It came forward for 2,500 years and is now best known as a constitutional republic – the United States of America. This cancer vaccine is democracy.
History shows, for those who read it, that this authoritarian governmental cancer has never succeeded. Witness, just in the last one hundred years, the failure of Mussolini’s Fascism, Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s communist Russia, Mao Tse Tung’s communist China, Cambodian/Cuban/Venezuelan communism – all have failed with the deaths of tens of millions as witness. Could never happen here? So thought the Italians, the Germans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Cambodians, the Cubans, the Venezuelans, and countless other experimenters in authoritarian control by the elitists or a dictator.
So why do we see this cancer in our country? History shows that it is cyclic. Every now and then the new generation thinks that they have a better way to govern. Buoyed up by their inexperience, their immature mental and emotional opinions, and their ignorance or dismissal of history’s lessons, they have a better way. Their life begins at grammar school graduation. They live in the moment. The past is a foreign country that speaks an unknown language. Hubris rules the day.
Who would have thought that Mamdani, a known and explicit communist, could have been elected mayor of New York city? Who would have thought that his Democratic Socialist followers would gain media attention and run for public office? The answer is simple once you recognize that all these socialists are in blue cities run by Democrats for years. At election time, the Democrats promise change and equity. Never happens. The middle and lower classes are now fed up. They are looking for change as promised by these new people who are not traditional Democrats. Socialist, communist, who cares? These new voices, with haapy voices and good hair, promise free stuff, social justice and a better life. Why not give these new democrats your attention and vote?
Is there a vaccine or cure for this governmental cancer? Yes. It is an unfortunately rare combination of experience, common sense, and a reading of history. Can a young, inexperienced, historical illiterate captured by social media be vaccinated? I hope so.