ninme

The Joy of Curmudgeonry - The Charmed Life of Communism

A single paragraph therein:

Before communism got its name in the 1840s, it was already linked to the ideal — sorry, the unfortunate “necessity” — of revolutionary terrorism, most notably in Babouvism; that is to say, even before Marx and Engels added to its legacy, and long before Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot perfected its theory and practice, it already had its terrible cast. Even if one traces communism back to the puritan Diggers, or to Thomas More, or to millennialist Christianity, or even further back, one can hardly observe in earnest the character of communism as it has come to exist in various regimes without noticing that it bears the unmistakably grim features of Babouvism and Marxism. Gracchus Babeuf, the forefather of much misery, is mostly forgotten, as is most of the output of Marx and Engels, and today there are those who profess to see communistic regimes as if they were the wayward scions of a noble lineage — as betrayals rather than consequences of the ideal. But how is it that anyone can be so brazen as to claim compassion as the very basis of his politics, and yet not bother to find out whether those politics might actually be good for others? To advocate a scheme for the whole of society, and to have made little effort to find out what effects it might have, other than that it makes one feel warm inside, is not to show compassion for others, but rather to show passion for oneself. Here, ignorance may be a defence, though not of any claim to compassion.

Read the whole thing.

Speaking on that subject, a few days ago Vanderleun had a rather good line which was picked up by Instapundit before I could get to it, which rather put me off of it (he has that effect on me, alas):

It’s a litany proving, once again, that there are some lies that lodge so deep in the hopes of man that they can never be killed no matter how many are executed to make the lie true.

Title reference: Fewtril no.243.