Why There Will Never Be a ”Last Communist""

By Robert Ringer

I recall when I was a teenager asking the question, in a civics class, ”What’s to stop the president or Congress from ignoring the Constitution and doing whatever they please?” Predictably, the class laughed and the teacher patronizingly explained to me that our system of ”checks and balances” made such a scenario impossible. I was too intimidated to press the matter any further, but I do remember that I was totally unconvinced by his dismissive answer.

Segue to 2010, and, by golly, we have a president and a Congress that ignores the Constitution – even laughs about its relevance – and does whatever they please! Darn it – where’s your high school civics teacher when you need him most?

How can this be happening in America? Let’s back up a few steps and get some background on the matter. For years, the clueless media loved to refer to Fidel Castro as ”the last communist.” This perplexed me no end, because history has made it clear that communism has always existed and will continue to exist until ”life after people.”

A belief in communism is an envy-based flaw that is programmed into the human psyche. Fortunately, through education, logic, and a sound moral structure, a majority of people in modern, civilized societies are able to overcome the serpent-like temptation of ”to each according to his need.”

But early man had no formal education, and, one would assume, had no time to reflect on philosophical – and certainly not ideological – issues. The evidence suggests that savages lived communal lives where the individual was sacrificed to the ”collective good.” Often, this even resulted in cannibalism. Satisfying one’s appetite by munching on a fellow tribe member’s arm must have seemed quite natural to men who, like animals, spent most of their time hunting for food.

With the advent of the Agrarian Revolution in the Neolithic Age, however, civilization advanced and the individual gradually gained in importance. The culmination of this evolution was the great American experiment that began with the Declaration of Independence and ended with victory in the American Revolutionary War.

Even so, communism has never been eradicated, because a significant percentage of any country’s population simply cannot resist the motor of communism: envy. Thus, throughout the 20th century, communism reared its ugly head in such disparate places such as Russia, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, and, in our own hemisphere, Chile.

Now, in the 21st century, it’s pretty much taken hold in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, with the U.S clearly the next big target of those who yearn for ‘’social justice” (read, covet their neighbors’ wealth).

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