Something that has always bothered me is that no one ever explains why communism is so bad. They always talk about tangential and unimportant things like "their economic system sucks" or "they don't respect rights". They never cut to the heart of the matter.
At the core of communism are two ideas that are deadly dangerous. People found holding these ideas must be treated as an existential threat and we must behave accordingly around them.
It's like if you live in a straw house and there's a guy shouting "I'm gonna burn your house down!" and buying matches and starting fires all the time. It's that sort of thing.
The two ideas are, in rough form:
(1) That reality is wrong and we must change reality.
(2) That the reason why we fail is because of "THEM" and we must exterminate "THEM" or we cannot succeed.
None of these ideas are unique to communism, nor are they novel in the modern age. They've been around for a long time, and people know how to deal with people who hold these ideas. You can say that traditional society is built up as a fortress to protect us from people who have these ideas.
The issue with communism is that the way the go about accomplishing their purposes and the face that they put on while doing it makes them exceptionally tricky. It's why they fear being "outed" as communist, and why they try so desperately to pretend to be a sheep.
The concept of "THEM" for a communist doesn't run along the lines of traditional group inclusion. They are not isolating people because they are the wrong race or tribe or social class or religion or whatever else. They are not even isolating people because they are rich or poor, educated or ignorant, noble or common, etc...
The "THEM" is literally anyone who has traditional ideas. They want to exterminate you not be cause you are white or christian or rich or smart or anything like that. If it were simply that, it would be a really, really easy problem to solve. But because they are trying to hunt and find anyone who has traditional ideas and are going to hold on to those ideas, it makes it really hard to use tradition to create a bulwark against them.
Let me give you an example of what I mean to make it clear.
A: "Let's have sex outside of marriage!" B: "Oh no that is not what our ancestors did. It could have terrible consequences!" A: "Screw the ancestors! Screw tradition!" Nine months later... A: "Maybe our ancestors were right. Let's get married and raise this kid."
By purposefully disobeying tradition and customs and social norms, people put themselves on the other side of the line. When they realize life sucks on the wrong side of the line, all they have to do is cross back and traditions, culture, and society is restored.
Now let's look at how communists do things.
"My life sucks. I have broken all the traditions and societal norms and now I am miserable. It can't possibly be because I am wrong and everyone else is right. I must kill everyone who disagrees with me otherwise I cannot be happy. But since there are so many of them and so few of me, I must be subversive and quietly destroy all of society unless they figure out what I am doing and stop me."
Do you see the issue? "It can't possibly be because I broke all the traditions, it must be because THEY are the problem, so I must subvert them to find happiness!"
Identify the problem, and the solution becomes almost obvious...
At the core of communism are two ideas that are deadly dangerous. People found holding these ideas must be treated as an existential threat and we must behave accordingly around them.
It's like if you live in a straw house and there's a guy shouting "I'm gonna burn your house down!" and buying matches and starting fires all the time. It's that sort of thing.
The two ideas are, in rough form:
(1) That reality is wrong and we must change reality.
(2) That the reason why we fail is because of "THEM" and we must exterminate "THEM" or we cannot succeed.
None of these ideas are unique to communism, nor are they novel in the modern age. They've been around for a long time, and people know how to deal with people who hold these ideas. You can say that traditional society is built up as a fortress to protect us from people who have these ideas.
The issue with communism is that the way the go about accomplishing their purposes and the face that they put on while doing it makes them exceptionally tricky. It's why they fear being "outed" as communist, and why they try so desperately to pretend to be a sheep.
The concept of "THEM" for a communist doesn't run along the lines of traditional group inclusion. They are not isolating people because they are the wrong race or tribe or social class or religion or whatever else. They are not even isolating people because they are rich or poor, educated or ignorant, noble or common, etc...
The "THEM" is literally anyone who has traditional ideas. They want to exterminate you not be cause you are white or christian or rich or smart or anything like that. If it were simply that, it would be a really, really easy problem to solve. But because they are trying to hunt and find anyone who has traditional ideas and are going to hold on to those ideas, it makes it really hard to use tradition to create a bulwark against them.
Let me give you an example of what I mean to make it clear.
A: "Let's have sex outside of marriage!" B: "Oh no that is not what our ancestors did. It could have terrible consequences!" A: "Screw the ancestors! Screw tradition!" Nine months later... A: "Maybe our ancestors were right. Let's get married and raise this kid."
By purposefully disobeying tradition and customs and social norms, people put themselves on the other side of the line. When they realize life sucks on the wrong side of the line, all they have to do is cross back and traditions, culture, and society is restored.
Now let's look at how communists do things.
"My life sucks. I have broken all the traditions and societal norms and now I am miserable. It can't possibly be because I am wrong and everyone else is right. I must kill everyone who disagrees with me otherwise I cannot be happy. But since there are so many of them and so few of me, I must be subversive and quietly destroy all of society unless they figure out what I am doing and stop me."
Do you see the issue? "It can't possibly be because I broke all the traditions, it must be because THEY are the problem, so I must subvert them to find happiness!"
Identify the problem, and the solution becomes almost obvious...
The Bolsheviks didn't genocide the Kulaks because they were particularily traditional; in fact they were quite progressive in transcending the feudal serf system. The Bolsheviks genocided them because they made a good scapegoat, even though they were actually feeding the supporters of Bolshevism.
Communists will literally rip themselves apart to avoid responsibility for their own actions.
"Anyone who threatens to undermine their faith in their false beliefs."
It's not about the beliefs of the victim or trying to avoid "responsibility".
It's about making commies feel that there is *no dissent to their worldview*, either ideological or practical. Because that's the only way their beliefs can survive.
It's expressed in varying degrees according to the insecurity of the system's controllers' egos. A self-assured society has nothing to fear from people quitting their game, living in the woods, and mocking the city-dwellers. The American system is also guilty of this, that's why they couldn't tolerate the hippies or the Occupy movement.
Fact- and merit-based societies need only fear communism, which seeks to elevate low-merit ideas and people into positions far above their worth, which is unsurprisingly unstable and can only be maintained through lies enforced by violence.