H.L. Mencken Club Distinguished Speaker Series: Srdja Trifkovic on Western Postmodernia vs. “Real Socialism”
Americans love telling themselves “it’s a free country,” but Srdja Trifkovic relates that in terms of (self-)censorship on key issues like race and immigration, American is a place less open to honest communication than the Soviet Bloc.
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Srdja is right. In many respects the US is more totalitarian, intrusive, and controlling than formerly communist countries. Those of us who escaped that nightmare know first hand what it was like. We’re seeing too many similar and very troubling trends in America.
For a sampling of articles and commentaries highlighting the many disturbing similarities, see:
Totalitarian Democrats
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/category/totalitarian-democrats/
Christians should really consider whether we are doing the world any favors at all by spreading Western cultural ideas. And we should also consider, given the current political posture of the U.S. and Western Europe, whether spreading democracy does not necessarily entail the systematic destruction of traditional values. It is actually somewhat bizarre that Christians who are social conservatives and want a more traditional society, by supporting the export of Western culture through promotion of the spread of international democracy, are creating a world more hostile to their social values.
Trifkovic would agree with you Scott.
Trifkovic is brilliant. As can be gleaned from the recent tragedy in Tucson, the aim of the Left is to permanently silence the opposition. Hence, I was doubly gratified by Sarah Palin’s Facebook posting in which she defended traditional liberal values. First, when she gave a clear and direct defence of robust political debate, and second when she exposed the Left’s use of blood libels against conservatives. The fact that they screamed showed that she exposed their strategy. Even honest liberals like Alan Dershowitz and Ed Koch came to her defense.
I grew up in a communist society and at some point I figured out that the political discourse was shamelessly filled with lies and half-truths. For some unknown reason to me (back then), people would not speak up against these lies and the arranged demonstrations where we had to respond with standing ovations.
Feelings of inferiority, anger and embarrassment stared to grow slowly. I didn’t know much about the “free” world and I thought the isolation will last forever. I remember that, while learning French in school, I thought that I would never use it. Well, I did not use the French I learned in school, but I am using English, which I learned on my own. Only when I got outside the state controlled environment did I find out that years before I was born, people courageously resisted the atheist communist regime. They often paid for their courage with their own lives and/or many years in prison. This was a secret very well kept by authorities, and quite strangely, by our own parents. The reason for their “protective” silence was that they knew that many parents died of sorrow having one or more (or all of their) children in prison. Others were separated from their children and perished themselves in prison. The news about their resistance, even though it was crushed by the diabolic system, restored my inner balance and sense of self-worth. The absence of truth is highly debilitating for both the person and society. It leades to both public disaster and personal life crises
Communism did not severely wound everything. “Healthy tissue” in the survivors were family life and education. Education was definitely valued more than professional sports. However, the healthy parts started to rapidly decompose under the influence of the “free” world, after the fall of Communism.
Well, immirgation since been hard to talk about since Reagan legalized 3 million people. And both parties have not wanted to deal with it about 20 years ago when it could have been solved.
[…] Communications and self-censorship. […]
Cynthia,
Reagan made some mistakes. One was withdrawal of troops from Beirut when the marine baracks was bombed. Perhaps he never should have put them there to begin with, but he gave the impression that we could be turned by such attacks. The impression stuck.
As to immigration, it may well be that the birth rate in the United States would not be above the replacement rate were it not for illegal immigration. I haven’t seen any hard statistics; however, I can tell you that when Social Security started out, there were 17 people paying in for every person receiving. Now it’s only 3 or 4 to 1.
That’s a problem.
Someone once made a film documentary called Demographic Winter. The jist is that post-industrial liberal societies do not reproduce at a rate that can sustain their social welfare networks. When the ratio of older persons to younger persons gets high enough, it has a debilitating effect on the economy and quality of life.
We will see if the producers of Demographic Winter were right . . . Oops – – of course – – we’re seeing it today in Europe.
The documentary is a bit ominous. It seems that demographers and social scientists can see the problem developing – – some say it may be too late to solve it – – but the cultural choices we would have to make to fix it are unthinkable to most people across the political spectrum.
So, I don’t have a problem with legal or illegal immigration – – except to the extent that some percentage of the immigrants commit violent crimes or smuggle drugs.
Legalize them and tax them. It’s not like we’re producing that many babies.
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