The Naked Communist

This week I finished reading a book by Cleon Skousen called, "The Naked Communist." The book is an overview of the history, ideals, and motivations of communism. Though the book was written 50 years ago when, perhaps, communism was more of a global threat. Yet today our country is becoming more and more socialist, and communism is socialism to the extreme. So I found it fascinating both as an explanation of what happened, and also as a call to action to avoid the same problems from happening to our country.

Some of the major goals of communism, as put forward by Marx and Engels in "The Communist Manifesto."

1. End Capitalism


2. Eliminate private property (additionally they say that religion was devised by private property owners to subvert the poorer class, so religion has to be eliminated)


3. Eliminate the family as a social unit


4. Eliminate socio-economic classes


5. Overthrow all other governments so the world is under one communist system.

I have frequently heard the Marx quote, "Religion is the opiate of the masses," but I never knew the context. Often it is quoted by people trying to spurn religion. I better understand the quote now. Here are two reasons for the quote. Marx stated that religion was invented by the land owners as a way to pacify the working class from stealing their property - "Thou shalt not steal." "Thou shalt not covet." So religion had to be extinguished so the working class would revolt against the land owners.

Also, under communism the ends justify the means. There are no laws, no morals, no obligations. Anything the government can do to accomplish it's means is considered perfectly acceptable. Human life is worth no more than that of a caterpillar or bug. So ethics would just get in the way if the government were to tell someone to kill their neighbor and take their property.

I had lots of epiphanies reading the book. Here are just a few.

• I need to teach my kids the meaning of freedom vs. slavery. One of the reasons for the proliferation of communism is that people really don't appreciate their freedom. What is freedom? It is the ability to make choices within the law - freedom to choose your occupation, where you live, how you spend your money and time. Freedom to have a family and teach them according to the dictates of your conscious.
  
• I need to teach my kids to know God, and hopefully come to love Him. As a whole, our country is forgetting God, and is not acquainted with him very well. They are easily convinced when someone tries to kill their belief in God.
  
• It is so evident to me that socialism doesn't work. People work the hardest when they have something at stake and can benefit from their own labor. When the communists took over, production fell to a mere fraction of previous levels, and they had a hard time even providing their bare necessities. I didn't know that things got so bad under Lenin's first attempt at communism that he abandoned it for a more capitalist system.
  
• Communism doesn't achieve any it's objectives. They set out to form the perfect, peaceful, classless, stateless society. Instead, they created the exact opposite. They created a cruel feudal system - where the privileged class (in this case the government) pillaged the non-privilege class, killing millions in the process to bring them into submission.
• God is the author of peace. We cannot achieve peace by Satan's methods - by force. The commandments outline the way of life that will bring the most happiness both in this world, and eternity.

I could go on for a while. I loved the book. It continues my awakening to the political system and wanting to help stop our current trends to socialistic society. I would recommend the book to everyone. - Brian

Family Vacation 2009

We decided to go to San Diego this year for our family vacation, and make our escape the first week of May. Our adventures took us to Balboa Park, Sea World, Legoland, and the beach.

Jay loved the rollercoasters at Legoland, and swimming in the hotel pool.

Isabel liked the beach, swimming in the hotel pool, and Legoland.

Yes, as you can see, we drove 800 miles to get there, and the thing the kids liked the most was swimming in the hotel pool - something we can do for free at the city rec center.

I found Sea World a little too green for my tastes this year. We probably won't go there again for a long time.

Legoland was a blast, and a near perfect match for our kids. The biggest problem was determining before we got to a big ride if Jay was going to be tall/old enough to ride it. A few times Jay was screaming because he couldn't go on a ride at the same time Isabel was too frightened to go. We had the park almost to ourselves and still didn't get through the park. Perhaps if we went again we would spend a second day there.

The beach was a highlight for the whole family -- just unstructured time on the beach, protecting the sand from the unrelenting sun. The water was chilly so we didn't spent any time swimming, but we enjoyed making sand castles.

I'm all for vacations and making happy memories!