The Conservative Communist

A story better read than summarized in a description.

The Conservative Communist

I’m a conservative. Tried and true, inside out, upside down, around the world and back again and any other way you wish to describe my relentless, unforgiving, unwavering, never faltering political views; I am a conservative.  I believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as my Lord and Savior and I believe in the Bible and place it at such a pedestal to consider it to be the very soul of any man who wishes to live a good life.  I believe in the constitution and I know it was written for a reason.  It wasn’t written to be tampered with or modified to fit the ideologies of modern life.  It was written to be at the core of everything my country stands for.  I believe any politician that takes office takes the oath to uphold the constitution and therefore should stand by this oath and protect it, rather than suggest minor alterations, little sub notes and asterisks and clauses to be added until the very foundation of this sacred piece of history is completely lost in the modern translation. And I believe any politician that takes office should stay the hell out of my life. I believe government exists to serve the people, not control the people. And, I believe in communism. 

Well that was one hell of a two timin’ sucker punch to the face for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and every other well meaning, well educated, and incredibly influential conservative media figure in the United States now wasn’t it? But what exactly is communism? Does the answer lie in the graves (or lack thereof) of the tens of millions of innocent people killed at the hands of Josef Stalin? Yes. What about in the hands of the wretchedly poor and tortured Cubans at the feet of Fidel Castro? Of course it does.  Even in the militaristic, power hungry cries of little man’s disease gone wrong, better known as Kim Jong-il? Without a doubt the answer is here too! This is communism: The governmental control of everything from the clothes citizens may wear to what they may eat to what trades they may take up.  So how in the blankity blank bleep could I POSSIBLY call myself a CONSERVATIVE COMMUNIST?!?!

Well, I’m not. I only used the title to grab your attention and made one hell of a convincing introduction to keep your interest so I can get to my point. I done learned me that trick at the college, yup yup.  It worked too, didn’t it? But the simple truth of the matter is that the title really isn’t all that far off from the truth. Mainstream media has a tendency to sway the views of someone like me. They make me out to be this blood sucking, money hungry capitalist pig that regards those less fortunate then myself to be virtually worthless. That’s really not true. I feel like I’m a pretty generous guy.  I help people out when I can, be it physically or emotionally or monetarily (though, due to reality of our severely depressed economy I find it increasingly difficult to assist others with the latter).  I really do care about Mother Nature and the birds and little fuzzy puppies and even the damn squirrels that eat from our family’s garden and the deer that ravage my neighbor’s crop every year.  However, above all, I care about my fellow human beings, and being a true Christian I pray that one day we really could find peace on earth. And that is what communism, at its purest form, is.

Communism is, in a way, a sad attempt at solving all of our human created problems with more human influence. It’s an attempt to rid the world of social classes the hold some groups in a certain economic position. To rid the world of racism, of hate, of greed, and hunger, of every negative emotion and reality that pertains to mankind.  But, it just isn’t possible. That is, it isn’t possible if we force it.

The truth is as long as we have social injustices, as long as there is hate, as long as there is any negativity in the world, humans will always strive to better themselves, for the benefit of the individual.  And as long as we tend to strive towards individual benefit, we could never have a perfect utopian society.

If I’ve held your attention this long it’s fairly clear to me that you aren’t planning on going anywhere so I’m going to change my “shock word” of communism to “utopianism”.  Utopianism, as the author defines it, is merely the good intentions of communism, without all that mass murder nonsense.  So how then, do we reach this “utopianism”? Simply put, through capitalism! Capitalism is, in essence, a system of government focused on individual achievement and wealth.  Wealth breeds greed, greed breeds invention, invention breeds creation, creation breeds perfection.  Capitalism allows us as individuals to grow and learn and succeed and fail as we wish.  There is literally nothing that holds one back from achieving their wildest dreams in a capitalist society.  Granted, it does create quite a blood thirsty and hostile environment on the come-up, but it also creates a mighty fine view when you can look out upon all that you have earned.  But how exactly can this form of government, which breeds self-achievement, possibly result in a utopian society?

In high school I remember being bombarded with the idea of “natural selection” while I chewed my Double Bubble and doodled on my notepad pictures of tractors, trucks, and baseballs. Natural selection is, put simply, survival of the fittest. It’s the theory, or rather, reality, that all things that exist now exist because they had the ability to adapt and change to survive various ailments such as disease, famine, and predators.   Similarly, the way capitalism will progress to utopianism lies in the hands of a phrase I’ve coined called human selection. Human selection is basically the same process as mentioned above, only dictated and controlled by those of us lucky enough to be born with opposable thumbs and the ability of cognitive and curious thought (no offense to those of you born without thumbs)[1]. As humans, we tend to gravitate towards things that please us.  We grow our favorite plants, breed our favorite pets, and purchase our favorite meats.  Likewise, plants we enjoy become more common, pets we have a certain preference for increase in numbers and animals that provide meat which we enjoy are bred more abundantly. Plants we find to be a hindrance (such as garden weeds) are eliminated more and more as time goes on, as they are “weeded” out (get it?), and replaced by the ever increasing majority of plants we take special interest in.  Animals that provide us no real benefit, but prove to either disrupt our happy lives or, worse, pose a threat to our well-being, diminish until extinction.  Animals whose meats we generally dislike also gradually disappear, not necessarily due to extinction, but due to selective breeding that changes the genetic makeup of the animal over time.

In addition, human selection changes our own species. Terrorists, murderers, gang bangers, drug dealers, addicts, thieves, and all other less than desirable humans will literally phase themselves out.  Capitalism allows for this behavior enough to create some of these people, but also punishes this type of behavior.  These people will literally kill each other or spend the rest of their lives packed away in a cage like lab rats. Over time, the genes that cause the serious mental issues that create these behavioral problems will diminish significantly due to the fact that the vast majority are dead or locked away to rot in prison cells, therefore unable to reproduce and continue their gene pools.  This of course is based on the theory that criminal behavior is largely based on the genetic makeup of an individual and the way their character is developed.  Similarly, if more and more of these people are taken out of commission, there is less of a chance of a child being raised by bad parents, therefore eventually eliminating the chance of a child emulating the poor behavioral traits present in their guardians.  In summary, the capitalist system, allowing an equal balance of acceptance and punishment, can effectively eliminate negative human traits over time. 

There are no limits to human achievement when no limits are set.  Capitalism allows for unsurpassed human freedoms and the ability for any one of its citizens to achieve any dream they can imagine. The future could hold such scientific achievements as to make all laborious and otherwise uninteresting tasks, tasks which we perform simply for monetary gain, literally a thing of the past.  Work could someday be a labor of love. Money and the pursuit thereof (a necessary evil we accept), could someday be totally forgotten. Through capitalism the world could very well see a pure utopian society, where all of our needs are met and all of our ailments defeated. We could be free to pursue anything we take an interest in and all men and women could truly be equal.  However, this is possible only through human selection, capitalist policies, and the ability to think and create freely and without limit, which is only possible with a non-restrictive government.  Maybe someday we could see the world as a perfect utopia once again or maybe not, but at least with capitalism, we have the freedom to try.

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[1] Or to any liberals, whose absentmindedness and nonsensical logic proves you were born without the ability of cognitive thought