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“You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream--the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.”
Ronald Reagan - "The Speech" - Oct. 27, 1964
Current political jargon makes it difficult to accurately discuss and analyze the true threat to liberty in our times. This jargon leads us to view politics as a struggle between “Left” and “Right”. A chart would look something like this:
Far Left Center Far Right
(Communists) -------------- (Democracy) --------------- (Fascists/Nazis)
If this construct were correct, we would obviously try to aim for the Center (Democracy) and to avoid the extreme Right (Fascism) and extreme Left (Communism). The problem with this model is that the true political contest is not “Left” vs. “Right”, but instead, Individual Liberty vs. an All-Powerful State.
A more accurate political chart for our times might look something like this:
Anarchy
I
I
I
I
Ordered Liberty (U.S. Constitution)
I
I
X (we are somewhere in this vicinity)
I
I
“LEFT”-Communists----- Totalitarian Gov't. ------“RIGHT”-Fascists/Nazis
(Soviet Socialists) (National Socialists)
In this model, I believe our current struggle lies on the vertical axis between Ordered Liberty and Totalitarian Government. The debate between Left and Right is mainly a distraction; a foolish argument about which type of Totalitarianism is preferable. Both types of Totalitarianism have much in common with each other and very little in common with the Ordered Liberty of the U.S. Constitution. Both Communists and Nazis consider themselves to be Socialists. (U.S.S.R. was an abbreviation for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, while Nazi was a German acronym for National Socialist.) Under both Communism and Fascism, the State is supreme and the people are its subjects. Under our system, “We the People” delegate certain powers to the State in order to secure our rights and to achieve the “ordered” part of Ordered Liberty.
There is little to choose between Totalitarians of the Left and Totalitarians of the Right. Both insist on government’s total domination of the society. This dominance is achieved through such methods as controlling the economy, massive propaganda and extensive secret police operations by organizations such as the Gestapo and the KGB. Both types of Totalitarians have engaged in horrific crimes against humanity, including mass murder on a scale that is hardly imaginable. Because of the manner in which WWII played out, we tend to be more aware of Nazi crimes than Communist crimes. However, Stalin was a bigger mass murderer than Hitler; and Mao may have topped them both to earn the title of worst mass murderer in history.
Conclusion: We would be well advised to fiercely oppose any movement towards an All-Powerful Government. We should not be confused or distracted by the false choice between “Left” and “Right”. Instead, we should be very protective of the Ordered Liberty of the U.S. Constitution.
