Ark Times: Describes Tea Party as angry people against socialism

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Francis Schaeffer points out how Communism is based on materialism which leads to repression while countries with a reformation base truly have a solid basis for law and the people enjoy freedom.

Series on young people’s attitudes towards Socialism and Communism part 1

On the Arkansas Times Blog on April 1, 2010 the Arkansas Times staff noted that the Tea Party group in Little Rock were made up of “angry people who were there took turns bulling on a bullhorn and carried signs with messages like Just Say No To Socialism.”

Today, many people like to picture conservatives that oppose socialism as angry and ignorant nuts. Today in our colleges you will find that image put forth by many professors. Socialism and even at times Communism is put in a good light.

I am going to start a series today that will attempt to explain why communism and socialism is very appealing to young people, but today I also wanted to talk also about the reformation base that our country was built on.

Bradley Gitz had an excellent article “Socialist Comeback,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 30, 2011. Here is what he had to say:

The collapse of the Soviet Union was assumed to have meant the end of socialism as a viable political ideology.

That obituary appears to have been premature. Socialism not only didn’t die but it continues to exert a powerful appeal, particularly among the young and idealistic (an overlapping constituency).

The source of that appeal is not difficult to identify, residing as it does in socialism’s promise to satisfy basic human needs and usher in a classless utopia of equality and plenty.

Socialism appeals today for the same reasons it appealed in the time of Marx and Engels-because it suggests a better world. Capitalism might be the superior system in terms of generating wealth, but its dependence upon profits and self-interest means it will never be able to occupy the moral high ground.

In some respects, the virtual disappearance of communism as the logical extrapolation of the socialist ideal may have saved other forms of socialism. Few could have plausibly argued that communist societies were superior to capitalist democracies at the time the Berlin Wall was falling and Chinese demonstrators were erecting their papier-mâché statue of liberty in Tiananmen Square.

No one on the left wanted to compare East Germany to West Germany or North Korea to South Korea, let alone America to the Soviet Union. The failed Soviet experiment was a giant millstone around the neck of the left, dragging down the original vision of socialism as “the future that works.”

Gitz brings up the issue of oppression. How you ever wondered why communist countries have to operate on that basis?Let’s first take a look at the foundation that our country was built on and see if we can find any differences.

Our country was founded on a reformation base.

Notice in the video above is from the episode “The Revolutionary Age” from the film series “How Should We Then Live?” by Francis Schaeffer that a system like communism is based on a materialistic base, and must use internal repression to keep in power. Communism always comes in with promises, but what you end up with is a loss of freedom of the press and freedom of religion too. This can be seen even today in the 5 communist countries which exist. However, when you contrast these communist countries to those countries that have a reformation base you find a large difference in protection of human rights.

Francis Schaeffer has pointed out that in these countries (with the reformation base ) the biblical basis did give absolutes upon which to combat injustice. In contrast, the humanist has no way to say that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. This is because for the humanist the final thing that exists is the impersonal universe and that is silent and neutral about right and wrong and about cruelty and noncruelty.

However, our public schools in the USA are just as humanistic as they are in communist countries. This is seen by the teaching of humanism in the area of moral choices. Our students are being taught that we all are a product of chance and there are no absolutes.

The Bible tells us, “{God} has also set eternity in the hearts of men…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV). The secularist calls this an illusion, but the Bible tells us that the idea that we will survive the grave was planted in everyone’s heart by God Himself. Romans 1:19-21 tells us that God has instilled a conscience in everyone that points each of them to Him and tells them what is right and wrong (also Romans 2:14 -15).

It’s no wonder, then, that a humanist would comment, “Certain moral truths — such as do not kill, do not steal, and do not lie — do have a special status of being not just ‘mere opinion’ but bulwarks of humanitarian action. I have no intention of saying, ‘I think Hitler was wrong.’ Hitler WAS wrong.” (Gloria Leitner, “A Perspective on Belief,” THE HUMANIST, May/June 1997, pp. 38-39)

Here Leitner is reasoning from her God-given conscience and not from humanist philosophy. However, I know how moral relativism works, and I expected that Mrs. Leitner would soon be challenged by her fellow humanists. It wasn’t long before she received criticism. Humanist Abigail Ann Martin responded, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?” (THE HUMANIST, September/October 1997, p. 2)

Do you see where our moral relativism has taken us in the USA?

I had a chance back in 1991 to visit with a gentleman by the name of Robert Lester Mondale while he was retired in Missouri. He was born on May 28, 1904 and he died on August 19, 2003. He was an Unitarian minister and a humanist. In fact, he was the only person to sign all three of the Humanist Manifestos of 1933, 1973 and 2003. In my conversation with him he mentioned that he had the opportunity to correspond with John Dewey who was one of Mondale’s fellow signers of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I.

I really believe that the influence of John Dewey’s humanistic philosophy has won the battle of the textbooks in the USA today (with evolution teaching being a key component). As a result, we have people like humanist Abigail Ann Martin who wrote, “Neither am I an advocate of Hitler; however, by whose criteria is he evil?”

(I wanted to recommend an article “Making a monkey out of Darwin” by Adrian Rogers. This article shows the damage that the belief in evolution has done. )

Socialism and Communism do have lots of promises that entice young people, but eventually the freedoms of people may be compromised down the road, and those promises are not fulfilled.

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The Daily Hatch