The Naked Socialist

by Paul B Skousen

  Chapter 85: U.S. Presidents and Socialism, conclusion335

  Part XV--SOCIALISM AROUND THE WORLD344

  Chapter 86: The Rise and Fall of Socialist Europe345

  Chapter 87: A Snapshot of World Socialism350

  Chapter 88: A Snapshot of World Socialism, continued355

  Chapter 89: A Snapshot of World Socialism, continued359

  Chapter 90: A Snapshot of World Socialism, conclusion363

  Part XVI--THE 46 GOALS OF SOCIALISM370

  Chapter 91: The 46 Goals of Socialism371

  Part XVII--THE PROPER ROLE OF GOVERNMENT378

  Chapter 92: The Proper Role of Government379

  Chapter 93: The New Beginning382

  Acknowledgements394

  Part I: WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

  “Socialism is government force to control and change society.”

  —Author—

  “Socialism progresses like a snake eating its tail . . . .” —Author—

  Chapter 1: Socialism at Work

  Those who don’t understand socialism will always fall for it.

  In 1985, this writer was a CIA intelligence officer on rotation to the White House Situation Room at the start of President Ronald Reagan’s second term. The Situation Room is in the West Wing, just down the stairs and around the corner from the Oval Office. It has undergone some changes over the years, but remains the most secure room in the White House, and for good reason.

  Directly inside the door, past the small foyer and some offices, are the duty officers’ work stations—chairs, computers, phones, televisions and monitors. Toward the back is a little kitchen, the shredder, storage closets and a lot of communication gear. And immediately within those walls is another walled off section called the Conference Room, with seating for 10 around a highly-polished wooden table. This is where Reagan met with his top advisors—a sealed-off, private and secure location out of earshot from possible eavesdroppers.

  The conference room has two entrances, and each is closed off with a sliding wooden door so that staffers cannot overhear the top- secret proceedings. In the event an urgent message must be delivered, or a late arrival doesn’t know which way to enter, the doors also have peepholes. Peering through the peepholes helped people navigate which door to open and enter, and which door to avoid.

  The peepholes made it convenient for someone like me to stand outside and watch. I could see Reagan in action, always at the head of the table, facing my direction. Seated to either side was the vice president, the National Security Advisor, the head of the CIA, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, sometimes military leaders, and a few others as needed. They arrived with a clutch of papers and sat in thickly padded chairs. We put out a glass of ice water for each, a note pad, and made sure there was easy access to that roving jar of jelly-beans. Through the peephole I enjoyed watching the gesturing and emphatic declarations as they dealt with emergencies, sometimes arguing, other times laughing. It was exhilarating, it was exciting, it was history in the making.

  At about this same time, the press started recycling an old harangue against Reagan that he was a detached president, too old for the job, sleepy, dozing through his meetings, not acting as a leader, and certainly a failure in a job that was, they said, way over his head.

  Those rumors bothered me. I couldn’t imagine they were true, but they gave me reason to wonder. So, from that time forward, my visits to the peephole took on a new purpose: I decided to discover for myself if the man I was working for was the real Ronald Reagan.

  For the first few weeks, I noticed that Reagan was indeed the silent observer. Most of the time he just sat there, hardly speaking, watching the proceedings like he was at a tennis match. He would look to those on the left side of the table, then to the right, then left, then right, rarely saying a word. I couldn’t help but wonder, were the rumors true? Why wasn’t he more actively engaged and giving orders, telling them what to do? Wasn’t he their boss, the president?

  As it turned out, I simply didn’t know enough about the enemy that Reagan was battling to fully appreciate what was happening in that room. I didn’t know what I was watching through that peephole.

  Today, however, these many years later, it has become exceptionally clear.

  That was no detached president I watched, comfortably coasting or dozing or otherwise glad-handing his way through two terms. Reagan’s stone face of indifference was masking a master strategist at work. Behind that calm demeanor was a well-thought through and determined offense against an enemy intent on laying waste to all of the president’s best-laid plans.

  The enemy in that room, and seated around that table, was woefully ill-defined, insidiously stealthy, and dangerously active. It manifested itself in subtle, almost imperceptible ways—as an attitude, an expectation, an assumption, a demand. I couldn’t see it, but Reagan did. It was something as old as history with a thousand names. And there it was, right before my very eyes, busily infesting the Reagan administration with its cheating lies.1 I didn’t know enough about it in 1985, but I later learned Reagan’s great enemy that stalked his closest advisors, infested his administration, and had seduced millions of other Americans and billions around the earth was that treacherously deceitful and artfully cunning materialization of mankind’s worst invention and most destructive power ever, a thing we call socialism.2

  * * *

  1 By January 1982, at least 32 senior advisors in the Reagan White House, plus 81 leaders throughout the executive branch, were identified as supporters of George H. W. Bush, or holdovers from President Jimmy Carter, or politically and philosophically opposed to Reagan’s positions and goals. See Conservative Digest, Vol. 8 No. 2, February 1982.

  2 Socialism, from the Latin socialis (a comrade); first recorded in 1837 during a discussion between Robert Owen and Rev. J. H. Roebuck, Encyclopedia Britannica, 13th Edition, 1926.

  Chapter 2: The Eternal Conflict: Force Versus Choice

  For most people the word “socialism” conjures up two very different images in their minds.

  1.Beautiful Promise: The first image is an abstract idea or dream; a hope, a utopian promise of a fair and simpler world, a longing for some rapturous path toward a different way of living—it is socialism of wishful thinking, of make believe, it is the socialism of the future.

  2.The Regime: The second image is very concrete—an actual structure or formation of socialistic ideas in society, in a government, in a nation—it is real socialism, the harsh and brutal socialism of today.

  Examples of both are everywhere. John Lennon’s enormously popular song, Imagine, illustrates the first idea—the beautiful promise of life under a perfect and peaceful future socialistic society.

  “Imagine there’s no heaven,” Lennon proposed, “it’s easy if you try. No hell below us—above us only sky—imagine all the people—living for today ...”3

  Living for today is a tricky proposition. It implies a life with no planning for the future, shirking responsibility, consuming instead of producing—a suggestion to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. It is the grasshopper ignoring the ant’s warning about the coming winter. To the untold millions of fans, Lennon’s words created hope for a pathway to a wonderfully new and better way of living.

  Lennon’s tune also advanced his beautiful utopian idea of no countries, nothing for people to fight over, ”and no religion, too.”

  No religion, no countries, no possessions, and no worries—what a great life. This wasn’t the first time such a suggestion was made. Lennon’s song was actually a lyrical retelling of the ancient teachings of Plato, Marx, Engels, and Mao. Lennon himself said his song was “virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I am not particularly a communist and I do not belong to any movement.”4

  The Second Idea of Socialism

  Examples of the second idea�
��the actual concrete structure and formation of socialism—can be found in North Korea where malnutrition has stunted the growth of its children, where large ghost cities stand as empty mirages and facades to fool the world, where three million people starved to death in the mid-1990s because of their government’s stupefying policies, and where Dear Leader’s image flashes across television screens day and night, gushing the doctrine of Lenin while whistling the tune of Lennon.

  Or, Cuba, where fifty years of socialism have produced a scourge of crime, corruption, prostitution, drugs, and white collar crime. Where the country has to rely on other socialist nations for such basics as food, medicine, and energy. Where the Castro regime and its successors use torture, arbitrary imprisonment, false trials, and executions to keep the population under control.

  Or, Red China, where Mao’s great leap forward created a famine so intense that it killed at least 30 million people. On top of those dead, Mao heaped at least 40 million more in a purge to purify the formidable ranks of his loyal followers.

  Or, the former USSR, where Stalin and his successors eventually killed more than 60 million people over seven miserable decades to establish a socialist state. Where the Soviets used international thuggery and bullying to threaten, steal, and fight their way to world prominence. Where its failure formula brought about the empire’s predictable collapse in the early 1990s, leaving its 15 republics buried in wreckage and still struggling for survival by 2014.

  Or, the European Union, where the massive treasuries of the world’s mightiest trading partners, regulated under socialistic ideals, began imploding with uncontrollable spending, borrowing, and debt. By 2010, their circumstances were so desperate they made a last ditch attempt to rescue their excessive welfare entitlement programs with loans, bailouts, and austerity programs. Europe’s highly touted dream of “with socialism, we can do it better,” became painful proof that they couldn’t.

  History has noted that after the socialists finally got control in their countries and took charge, their leaders had to kill at least 130 million people to establish their socialist forms of government. After America broke free from England, how many did its leaders kill to establish its form of government, its Constitutional Republic? None.

  Such examples show that socialism in the “here and now” never achieves the beautiful promise, the dream, the pathway to a different life as suggested by Lennon’s Imagine. They also show that socialism is incapable of exerting innovation and creativity to solve any of society’s problems. Today’s socialists don’t know how to improve people’s lives. The only outcome that emerges from their abstract dream of “imagine all the people living for today” is the consolidation of power into the leaders, the creation of an upper class of elitists, the coronation of rulers who reap with force a rich harvest from the labors of the powerless masses, all in the name of fairness.

  The Mechanics of Socialism

  Socialists have just one main goal: putting themselves in charge.

  There are two ways they achieve this. The first is to quickly wipe out an existing culture with a revolution or a civil war. And then? And then, Marx declared, “shall I stride through the wreckage a creator!”5 Marx truly believed he could recreate the world in his own image, but he died with nothing more than some bad ideas used later to justify killing people.

  The second is by convincing the people to vote away protected rights, or at least refuse to challenge the loss of a right. From that process, those who claim to know best ultimately take final control.

  Either way, the end goal of socialism remains the same: control.

  The Seven Pillars of Socialism

  There are seven goals or processes used to socialize a nation. Knowing what these are will forewarn wise people, and prepare them to recognize socialism as it develops so they may take preventative action. We call these characteristics the Seven Pillars of Socialism.

  Pillar #1—ALL POWERFUL RULER. A ruler is quick to conquer the world but slow to conquer himself, and therein lies all the trouble. With a fistful of utopian plans, the new ruler feels empowered to change things his way. That is why the socialists’ first and most important goal is to enthrone their choice as the all-powerful ruler. This can be an individual or a group. The ruler operates according to Ruler’s Law (like a king) and will neither bow to the people’s will nor obey any written law. It is government by the ruler’s fancy and whim.

  When the ruler begins ignoring existing law or a constitution to make his own laws, when he bypasses parliaments or any consortium of representatives and exerts powers he is not authorized to exert, and no one steps up to challenge or stop him, that is a dangerous sign that socialism has started and Pillar #1 is well underway.

  Pillar #2—CASTES OR CLASSES. There are no rulers without slaves. Socialists claim they know best how to make society fair and equal, but as will be shown, just the opposite happens. Under socialism, society must be divided into classes. The upper class consists of party members who receive special privileges as a reward for their loyalty. The middle class is usually a massive bureaucracy of well-paid enforcers—an overlapping maze of rulers, guards and spies who are dispatched to all levels of society. At the bottom are the most abused and least privileged of all: the workers, the peasants, the serfs, the slaves.

  When the government grants privileges to some classes and not to others (for example, giving financial advantages, legal benefits, bailouts, unequal tax breaks, or refusing to enforce laws equally), that is a sad sign that socialism has started and Pillar #2 is underway.

  Pillar #3—THINGS IN COMMON. Basic socialist doctrine teaches that the ownership of property is the cause of all discord and envy. Therefore, they say, all things must be made equal. But that’s not all. Private ownership must eventually be eliminated altogether. Socialists are not consistent with how this part works. Some say a house and car may be privately owned, while others say they should be leased from the government for the duration of one’s job or life. In centuries past, this “commonality” has gone so far as having wives and children in common.

  When the government imposes graduated taxes, nationalizes basic services, confiscates property for the common good, continually raises taxes, gives away entitlements, and invents other creative ways to take from the “haves” and give to the “have-nots,” this is a sign that socialism has started and Pillar #3 is underway.

  Pillar #4—REGULATION. Total control requires total regulation. By issuing a regular stream of new laws and requirements, the Rulers control all economic activities and production. Too much broccoli? Reassign the acreage. Too many babies? Stop the pregnancies (see China’s one-child policy). Too many construction workers falling off ladders? Issue a ream of requirements on the proper manufacture and use of ladders. Too much wheat forcing prices down? Pay farmers to stop growing it so prices go up. People polluting the world at will and spoiling the view? Impose rules that drive polluters out of business and exercise eminent domain to confiscate real estate as protected sanctuaries. Bad unemployment numbers? Fire the statisticians and replace them with loyal messengers.

  When government can impose laws without the legislature or the people involved, and sues States or other subordinated governments to get its way, that means socialism has started and Pillar #4 is heavily underway.

  Pillar #5—FORCE. In socialism, all human activity is restrained or compelled to action with the use of force—penalties, fines, restrictions, “catch-22” laws, prison, and a multitude of fees and taxes. Under Ruler’s Law, supreme force must eventually centralize in the hands of the Rulers.

  When government begins using force to violate basic rights of property, privacy, and the pursuit of happiness, and the people are powerless to stop it, then Pillar #5 is underway. When that force becomes deadly and the people are fearful of the government, they have landed on the expeditious path toward socialism through the fiery furnace of communism as advanced
by Lenin, Stalin and Mao.

  Pillar #6—INFORMATION CONTROL. Information is a powerful weapon for social control. It is used to win support from the masses, to teach them that the old way is bad and the new way is good, and to bolster claims that the regime is doing a good job. A regime will falsify economic data to sway decision-making in the regime’s favor. It perpetuates its hold on the culture by disseminating its messages through outlets it can control such as news sources, the media, entertainment outlets, textbooks and classroom discussions.

  When a government separates the currency from precious metals to hide its true value, or dictates what news stories are broadcast, or mandates what textbooks are used in schools, or recasts numbers about job growth, unemployment, national output, international trade, etc., to its favor, then socialism has started and Pillar #6 is underway.

  Pillar #7—VESTED RIGHTS. It is important for socialism’s success to eliminate any ideas about natural rights, to jeer and ridicule them out of existence. Only government-sanctioned rights may exist in a socialistic world. That way, the ruling body may withhold or redefine rights for the purpose of serving the needs of the selected classes at the expense of the others. Recent examples include the IRS targeting conservative groups to keep liberal factions in power; Argentina and Portugal confiscating billions in private pension funds to pay off government debts; the Islamic Brotherhood killing Christians in a genocide of religious purification; the Department of Justice refusing to prosecute certain criminals; the NSA committing unreasonable searches and seizures of electronic information and communications; and more.

  When a government selectively protects some rights and ignores others, especially property rights, then socialism has started and Pillar #7 is underway.

  Government Force to Control and Change Society

  Socialists can’t agree on what they want. Most of them will defend one or several of the seven pillars as necessary evils to help humanity achieve its greatest capacities. They promise that the suffering and long wait for prosperity will all be worth it—someday.