Not A Fan of Communism

I spent the first several years of my adult life training to go to war against communists.  Communism is a foul philosophy directly responsible for the lives of over 100 million people in the last century; by contrast, the Nazis and their relatively paltry 6 million Jews seem like pikers compared to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the gang.

Honestly, I think there are a few reasons communism appeals to certain people, and not just the stupid.  Even in theory, communism just can't work, as it doesn't comport with human nature.  In practice, though--in practice, it works even worse than it does in theory.  People who claim to support communism remind me vaguely of a quote attributed to George Orwell, "The notion that you can somehow defeat violence by submitting to it is simply a flight from fact. As I have said, it is only possible to people who have money and guns between themselves and reality."  Liking communism in theory is a lot different from having to live under it.  I've never met a person who lived under communism who didn't say it was horrible, who didn't think our system was obviously superior in every way. Here's one:

A recent poll found that fifty percent of millennials say they would rather live in a communist or socialist country than in a capitalist democracy. These numbers can’t be laughed off -- they should frighten you. Maybe they don’t know what communism means.

I do. I lived in Communist Poland.

Perhaps those fifty percent of millennials were not properly taught about communism in school. That’s too bad, and dangerous. So here are some examples for those misguided millennials to ponder, all of which I experienced in communist Poland.

Go read the whole thing.  And add secret police to the story.