That Heaven on Earth Called Socialism Is Elitist Totalitarian Violence and Destruction: The Modern Jacobins Promote It through Deception and Fraud in Their Continued War against Capitalism

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”

This revealing statement is attributed to a member of the radical 1960’s Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), in David Horowitz’s pamphlet “Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model” (p. 9).

The saying is and has always been the guiding principle of leftists going back at least to Marx and Lenin, and probably to the Jacobin leader, Robespierre, of the French terror in 1793-94. Lenin, after all, was an admirer of Robespierre, calling him a “Bolshevik before his time.”

Put in cliché terms, the statement says, “The end justifies the means.”

Horowitz elaborates the meaning of the SDSer’s statement: “In other words the cause—whether inner city blacks or women—is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution” (p. 8).

This is the gospel of Saul Alinsky, Marxist teacher of our former president and his secretary of state. Our former president, of course, said on the eve of his election that his goal was to fundamentally transform American society. Alinsky denied that he was a Marxist, but that is also part of his gospel because facts don’t matter in revolutions.*

To elaborate Horowitz’s elaboration of the SDS statement, Marx and Machiavelli were too timid. Revolution is war and in war deception and fraud are justified; lying, cheating, ritual defamation (character assassination), smears, intimidation, threats, psychological terror, sit-ins and other obstructions, and, if you can get away with it, assault, battery, and more serious forms of violence, all should be part of your arsenal.

If one cause is not successful in securing power, immediately promote another one. And then another, and another. Be relentless. The enemy is naïve and will not believe that what they are facing is naked dishonesty. And the enemy is anyone who disagrees with you, especially anyone who promotes the values of Western civilization, namely individual rights, political freedom, and capitalism.

Now this “Alinsky model” of revolution is still consistent with Marx and the communists. David Horowitz has written extensively on the subject, largely because he was a red-diaper baby and himself a communist sympathizer for many years, but has since become a conservative.

Horowitz’s parents were members of the American Communist Party, but never admitted it in public. They preferred to call themselves progressives. The Communist Party explicitly promoted this kind of deception.

The Communist magazine in 1937 urged teachers who were Party members to teach Marxism and Leninism in every class, but never let anyone know that they were communists. Teachers “must take advantage of their positions, without exposing themselves,” and they must “inject [Marxism-Leninism] into their teaching at the least risk of exposure and at the same time conduct struggles around the school in a truly Bolshevik manner” (quoted in Sidney Hook, Out of Step, p. 499, Hook’s italics omitted).

Facts don’t matter because lying and putting on a front are the essential requirements for winning revolutions. In today’s political climate, this means that opponents are viewed literally as evil monsters who must be defeated and destroyed at all cost, which includes making up whatever will sound good and succeed.

This, too, is consistent with the Marxist/Leninist/communist mantra. When it is opportune, leftists, whether old or new, will not hesitate to call themselves advocates of democracy, freedom, reason, and justice, and then denigrate, or rather, smear, their opponents as the opposite, usually in the vilest terms they can find. Today, in particular, they like to call themselves liberals and progressives and their opponents fascists or Nazis.

Of course, by “justice” they mean “social justice,” which is the opposite, and obfuscation, of giving each person his or her due. “Social justice” means taking wealth (legal plunder) from those who have earned it and giving it to those who have not. More generally, it means cutting the “fat cats” down to size, motivated by envy or what Ayn Rand called “hatred of the good for being the good.” (Capitalists are the “fat cats,” whereas wealthy leftist “fat cats,” funders of the activists, are never called out as such or criticized.)

What about the end that justifies the means, the socialism that the revolution aims to establish? A line sometimes heard spoken to socialists and communists is “I admire your end but not your means.” Such a statement, however, is a disastrously unfortunate concession to leftists because it is a compromise of Enlightenment principles. The end of socialism is as despicable, if not more so, than the means claimed necessary to achieve it.

Government ownership of the means of production, that giant post office Lenin wants us all to work for, cannot be achieved without massively initiated coercion that must be run by a just-as-massively coercive and elitist bureaucracy or deep state. Unless propped up with remnants of capitalism (as Lenin did with his New Economic Policy) or from the generosity and imports of capitalist outsiders, socialism must inevitably collapse in ruin (as did the USSR).

Socialism—and all its variants—is an act of violence and destruction, as we have witnessed throughout the twentieth century and today in certain countries, such as Venezuela.

Why don’t leftists see the violence and destruction? Horowitz says they first set up their ideal as a heaven on earth, a Garden of Eden in which the lion lies beside the lamb and horns of plenty are given to everyone. Then, they ignore all consequences of socialism when put into practice and blame the violence and destruction on depraved dictators who have usurped the leftists’ rightful power and destroyed their heavens on earth.

The fantasy projection of a socialist state, allegedly creating a “New Man” or “New Woman,” was built on the principle of self-sacrifice that today and in the recent past has implemented the destruction of individual and private property rights on a scale never before seen. It has created nothing but sacrificial lambs, millions of which have been slaughtered on the altar of the elitist beasts—“lion” is too benign a word—of the “collective good” and “revolution.” 

Facts are facts, and delusions of grandeur, like heavens on earth and Gardens of Eden, are just that, delusions.

More likely, they are rationalizations for highly destructive and viciously heinous ends, as well as viciously heinous means.

No amount of “virtue signaling” can justify dishonest, coercive methods of establishing allegedly noble—though actually despicable—ends.

Robespierre, interestingly, was apparently the first virtue signaler. “Terror,” he said, “is only justice prompt, severe and inflexible . . . an emanation of virtue.”

Terror as the implementation of virtue? Was Robespierre well intended and noble, and did his end justify his means?


* Alinsky’s world is “corrupt and bloody” (p. 24), divided into the “Haves” and “Have-Nots.” Machiavelli’s The Prince was a guide to the Haves on how to keep power, whereas Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals is a guide to the Have-Nots on how to take power away from the Haves (p. 3). His world is a Hobbesian war where “the end justifies almost any means,” (p. 29) because morality is time and situation bound, that is, subjective. Nevertheless, to “clothe” methods and arguments “with moral garments” is one of his rules (p. 36).


Postscript. David Horowitz is not one to kowtow to the communist/fascist left. He speaks with courage and vigor. For example, “when rioters and ‘protesters’ defend criminals and attack the police it is not a protest. It is an attack.” In other words, the acts are criminal and the criminals should be arrested. On the recent “show trial” of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominee for the Supreme Court, Horowitz calls it “the equivalent of a modern-day lynching.” And on the howling (and screeching) of today’s toxically hostile feminists, he says, we need to “grant women true equality by confronting their lies and their reckless accusations with the same candor and frankness we would if they were coming out of the mouths of men.” Because: “despite half a century of women’s ‘liberation’ and ‘hear me roar’ proclamations the feminist attitude towards women is still Victorian. Women are fragile violets who wilt before the raised voices and impassioned claims of male innocence.” (Italics added.)

In Defense of the Religious, Or: Why the Left Should Stop Rubbing the Devouts’ Noses In It

As a child I witnessed our family cat having his nose forcibly introduced to something in the house that he shouldn’t have deposited. Then, he was summarily tossed outside.

It was not a pretty picture.

The communist/fascist Left today rejoices at doing something similar to anyone who is religious, especially those who are politically conservative Christians and Jews. The Left revels in hurling ad baculum shouts of rage, hostility, and aggression, which Laird Wilcox has so aptly identified as “ritual defamation.”

And, to continue the analogy of “tossing outside,” leftists try to get anyone who challenges them, or disagrees with their mantra, silenced or fired—for example, YouTube’s restricting of Prager University’s five-minute videos for violating “community guidelines” and the sacking of political commentators Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, plus several others.*

Full disclosure before continuing: I am an atheist and have been since I was sixteen. Around that time, in 1963, I watched a television show called “The Defenders,” starring E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed, father-son attorneys who represented an atheist high school teacher. I did not know the meaning of the word “atheism,” so I had to look it up. Hmm, I said to myself, that sounds interesting! Soon after, I read Ayn Rand, majored in philosophy in undergraduate school, and never looked back.

Be that as it may, dear leftists, I did attend a Protestant church and Sunday school for those first sixteen years—and our culture is decidedly Judeo-Christian and has been for at least five thousand years, give or take several centuries or millennia. Our cultural history is part of our cultural identity. It cannot be denied out of existence.

I do disagree with a number of religious issues, including the not insignificant one about the existence of a god. I also disagree with the concept of sin, the emphasis on self-sacrifice, and abortion. (See the second footnote in my earlier post about the insincerity of both pro- and anti-abortionists and what both should be fighting for.)

On the positive side, I relish watching Prager University’s five-minute videos, which are highly polished and highly essentialized, often with strong messages defending free speech and free markets. I don’t agree with all of them—this usually includes those of founder Dennis Prager, himself a Jewish conservative and biblical scholar. His videos usually concentrate on religion and the assumption that morality can only come from God. Socrates, Ayn Rand, and many other philosophers throughout history disagree.

Nonetheless, Prager’s little book (110 pages, with study questions) on The Ten Commandments is illuminating. The general (and, to me, surprising) thrust of Prager’s commentary is that the commandments are what have driven the development of civilization and are therefore necessary for its continuation.**

The word “commandment” in Hebrew, Prager points out, is correctly translated as “statement,” thus the Ten Commandments should be referred to as the Ten Statements. If true, this significantly demotes the deontological, duty-based interpretations of the Judeo-Christian ethics.

Other insights: the sixth commandment, “You shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13), as worded in my 1953 Revised Standard Version of the King James translation, should be “Do not murder.” That’s because the word “kill” in 1610 also meant “murder.” If the commandment literally meant “kill,” Prager emphasizes, we would all have to be vegetarians.

The tenth commandment, “do not covet,” says Prager, is the only one that “legislates thought,” as opposed to behavior. And this is significant, he continues, because it underlies and motivates the previous four—murder, adultery, stealing, and perjury. The thief’s coveting of my wallet or computer eventually causes him to help himself to both.

Equally illuminating is the book Killing Jesus by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The two Catholic writers have convinced me that Jesus, a middle easterner, did not look like those white Anglo-Saxon Protestant movie actors of the 1950s!

The book is about the historical Jesus with fascinating detail, but not overly detailed like many scholarly histories. Indeed, I would describe all of the books in the authors’ Killing Series as masterpieces of essentialization. They are page-turners.

The most significant new detail, to me, is the shape of the Roman cross. It was a capital “T,” with no ascender extending above the horizontal crossbeam. The vertical beam was left permanently in the ground, so the crossbeam and prisoner had to be lifted up to be put into position.

What Jesus and other prisoners carried to the killing ground was the horizontal beam. And that would be after a vicious whipping by a couple of Roman soldiers, who were watched carefully by their superior officer to ensure that they gave no leniency, nor did they kill the prisoners. This last would deprive the prisoners of their ultimate humiliation by crucifixion.

As a historical portrayal, the authors handle Jesus’ alleged miracles by writing “people say” or “it was said” that such and such occurred.

A considerable part of the book portrays Jesus’ integrity and independence against the Pharisees, Temple elders, and others who felt threatened by him. The Pharisees were experts on the 613 commandments or laws of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament, which also include the more familiar ten). The Pharisees repeatedly tried to trap Jesus so they could have him arrested and executed.

Jesus frequently responded to the entrapment schemes with parables that puzzled his tormentors, or he answered their questions with his own question. The latter part of the book becomes something of a thriller with the various parties to his demise struggling to come up with a justification for his execution.

Pontius Pilate, for example, could not go against Jewish law to order a crucifixion, unless Jesus posed a clear threat to Rome. The threat to Rome Jesus finally admitted to was that he was king of the Jews, therefore a sovereign. To Pilate, though, Jesus was essentially still a preacher, so Pilate’s solution was to offer a choice to the Temple parishioners, who in fact were shills of the elders and Pharisees. They, of course, chose Barabbas; Jesus was sent to his death.

So . . . communist/fascist, rabid leftists, you hate religious people so much that you cannot find anything of value in their cultural heritage, including the above, which, of course, is also your heritage? You hate them so much that you must treat them like dehumanized scum??

Get a life, leftists. Or, rather, get some ideas, based on reason, logic, and objective reality that can be discussed in rational discourse.

Your envy, cynicism, and malevolence are defeating you. What’s that Christian virtue? Ah, pity!

I’m starting to pity you.

I think I’ll go have a discussion about the Ten Commandments and Jesus with a devout Christian or Jew.


* Unfortunately, because of today’s epistemological chaos, Prager University is mistakenly calling their treatment by Google, owner of YouTube, “censorship,” which it is not. Censorship is an act only performed by the government. . . unless Google has been blessed with crony governmental handouts and other favoritisms, as in the “renewable” energy and electric car industries. If so, censorship would be the appropriate term. Otherwise, I have to acknowledge that Google seems to be exercising its property rights.

** “The Ten Commandments,” says Prager, “are the greatest list of instructions ever devised for creating a good society” (p. 79). And a good society that the commandments establish, Prager says earlier, is a free society (p. 6).