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This article is an opinion piece from Bill Lockwood. Catch American Liberty with Bill Lockwood weekly at 11 a.m. Saturdays on NewsTalk 1290.

The "bare bones" definition of socialism is normally thought to be a broad category of economic or political theories advocating collective control over ownership of means of production. The Soviet Union confiscated all factories, farms, and the machinery of production. This general concept, however, falls far short of what socialism has come to encompass.

Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), the Austrian-British economist explains that "socialism has evolved in the twentiethcentury to mean income redistribution in pursuit of 'equality,' not through government ownership of means of production but through institutions of the welfare state and the 'progressive' income tax. The means may have changed, but the ostensible end equality remained the same."

For example, if socialist Bernie Sanders wanted to be entirely truthful about healthcare, he would not say that government can offer citizens anything for free, but that he wants health care to become a government-run monopoly financed entirely by taxes.

Max Eastman

Max Eastman (1883-1969) was a prominent editor, political activist and "prominent radical" who, like many in President Woodrow Wilson's "progressive" America, became infatuated with Marxism. Eastman traveled to the Soviet Union to learn firsthand how to be a good socialist and became friends with Leon Trotsky.

Years later, when Eastman became convinced that socialism is void of validity, he reflected upon his time as a Marxist in his book "Reflections on the Failure of Socialism."

I sadly regret the precious twenty years I spent muddling and messing around with this idea," Eastman wrote," which with enough mental clarity and moral force I might have seen through when I went to Russia in 1922."

Would that more progressives could open their minds to come to that obvious conclusion. Eastman reflected in his book "Marxism Is It Science?"

"Marxists profess to reject religion in favor of science, but they cherish a belief that the external universe is evolving with reliable, if not divine, necessity in exactly the direction in which they want it to go," Eastman wrote. "They do not conceive themselves as struggling to build the communist society in a world which is of its own nature indifferent to them. They conceive themselves as traveling toward that society in a world which is like a moving-stairway, but walking in the wrong direction. This is not a scientific, but in the most technical sense, a religious conception of the world."

Eastman knew whereof he spoke.

When its doctrines are examined, socialism more closely resembles a religious concept than anything else. The only difference between socialism and Christianity is that the latter is grounded upon historical fact while socialistic faith is founded upon unproven assumptions. Communism particularly is a philosophy of faith in the dialectic the zig-zagging of history onward and upward to a more perfect society.

Dr. James D. Bales was an authority on communism/socialism who taught at Harding University in Arkansas. He authored more than seventy scholarly works, including dozens on socialism, and lectured both in America and foreign countries on the dangers of communism.

Communists represent the antithesis which the dialectic has decreed will destroy us, the thesis. It is this faith, Bales said, which helps keep the rank and file members at their tasks when the going is difficult.

This is also, we might add, why myriads of collegiate students, trained by their Neo-Marxist professors, continue to march fanatically to the drumbeat of socialism.

Norman Thomas

Because of the religious nature of socialism, it was a simple matter for Norman Thomas (1884-1968), to trade his ministerial garbs and Presbyterian beliefs for a heaven-on-earth utopia strategy of socialism. He became known as "Mr. Socialist" in America.

Thomas, in turn, was heavily influenced by the nineteenth-century social gospel theology developed by Walter Rauschenbusch. Rauschenbusch was himself a Baptist preacher of the nineteenthcentury who mixed a version of modernistic "Christianity" together with Marxism to craft what became known as the "social gospel."

The key to Rauschenbuschs theology was his concept of the Kingdom of God. To him, this Kingdom was not located in another place called heaven or in a future millennium, but could best be described in modern terms as a level of consciousness in which one recognized the immanence of God in human life and the interconnected, interacting, interdependent nature of the entire human species.

So writes Dr. Elizabeth Balanoff, professor of history at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, in her paper, "Norman Thomas: Socialism and the Social Gospel."

"Walter Rauschenbusch was convinced that this was the original Christian vision which had been distorted and lost with time," Balanoff wrote, "and that it was possible to regain it."

Because of the religious nature of socialism, H.G. Wells stated: "Socialism is to me a very great thing indeed, the form and substance of my ideal life and all the religion I possess." Mr. Edmund Optiz, writing in "Foundation for Economic Education, published in 1969, observed that, "as a religion, socialism promised a terrestrial paradise, a heaven on earth." This is why Optiz called socialism "a fanatic faith."

For this reason the devotees of socialism in America, whose number continues to grow through colleges and universities, continue to trumpet what the glories of socialism will do in America but this is blind faith.

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Outlining the Dawn of Socialism 'Religion' - Newstalk1290

In January last year, a Chinese construction porter in Hubei called Jiang Tianlu was taking his seven-year-old daughter to school when police appeared, seized him and locked him up in a local psychiatric hospital. For Mr Jiang, the ordeal was terrifying, but it wasnt new. It was his fifth or sixth time he has lost count. This had become the authorities way of dealing with his efforts to get justice for his father, who was beaten to death by a well-connected local official in 2004. Mr Jiangs repeated letters and visits to petition the government in Beijing had annoyed the wrong people.

In a report released this week by the NGO Safeguard Defenders, Mr Jiang recounts his treatment during previous hospital stays: he was tied to a bed, beaten around the head, forced to take drugs, subjected to electroshock therapy and humiliated by guards. All of this took place in the name of treatment for his mental health illness. His true illness, of course, is not psychological. The real sickness is the Chinese Communist Party and the regime it runs.

Mr Jiangs case is just one of 99 examined by Safeguard Defenders these are the only ones they could find public information on but the cases span the length and breadth of China, suggesting the practice is widespread. All of them involve innocent citizens thrown into psychiatric wards against their will and detained for anything from a few days to more than 15 years. Most recounted being tied down to their bed for hours, some left to lie in their own faeces for so long that their skin ulcerated, many were beaten, given forcible injections or drugs or electroshock treatment with no anaesthetic.

What were their crimes? Some were democracy protesters or dissidents, like Dong Yaoqiong or Ink Girl, as shes known, a real estate agent who was locked up in a hospital after streaming footage of herself throwing ink on a picture of Xi Jinping. She came out suffering from a dementia-like condition (in her 30s), incontinence and night terrors.

For the most part, though, the criminally insane locked up in this way are not even politically active dissidents, as such. They are petitioners like Mr Jiang, often among Chinas poorest and least educated citizens, who have attracted punishment simply for trying to get restitution for specific grievances.

The petitioning system has a very long history in China. For centuries, it was one of the few ways ordinary people had of circumventing pernicious local officials and appealing to an imperial authority for justice when it worked, that is. It continued under communism, when people began writing letters to Chairman Mao instead. But petitioners have always run a risk by taking on local vested interests and challenging corrupt officials. They have little protection when the police come to take revenge.

Officially, using psychiatric wards as detention and torture centres is against Chinese law, let alone a myriad of international rules and norms, but the law is a fickle thing in China. Aside from the policy aim of stability maintenance, a priority that is thought to cost the government $217billion per year more than the military budget the practice can be a money-spinner for the hospitals or doctors who collude in it. Occasionally, its even used by families who want to disappear an inconvenient member.

Getting someone sectioned is, of course, just one way of making them go away in China. There are other extra-judicial regimes, documented by Safeguard Defenders among others, like the liuzhi prison system run directly by the CCP or the residential surveillance at a designated location (secret jail) system. These are in addition to the regular justice system, where conviction rates recently reached 99.97 per cent, the highest since public records began in 1980. But of course, as Xi expands his campaign for total control of Chinas 1.4 billion people, public records of such policies are getting harder to find. Which is why we ought to bear witness while we can.

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China's real sickness isn't its dissidents, but the Chinese Communist Party - The Telegraph

Theres just no upside to communism. Even when they can force an entire country to bend to their will and mass any and all resources at their disposal, they all still come up short. Not just a little short, either. Way short.

From the end of World War II through the end of the Cold War, communism was always trying to keep up with the capitalist western countries. In order to stay even slightly competitive, the Soviet Union had to steal the best technology, it couldnt develop any of it on their own.

The Soviets stole nuclear weapons and advanced jet engines from the West, giving the communists a chance against the United States, NATO, and other western armies for centuries to come. With all that in mind, one might be tempted to think that the worst among the stolen technologies would be nuclear weapons. But that person would be wrong.

Arguably the biggest disaster for American and western military secrets didnt come in the form of information from a spy, electronic eavesdropping, or even the outright theft of the tech. In some ways, one could say the United States just gave it away.

Americas greatest Cold War intelligence loss was the Sidewinder air-to-air missile and the communists got it because of one faulty missile.

On September 28, 1958, the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang was fighting for its life against a Chinese invasion. The communists in mainland China were enjoying supremacy in the air, as the advanced, Soviet-built MiG-17 made its first combat appearance.

The Chinese communist MiG-17 was so far advanced over the F-86 Sabres flown by the nationalist Taiwanese, the communists were able to essentially choose when and where they would engage and for how long. Taiwans air forces were taking a beating. Then, Taiwan invoked its defense treaty with the United States.

President Eisenhower not only ordered the U.S. Navy to protect the islands supply lines, he authorized Operation Black Magic, the strategic retrofitting of Taiwans fighter aircraft. They were going to be specially-modified to carry the United States small but mighty new weapon: the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile.

The Sidewinder was (and is) one of the most stunningly capable missiles ever built by anyone anywhere. Since the Navy introduced the weapon in 1956, it has been adopted by the Air Force, then much of the rest of the modern world. Even today, variants of the AIM-9 are still in use all over the world.

So are rip-offs of the same future technology.

Sidewinders are cheap, effective, and are also the most successful missile ever developed with more than 270 air-to-air kills in its operational history. One of those kills should have been a Chinese Peoples Liberation Army Air Force MIG-17 in the skies over the Strait of Taiwan on September 28, 1958, but it wasnt to be.

One nationalist Sidewinder missile hit a Chinese communist MiG-17 over the strait, but the missile didnt explode on impact. Instead it embedded itself into the aircraft, which limped home with a missile in its belly.

Eventually, the communists reverse-engineered the brilliant, easily produced weapon, creating the Soviet K-13 weapon. Everything about the original K-13 missiles were stolen and within three years, the Soviets were using NATOs own new missile against them.

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The best Cold War communist military technology was all stolen from the West - We Are The Mighty

Political deadlock is not confined to the election of the President, Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament and the formation of the government. It is also expressed in the manifestations of the deep crisis of the political process that is based on this system, which is breeding failure and corruption.

The statement added that "the ongoing struggle for power, among the ruling forces, does not represent a struggle over projects for state-building, but rather an extension of the fighting over sharing wealth and influence."

It continued: "In this sense, any new government formed according to the power-sharing quota approach will be doomed to failure, whoever is assigned to head it. Such a government will not differ, in essence, from any governments formed on the basis of ethno-sectarian power-sharing in the past years."

It warned that the insistence on continuing this approach will only deepen the crisis and open the way to dangerous paths that threaten the constitutional and democratic construction of the state and civil peace.

The partys statement also said: Based on our concern for consolidating peaceful, democratic political action, we call for the organisation of fair and honest early elections that express the true will of the Iraqis, to be organised by a truly independent interim government that enjoys national acceptance."

It added, "At this sensitive juncture, we reaffirm our democratic, patriotic, political project, which calls for Comprehensive Change to build a democratic civil state on the basis of citizenship and social justice.. a change to achieve the aspirations of our people for a free and dignified life."

"Therefore, all democratic civil forces and personalities, and the patriotic forces of change, who have not been involved in the crises, are called upon to unify efforts and organize their ranks to create a national balance of forces that provides a political alternative to the ethno-sectarian power-sharing system. This alternative has a real vision and opens up prospects towards building a state of citizenship and social justice.

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Iraq Crisis: Communist Party calls for early elections organised by an independent interim government - In Defense of Communism

Two events separated by a mere six months in 1949 the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China by the Chinese Communist Party shaped the world as we know it today.

During the Cold War, NATO was a key stabilizing force in Europe and a bulwark against communism. And, as weve seen recently, the threat of land wars in Europe did not end with the fall of the Soviet Union. NATO remains a vital source of stability and security on the European continent.

The same cannot be said of the CCP, which is playing a zero-sum game that requires America and its allies to fade away. In recent decades, the CCP has taken steps to make that happen, methodically undermining our economic strength by stealing critical technology, manufacturing capacity, and jobs from America and our allies.

In Beijing, we face an adversary with not only a formidable military and growing nuclear arsenal but also control of critical supply chains and an influence over global markets the old Soviet Union never enjoyed. Great power competition between the U.S. and China is the single most consequential contest of the 21st century. If we lose, it will usher in a dark age of exploitation, conquest, and totalitarianism and Americans way of life will be much worse than it is today.

Those are the stakes, and they must form the lens through which we view every policy decision we make, both domestic and foreign including whether to allow Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

Fortunately, Finland and Sweden are strong, stable countries with a long history of security cooperation with NATO allies. They are committed to national defense and would more than live up to their NATO obligations. Finland already spends more than the required 2% of gross domestic product on its military, and Sweden is on a fast track to do the same. Both nations require military service of their citizens.

Simply put, NATO would be stronger with Finland and Sweden. And while President Joe Bidens record is proof that weakness invites aggression and breeds chaos, the converse is also true. As Ronald Reagan would say, peace comes through strength.

Some in Washington believe the only way to show strength in the face of Putins aggression is to double down on Americas security commitments in Europe. More troops. More equipment. More time. In fact, that seems to be Bidens approach as he continues to deploy military personnel to the region.

That is a mistake. Not only does it keep much-needed resources from the Indo-Pacific, it also ignores the military capability and economic resources of our European allies, both of which increase significantly if Finland and Sweden join NATO.

Americas resources are not endless, and our leaders need to be realistic and prioritize the greatest global threat facing our nation. Beijings days of quietly amassing economic power and biding its time are over. Under General Secretary Xi Jinping, the CCP is increasingly assertive and militarily aggressive, bullying U.S. allies and openly provoking its neighbors.

Thats why we need more troops, more ships and aircraft, and more funding for our presence in the Indo-Pacific. Thats why we need to encourage and enhance our relationships with our allies and partners in Beijings crosshairs, including those in the Western Hemisphere, such as Brazil and Panama. The CCP has been preparing to overturn American dominance for decades. We must give China our full attention if were going to defeat Xis bid for dominance.

Its been 73 years since NATO and Communist China came into existence. During that time, one has been a source of security and stability, bringing relative peace and prosperity to the world. The other has become Americas greatest foreign adversary.

A strong and unified NATO is a powerful asset in the contest with Beijing. When Finland and Sweden join the alliances ranks and the free peoples of Europe become stronger than ever, more U.S. resources will be available to focus on countering Communist China. If we do not rise to the challenge, it will be too late, and Americans will be held hostage by a totalitarian regime half a world away.

Marco Rubio is a U.S. senator for Florida and the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as a ranking member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

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A stronger NATO allows America to focus on the threat of Communist China - Washington Examiner