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Many on the left are in effect saying this.
Poster from ProtestWarrior. 		Introduction - What is the left?

The lesson of the 20th century

The left's historical support for tyranny

The left's historical support for terrorism

The left's modern support for Islamic Fascism

Modern leftists

The Irish left

The mind of the left

Leaving the left

The modern right

The modern left

Introduction - What is the left?

What does "left" mean in the modern world? I propose that the modern left is defined as those who do not support the West against its enemies.

The left has a proud history on some issues (mainly social issues) and a less proud history on others (mainly foreign policy). The left pioneered rights for women, blacks, gays, atheists and other minorities. It opposed religious and sexual censorship, and enabled sexual freedom. This is the greatest part of its heritage. But this is history now. All this is uncontroversial now. Most of the modern right agrees with this basic agenda. Certainly I do. So what defines "the left"?

I would submit that the main thing that defines the left in the modern world is its approach to foreign policy - with the economy and crime being lesser issues that distinguish them. And while I basically agree with the left on civil liberties, on the issues of the economy, crime and foreign policy I think the left is simply wrong. Its ideas will lead to a less, not more, prosperous society. Its ideas will lead to more, not less, crime. And its ideas will lead to a more, not less, dangerous world.

The moderate peacenik leftist's foreign policy is the most dangerous of all his ideas. He does not explictly love tyranny and hate democracy. But he talks as if he does. He is disgusted by the West (especially leadership and front-line countries like America and Israel), does not admire it, mocks its leaders, spits on its military and on any soldier fool enough to die for it, and in general (whether he likes it or not) gives support and encouragement to the barbarians outside the gates who wish to destroy the West and everything we love.

The mind of the left is very familiar to me. He does not really believe in the existence of barbarians outside the gates. He thinks violent communist or third-world or Islamic revolutionaries must have logical reasons for what they do. They must be responding to rational grievances, rather than be driven, say, by demons inside their heads. He believes that if the West - and in particular America - was weaker, it would be a less (rather than infinitely more) violent and dangerous world. In short, he is someone whose foreign policy ideas will lead to the triumph of tyranny abroad and ultimately at home too.

Modern leftists (on foreign policy and economics at least) are the counter-Enlightenment - those who refuse to believe that we basically solved these problems in the 18th century, and instead look to some imaginary utopia that won't actually work. Safe in the bosom of capitalist democracies, they attack their protector, and praise foreign tyrannies, without fear of consequences. But their ideas do have consequences. Western leftist intellectuals have spread endless misery to the third world, leading to the death of millions. And there is always a threat at home too. So far, their ideas have not been successful at home. If they ever were, Israel, and Europe, and the West itself, would fall.

The dream of revolution

If we define the modern left as those who do not support the West against its enemies, then it has a wide range - from violent communist revolutionary totalitarians to peace-lovers who simply abhor war and imperialism and prefer to appease foreign tyrants. What they have in common - the moderates as well as extremists - is a dream of a utopian society that is different in some revolutionary way from modern bourgeois, western, capitalist consumerist democracy. But perhaps the single most important lesson of the past century is that this dream of utopia has been responsible for more deaths and suffering than any other human idea.

The lesson of the 20th century

In the 20th century, 100 million people were killed for the dream of a new revolutionary socialist society, and the killing continues today. 2 billion more lives were ruined through state-caused poverty, famine and emigration. 1 billion more people in the West lived for decades under the threat of nuclear annihilation by Marx's followers. The lesson of the 20th century is that boring bourgeois conservatives are not the mass killers - starry-eyed idealists are.

And yet the western left seems to have learned nothing from the 20th century. Here they are again, those siren voices, unashamed and free of guilt, still insulting the West, still looking for alternatives. If we listen to them, 100 million more will die in the 21st century.

Read the Communism page first. Understand the butchery that has already taken place first, before you follow the siren voices of any new revolutions. Revolutions do not necessarily liberate. Historically, revolutions have enslaved as often as they have liberated.

100 million dead

The Museum of Communism has an excellent FAQ summarising a number of points I've felt for years:

  1. Stalin and Mao are (by a long shot) the 2 greatest killers of all time. Hitler is a far distant 3rd. By any logical definition, Stalin and Mao are the 2 most evil men that have ever existed. In fact, since there is no devil, Stalin and Mao are the 2 most evil beings that have ever existed in the universe.
  2. Some people let Lenin off the hook. Lenin was a mass murderer.
  3. Some people let Trotsky off the hook. As leader of the Red Army in Lenin's war on the peasants, Trotsky was a mass murderer.
  4. Some people think Marxism is "a good idea in theory", and the fact that every communist regime that ever existed has been murderously totalitarian is "a coincidence". This is crap. Totalitarianism is inherent in Marxism.
  5. By any logical definition, socialism is the most evil idea in human history. Its record is more murderous than racism, tribalism, ethnic genocide and fascism, or the most bloodthirsty religion. Socialism has killed 100 million people. And it's still not finished.

Communism is a sister philosophy of Fascism

The Museum of Communism also makes the point that, despite their denials, fascism and communism are pretty much the same thing. Both are totalitarian ideologies with contempt for dissent, debate and elections. In both ideologies, the individual is worthless and exists to serve the state. Indeed, fascism is merely a school of socialism.

The totalitarian left - let's kill 100 million more

The peacenik left - let's make the West weak and defenceless

The moderate, peacenik leftist does not of course want violent communist revolution. He believes the left's 20th century tolerance of communism was a mistake in some way. He thinks the left can reject this, and a "new left" can be formed which is still admirable.

But the consequences of his hostility to America, Israel, Britain, and all front-line western states, will be the same - Western weakness and decline, and the victory of anti-Western totalitarians around the world.

The moderate, peacenik, atheist, gay-friendly leftist does not really support the medieval Islamofascist agenda of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and the Iraqi "resistance". But he acts as if he desires their victory.

The western left's long history of support for tyranny

Fascist and communist tyranny supported by the modern left:

Pre-WW2

WW2

Post-WW2

The left in France - The cradle of late 20th century tyranny

20th century French intellectuals have a lot of innocent third-world blood on their hands.

The end of the Cold War

Modern era

The future

The left's support for terrorism

The left has a long history of supporting third world terrorists such as the Palestinians.

But there is also a left-wing tradition of terrorism itself. This reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s before burning itself out, as western leftists became unwilling to risk their lives for the glorious revolution that looked like it would never come. Few leftists today believe in anything enough to die (and kill) for it, and that is a good thing.

One interesting aspect of modern left-wing terror is how the greatest left-wing terrorist of all, the only man to kill a U.S. President since 1901, has been airbrushed out of history. Sure, we all remember JFK's assassination. But we try to forget that his killer was a pro-Castro communist leftist who killed JFK because of his anti-communism. It had nothing to do with civil rights. Remembering JFK without remembering he was killed by a communist is like remembering 9/11 without remembering it was carried out by Islamists.

The most successful left-wing terrorist ever.
The pro-Soviet, pro-Castro, communist Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated the anti-communist, anti-Castro, U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Probably neither Cuba nor the Soviets were involved. Rather, Oswald was acting on their behalf on his own initiative.
Image from here.

Pre-1960s

The left-wing terrorist Lee Harvey Oswald

The greatest success ever for left-wing terror was the assassination of anti-communist U.S. President John F. Kennedy by the communist Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963.

The 1960s

The 1970s

One of the main legacies of the 1960s was a series of revolutionary Marxist terror groups that took decades to eradicate.

Modern era

The future

The modern left's support for Islamic fascism (separate page)

The mind of the left - The continued appeal of socialism and totalitarianism to the young (separate page)

Leaving the left (separate page)

Modern leftists (separate page)

The Irish left (separate page)
"Communism is not a reaction against the failure of the nineteenth century to organize optimal economic output. It is a reaction against its comparative success."
- John Maynard Keynes, 1934.


"I do think America is a great idea. I think the American revolution is the only one which has lasted, the only one left. It still has a dynamic. It is the only one capable of a universal application."
- Christopher Hitchens with the last word on the end of the murderous utopian century of the left.


"Liberals failed one of the two great moral tests of the twentieth century, [and] they still do not know they failed and have not grappled with the implications of that failure."
- Mona Charen on the Cold War.
Return to Communism page.

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