The Moral Liberal with Steve Farrell
A cynical conservative magazine I used to subscribe to did the most irritating thing come every Christmas. They would go out of their way to destroy – no, annihilate – my family’s and perhaps your family’s favorite Christmas story, Charles Dickens’ classic work, “A Christmas Carol.”
When Dickens’ Scrooge dramatically burst upon the scene for his annual television debut, reminding us – with a marvelous degree of animation – of the worst and the best qualities present in mankind, this “conservative” magazine’s annual response was a Ronald Reagan-like “There you go again!” – but without the humor and the lightheartedness of Reagan.
Their excuse? Charles Dickens, the author of that wonderful tale, was a socialist! For heaven’s sake, a socialist! I suppose if one’s life rap sheet includes the fact that one is a socialist or a Democrat, then that individual is incapable of having a heart, incapable of receiving inspiration in his work – and if at any time it appears that he did receive inspiration, it must be immediately and forever discredited, as a fluke or a conspiratorial tactic.
I admit, I abhor socialism. And I readily admit that a few of them, and I do mean a few, are smoke-filled-back-room plotters (I’ve known some capitalists who fit the same description), but I do NOT hate socialists. Nor do I think that a majority of those citizens who foolishly fall for socialism’s wolf in sheep’s clothing ploys are themselves evil, plotting, America haters.
No! Most all of them are like you and me. They are filled with feelings, some of them good and some of them bad, about life, about politics, and about compassion. They, thanks to their education or other limitations, have errors in their thinking and abilities. Like every other human being, they make mistakes and they feel bad about them; they have triumphs and they feel good them. They also know a little bit about repentance and, hopefully, a little bit about redemption.
Dickens, who had much to justifiably protest in 19th century class-oriented “capitalist” England, was no Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, or Joseph Stalin. He was playing no trick in his protest, nor was there even a hint of socialism in his “Christmas Carol” message.
Rather, the fare he served up was Christian to the core – a message every man, woman and child, Christian or not, Democrat or Republican, who has heard it should remember fondly as being responsible for one of those few moments in life when a fire is lit in the heart, when animosities and pride are ashamedly pricked, stripped naked and gladly redressed, even if only for an hour, by a spirit of repentance and brotherhood.
Think about it. It was Christ’s two-part message brought to life as never before: It is harder for a rich man to enter into heaven as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and with God, nothing is impossible.
The former Scrooge – “A tight-fisted hand at the grindstone … squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, covetous, old sinner. Hard and as sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; [whose] cold within him froze his own features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, [and] his thin lips blue” – that Scrooge was the rich man who couldn’t be saved.
The latter Scrooge – a man who was “as light as a feather … as happy as an angel … as merry as a schoolboy … as giddy as a drunken man … who went to church … walked about the streets … patted children on the head … [and] questioned beggars” – that Scrooge was proof that with God nothing is impossible.
Dickens’ message, then, was a message of hope for all those capitalists out there who are every bit as wicked as the former Scrooge, that they can make their money and still do good, if they will repent, seek forgiveness, and use their money to bless their fellow men.
What in the world is wrong with that message? And did any of these fussbudgets ever notice the key element in Scrooge’s transformation? It was from within. It was a change of heart, it was religiously oriented, and the service he gave from that point forward was voluntary, not a result of governmental coercion.
This Christmas season we can all benefit from a review of Dickens’ memorable characterization of one Ebenezer Scrooge. He represents the worst and the best in all of us. If we let the latter Scrooge into our hearts, perhaps it can be said of us, too, that we became “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew,” and that “if any man [or woman] alive possessed the knowledge” of “how to keep Christmas well,” it was us!
Steve Farrell is one of the original pundits at Silver Eddy Award Winner, NewsMax.com (1999-2008), associate professor of political economy at George Wythe University, the author of the highly praised inspirational novel “Dark Rose,” and editor in chief of The Moral Liberal.
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Santa Claus is a socialist.
Well, perhaps Ben. But there is a very distinct line between the wealth redistribution of the Judeo-Christianity ethic and the socialist perspective, the former is a free will offering the latter compelled, the former strengthens the bonds of love between giver and receiver, the latter creates a Scrooge like resentment such as: “are there no work houses, no prisons …” that they can go to, for my taxes pay for these things; while simultaneously begetting a sense of entitlement and covetousness, or the sin of “pride looking up” among receivers. The former leaves man free, the other in time enslaves him. My vote is for Santa over Marx.
I don’t think socialized health insurance is going to enslave anyone. But the real problem in our country is corporatism, which seems to be supported by both parties.
Corporatism: I haven’t heard that term for a while. Some also call it state monopoly capitalism. Both are a nicer name for fascism; and frankly, the more the two (the state and the corporation) are welded the less likely it will be that the corporation is the shot caller if it still is. If we want to take Lenin’s black book definition of the ism’s I think we see through them all as this: “it’s all about power.” Or whatever works at the moment to move the revolution forward. Whether the corporation is in charge or being exploited is of little difference in the effects, and in the final end.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that both parties are ultimately in on this, though at least for the moment the national Republicans are opposed for strategic (the 2010 elections) reasons. I truly do not believe that on the National level any of these Republicans are very different from their Democratic Party foes, I mean in fine print legislation, not in the propaganda they push on us.
On the other hand I do believe it socialism is enslaving and that fully socializing medicine is a big step toward interfering in the most private of decisions. The fact that we are already far down that road isn’t the point for those who are trying to preserve the Constitution, they are rather excited that finally an awakening has come and hope that this will go far beyond rejecting national healthcare but rolling back the entire state influence on this and other industries.
Another point to consider, and maybe you will agree, I was reading something about 18th and early 19th Century socialist experiments in America, the reviewer observed that what success they had (which wasn’t much) had much to do with the fact that it was surrounded by a prosperous capitalist system. I’ve argued this for some time about let’s say Switzerland that has quite a bit of capitalist money over the years stored in its banks — and how many socialist states have stayed afloat with American grants, investments, loans, and technology? But what happens when America finally goes the distance, what happens to those countries, and to what free and prosperous nation will we lean on? This is, I believe, a legitimate concern. Some used to say that when the lights go out in America the lights will go out on the world. I tend to believe that.
Ben, have a happy New Year and thank you for your thought provoking comments!
I ought to add what Lenin in his famous essay on Internationalism had to say, and that was his prediction for a worldwide fascist styled government (which consistent with your corporatism) would emerge. This also goes by a few other names like the Third Way, Futurism, Progressivism, Compassionate Conservatism, Centre-Right Government, Centre-Left Government, whatever, even Keynes called for this model in his two-part “Death of Laisezz-Faire” pieces e.g. public-private partnerships and the whole nine yards of what Clinton, Gore, Blaire, Gingrich, Toffler, Bush, etc., have been pushing for, and what was the model in Perestroika (at least the one that I read in Gorbachev’s book) that was called for.
Rambling …. Lenin’s prediction: The establishment of a worldwide fascist styled government that would on a sudden, a dime, a snap of the fingers turn to full blown communism. Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen; and while I think that not every one involved (in fact very few) really have this sort of a thing in mind, such people really do get into power, and really do have such plans. I’m less concerned about how I will prosper or not under socialism (which is a grave problem as well) as I am concerned about centralized power structures — it is in the latter that liberty is all the more easily crushed. You mentioned in one of your notes about Republicans legislating from the bench, and that is a great point. For those who trust the Republicans to bring them Constitutional government they are so wrong for that trust. They establish abuse of power precedents that are sometimes used at first in what seem to be positive ways, but the violation of principle, once established, only takes an activist to take that same power in a radically more abusive direction.