“As people scramble to explain the sudden resurgence of socialism not only on America’s college campuses but also in the corridors of political power, it is worth noting the concomitant resurgence of anti-Semitism in those redoubts. The coincidence is not, as the Marxists like to say, an accident. The truth is that unfettered socialism, though based primarily on a demand for the abolition of private property, always comes riding on a current of anti-Semitism.”
The efflorescence of anti-Semitism is always a bad sign in a culture, not least because it harbingers a spirit of thuggish intolerance and breakdown of faith in society’s mediating civil institutions. The old saw of being ‘anti-Israel, not anti-Jew’ does not quite ring true here, as the lefties’ language echoes the anti-Semitic tropes of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
-Roger Simon
“breakdown of faith in society’s mediating civil institutions“. No wonder that it is happening. As I have said, over and over through the ‘Grok years, our Founders envisioned a limited government but a wide expansive Civil Society separating and protecting Individuals from said Government. However, the Progressive movement, starting with our first openly Constitution hating President (Woodrow Wilson), began the crowding out of much of that Civil Society’s institutions and groups ramping up during the FDR era and taking a huge body blow during the LBJ Presidency. Sure, they still exist, but how many have been co-opted, either in part or in whole, by Government? Just look at how many depend, either in part or in whole, grants or funding by Government instead of from Civil Society.
Down in numbers, influence corrupted – how can they serve their original purposes? We listen to the Left saying that “Charities cannot replace Government assistance”; well of course they can’t, at least now. Why? Too many, even if silent on the topic, consider themselves PART of Government.
(H/T: Spectator USA)
