I’ve been in a funk waiting for Election Day to get here so I’d know just how bad it’s going to be, right? Well, my funk got even better when a series of headlines caught my eye – in general, as put by one website: “Millenials Pretty Cool with Socialism.”
Oh, of course! Raised by draft-card burning, long-haired Boomers, swaddled in Red diapers? Whodathunkit? Never mind that even well-raised, patriotic millenials have been hit pretty hard by the Great Recession. No matter your upbringing, if you can’t find a job of any kind at any pay, free stuff has a certain appeal, eh? Feel the Bern!
These articles started popping up after the release of a survey from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, their “Annual report on US attitudes toward Socialism.” This is the first annual survey of its kind and an interesting read overall, but the media take-away was that the youngest (age 16-20) millenials are more willing to vote for a socialist (45 percent) or communist (21 percent) than other “generations.”
Does that matter? Yes. The millenial cohort is now 15 to 35 years old, numbering 70 million according to the Wall Street Journal – these voters and their ideology will be around for a long time.
The survey found 42 percent of millennials were “unfamiliar” with Mao Zedong, aka Mao Tse-Tung aka Chairman Mao. Seriously? Millions of Americans have no idea who wrote the Little Red Book and, among other things orchestrated the disastrous, murderous mid-1960s Cultural Revolution – an intellectual cleansing that actually set back China decades at best? No clue of the dictator responsible for killing 65 million?
Even more mind-blowing, of those “familiar” with the Chairman, 18 percent rated him favorably. Still? Are there that many morons in America?
There’s more – 40 percent didn’t know who Che Guevara was. Of the 60 percent who did, 37 percent rated him favorably. You know, the guy on the T-shirt, who just so happened to run Castro’s secret police? Bored with extrajudicial executions, Che later ran off to try to start a revolution in Bolivia. Too bad for him it didn’t work out.
But it’s not just the “millennials.” Overall, across all age groups, survey respondents actually believe Adolf Hitler killed more innocents than Joseph Stalin. Thirty-two percent got that wrong. And there’s more – fully 26 percent of respondents (millennials, 32 percent) believe George W. Bush killed more innocents than Uncle Joe.
The truth? Adolf, 6 million, just counting Jews. Joe, 20 to 40 million plus. Dubya? A million, but only, only, only if you believe the looniest Code Pinkers.
The survey finding that hit hardest was that 64 percent agreed with “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” Who said that, kids? Go to my column on the Beacon website and put your answer with your name in the comments section, if you dare.
Pair that with 68 percent who agreed “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” Hmmm, who do you think said that? And no cheating with Google.
Personally, I’d love to know the percentage of geniuses who agreed with BOTH those statements – at least 14 percent willing to agree with something because it sounds cool.
Shameful.
It is said that those who ignore, or are ignorant of, history are doomed to repeat it. The hardest history there is to ignore is that which you experience, and the millennials are too young for that. The task then becomes to teach the children well, but that’s not happening.
How else could it be possible for 91 percent of the Depression generation to feel Communism is “still a problem in the world today,” even 80 percent of beatnik Boomers, but only 55 percent of millennials?
These are young Americans, fresh out of our “educational system,” ignorant about something that really matters in the real world: The more control any government has over the lives of its citizens, the more totalitarian the society. The more totalitarian, the more likely there will be slaughter.