Dialogues with Socialists: Red Fiction, part 2

By Zach Foster

An analysis of Dialogues with Socialists: Jesus Christ and Karl Marx

Continued from Part 1

As soon as I asked what the Communist revolution would do with bigots once it came to power (a jab to expose the bigotry of Marxism), Soviet immediately dodged any and all moral accountability by claiming that the “majority vote decides what to do with these people, not ‘my government.’”  The majority vote would be that of the workers’ councils or soviets, which are the governing bodies under a Marxian system.  Realistically, it truly is Soviet’s government that would decide what to do with bigots.  Soviet is simply mistaking government for Statehood.

After giving a less-than satisfactory answer in which any moral accountability is dodged, Soviet turns the issue back to racism, while avoiding any mention of Ron Paul.  The new race card being played is Islamophobia.  “…Islamophobia and xenophobia have once again become very real and all inclusive in our society which denotes racism ever present here.”  First of all, no it doesn’t.  Islamophobia is paranoia over a particular religion, Islam, while xenophobia is an aversion to cultures other than the Anglo culture dominant in the U.S.  Most if not all modern “xenophobes” have no problem with immigrants making their home in the U.S. as long as they speak English in public and adopt the Anglo culture as their dominant one.  They cite the slogan on the Seal of the United States, “E pluribus unum,” meaning “Out of many, one.”  I believe that these people are misinterpreting the slogan, but they certainly aren’t racist.

In response to the cry of Islamophobia, I countered that in my response. “FACT: Biggest Islamophobes I've ever encountered and whose works I've read are non-Muslims from the Middle East. Many are Jews and some are Christians. They find nothing wrong with Quranic teaching, especially since Surah Al Baqrah 2.62 teaches that all Muslims, Christians, Jews and Sabyans who believe in God will get into heaven. What they do have a problem with is the spread of medieval Islam, the way it’s practiced in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, etc., because medieval Islam is still in the crusader mindset and has ignored its own peaceful scripture.”  Moderate agreed with what I wrote.  What no one knows is that some of the non-Muslim Middle Easterners to whom I refer are militia veterans who have repeatedly fought Hamas and Hezbollah jihadists who repeatedly attack their towns and cities, or the family members of those who have fought.  The only crime these people have committed is being non-Muslim.  Though I disagree with their Islamophobia, it is certainly understandable why they feel the way they do.  The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Muslims are not radicals and disagree with the violent radicals, but do not speak up due to fear of reprisal.  My only regret is that there has yet to emerge a Muslim figurehead who speaks loudly of coexistence with non-Muslims and who decries the terrorism of jihadists and medieval Islam.

Soviet then swerved the argument away from Islamophobia (where it never belonged in the first place) and accused me of changing the subject.  “…we aren't speaking of violence and ‘gradual change’… we are talking about racism and on if the Libertarian Party can provide. Stick with it. Stop attempting to find random opportunities to red bait.”  No we weren’t, the Libertarian Party was never brought up in this dialogue.  Ron Paul holds many Libertarian ideas for government, which certainly can improve conditions in the U.S., and one of those is stopping federal government intervention so that change can be slow, peaceful, and all-inclusive.  Anyone can recall that the implementation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act sparked violence between police and protestors, National Guards and pro-segregationists, and also sparked a wave of violence on black Americans.  Any claim that “we aren’t speaking of violence and ‘gradual change’ is either a misinformed statement influenced by amnesia, or a lie.  We now can conclude that Ron Paul and his ideas—the main topic of the discussion—are based in freedom from government, pacifism, AND non-racism.

I was also accused of “Red baiting.” Red baiting is literally the act of accusing, denouncing, or persecuting an individual as being communist or socialist, or a communist sympathizer.  This is a false accusation against me.  I couldn’t have been Red baiting because everyone knows that Soviet Socialist is a dedicated communist.  I never denounced or persecuted Soviet for being a communist.  What I did was ask a direct question which would force Soviet to come to grips with the inherence of violence and intolerance in Marxist theory, which Soviet is fully aware of but still actively avoids admitting.  It’s much easier to call someone a Red baiter than it is to admit that under Marxism, groups of people need to disappear.  My reason for bringing this up was not to deviate from the main topic of the debate, Ron Paul, but to turn around the socialists’ accusations of bigotry against Congressman Paul and in doing so, exposing the hypocrisy in their argument.

Soviet then went on to name a few despots throughout history and then talk about CEOs (obviously equating CEOs with dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Franco).  Nice try.  My reply dissected the myth that CEOs and heads of state don’t work as hard as single mothers, third world workers, etc.  I stand by my claim that heads of state, even dictators, work just as hard and as long as Soviet’s oppressed demographics.  Soviet’s argument is flawed because the type of labor heads of state and CEOs do are different from the types of predominantly blue collar labor Soviet was alluding to.  I also took the list of despots and added the names Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Nicolai Ceaucescu, Tito, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara—all Communist despots—in order to illuminate the lack of integrity in the CEOs-are-Fascist accusation.

The next blind swing was naming some of history’s great minds—Homer, Voltaire, Aristotle, Steinbeck, and Frederick Douglass—and by throwing in two other great minds, W.E.B. DuBois and Albert Einstein—dedicated socialists—implying that all of the above were socialists.  Falsehood!  I refuted that in the debate.

Throughout the entire debate, Soviet used flawed arguments full of fallacies and falsehoods.  My personal favorite was the inclusion of Jesus at the end of the list of great minds, in order to paint him as some kind of a socialist or communist, and probably also to appeal to me as a Christian, as if implying that the man I worship as the Son of God was a socialist will make me all of a sudden see the darkness of Marxism in a new light instead of for what it really is.

“Jesus of Nazareth, known by over a billion as the Christ, and by an additional billion as a holy prophet, advocated kindness and HOLINESS because it is the will of GOD. Jesus the rabbi taught that GOD made things good, therefore we as His creations ought to be good. He also taught loyalty and fidelity to GOD (not the dialectic), to be a city on the hill and a bright shining light in order to help others return to the grace of GOD. He also said RENDER TO CAESAR THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESAR'S (i.e. taxes, citizenship, community service, etc.) AND TO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD’S…”

The debate slowed from there and the climax was reached.  “CONCLUSION: Many of your above-used analogies are marred with fallacies and are erroneous. I will now divert this conversation back to the MAIN IDEA: RON PAUL and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Soviet came back to the debate several days later and expressed indignation as well as announcing the formation of a rebuttal.

UPDATE: Soviet Socialist completed the rebuttal and it can be read here.  Soviet has to be the third or the fourth person to create a new Blogger profile just for the sake of trying to refute me, so I must be writing engaging pieces. As a writer and a thinker who enjoys a challenge, this trend pleases me.