Assholes 2020

I posted on Facebook about the Trump supporter, and my last blog was about bad cops.   It's time to step back and look at the bigger picture: ASSHOLES.  I'd actually covered this topic back in 2011, but at that time my focus was on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.  This time around Donald Trump and the coronavirus are a bit more important.

This Trump supporter will be voting for Trump not despite the fact that he's an asshole, but because he's an asshole.   "Get things done?"   No.    

The men & women in the health profession risking their lives ever day.   Assholes?  No.

The scientists, the Einsteins and Teslas, making the world a better place for us.  Assholes?  No.

The Founding Fathers, who established a democracy, a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, including George Washington, who declined lifetime dictatorship and stepped aside after two terms.  Assholes?  No.

The philosophers, the thinkers, the idealists, were they assholes?  No.

How about Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Mao, etc. all those dictators?  Yes, they were all assholes.   Assholes who never took responsibility for anything, who shifted blame to everyone else and took credit for everything.  Sounds like anyone we know?

The assholes don't "get things done".  They screw things up for everyone else.   We're supposed to meekly take their word for it, to not assert ourselves, to let them do as they please.   Because THEY NEED US, but WE DON'T NEED THEM.   And they're terrified we'll realize this.  So they have to bluff and bullshit their way.  It's our job to call their bluff and tell them to fuck off.  

The US is leading the coronavirus epidemic.  We have something like 5% of the world's population but 25% of its cases.   Why?  Because ASSHOLES won't wear masks - as a matter of principle.   Because the masks don't protect us from them, they protect them from us, the ASSHOLES consider it a waste of time.  Helping anyone else is for chumps.   With anyone else in the Oval Office, they might actually have the shame to comply purely out of social pressure.   But this time around, they finally have THEIR GUY running things.   And THEIR GUY won't do jack shit to help his own country.   His position varies from "it's a HOAX to make me look bad" to "not my problem."   ???  So the President himself, our so-called leader, is encouraging his entire country to behave like assholes.   And too many of us are.   And we're paying the price.   Whether the death rate is 1% or 5%, that's 1-5 out of 100 dying because some jackoff won't wear a mask.   

Those of us who aren't assholes, aren't perfect.  We make mistakes, and not all of those mistakes are honest.   So we apologize, sincerely, take responsibility, and make amends.   And try not to do it again.  Hopefully, we'll succeed.  One thing we don't do, is behave this way consistently as a matter of principle.  That's what separates us from the ASSHOLES.   

Cartman.  The South Park character.  Can consistently be counted on to mistreat everyone and act like an asshole.  I love that meme, “who said it, Cartman or Trump?” because Trump basically acts like a grown up version of Cartman. 

UMCP Dorm Experience.  I went to the University Of Maryland, College Park, for undergraduate college, and since my parents were overseas in Paris all four years, I was on campus for that entire time.  For sophomore year and fall semester of junior year, I was in Talbot Hall.  My FS/JY roommate, ES (initials to hide identities) wanted me out so his buddy from the suite next door, DH, could come in and replace me.  At first I believed ES was the only one in the six person (three double) suite who felt that way, until I spoke with CR, who was in the end suite with BD, a friend of my buddy DB.  The middle suite had WI and CA, both from Hagerstown, MD, with whom I got along fine – or so I thought.  CR, with whom I also didn’t seem to have any overt problems, told me that himself, WI and CA all wanted me out:  BD was the exception, remaining neutral.  And CR said, we want DH in “because he’s an asshole and you aren’t.”   ???? Go figure.  Well, I moved out, and for senior year I was in a huge single in a suite with 5 other guys I got along with.  If they had a problem with me it was moot, I was out soon enough anyway.

Han Solo.  In ”The Empire Strikes Back” he realizes that Princess Leia fell in love with him, not despite the fact that he was “a scoundrel”, but BECAUSE he was “a scoundrel”.  However, he wasn’t nearly an asshole.  In the prior movie, even after admonishing Princess Leia that he expected to be paid and wasn’t in it for her rebellion, he still came back and saved Luke in his attack on the Death Star – instead of simply leaving and paying off Jabba The Hutt.  As rogueish as he was, Han was no asshole.

Ayn Rand.   Some accused her of advocating being a selfish asshole as a matter of principle, but she added an important element which assholes lack:  consistency.  First off, I’ve yet to meet anyone, asshole or otherwise, who explicitly declared that they live by her principles.   Second, her main two fictional heroes, Howard Roark (The Fountainhead) and Henry Rearden (Atlas Shrugged) are not assholes.  They forge their own destinies by their own ambition and talent, but not at anyone else’s expense.  They lack the ruthless exploitation of others which epitomizes the Asshole.

Ayn Rand herself was notoriously unlikeable and cheated on her husband, Frank O’Connor, with Nathaniel Branden, then used her own philosophy to justify her behavior.  I recall a scene in “Dirty Dancing” when a character misbehaves and throws a copy of The Fountainhead as if so say, “Ayn Rand told me this conduct is acceptable.”   My own experience is that I’ve yet to meet anyone who specifically claimed to live their life by her ideals; most said something to the effect that they tried reading her books but found them too boring to finish.  I certainly championed her views in college but never believed she advocated doing whatever you damn well please and screw everyone else, though that seems to be the way she actually behaved, and how many people, who weren’t actually familiar with her philosophy, perceived it to be.  Rational self-interest, including consistency (“do unto others as you would have done unto you”) doesn’t rise to the level of justifying being an asshole. 

Jerry.  My former boss is aggressive and forceful as an attorney, which explains his success.  But what I realized when considering him is that he didn’t screw over anyone to get to where he is.  He is about as assertive and dominant as you can be without being an asshole.   As well as many other successful people in our society who don’t behave like Trump does – arguably far more successful than him, when you closely examine his business failures in more detail with a more critical eye – it’s clear that “asshole who gets things done” is far more rare than Trump and his followers would like us to believe.  More like it being a false claim used to justify their behavior to those calculated to take their word for it.  Well, I won’t.  And if the polls are any indication, neither are a whole lot of other people. 

So this November, vote for the non-asshole, be it Joe Biden or Jo Jorgensen.   If your state or federal legislator is an asshole, vote them out of office - all the way down to county reps, mayors, and soil & water conservation whatchamacallits.   Vote a straight NON-asshole ticket.   And get rid of these jerks, the sooner the better.

The Satanic Bible

As promised, here is my analysis of this book.  It was published in 1969 by Anton LaVey, the founder of modern Satanism.  I originally read this in college (UMCP, 1986-90) at which time I was also reading another author, Ayn Rand.  The two authors are very similar, and LaVey admitted being influenced by Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s famous novel – which I’ve read three times.  This is certainly shorter and more concise than her book.  I’ve noted earlier that Satanism, as advocated by LaVey, could more accurately be described as a deliberately provocative form of atheism.  Re-reading it again as a 50 year old with almost 30 years of experience since finishing college, how does it hold up?

First Off, the Nine Satanic Statements.

1.         Satan represents indulgence, instead of abstinence!

2.         Satan represents vital existence, instead of spiritual pipe dreams!

3.         Satan represents undefiled wisdom, instead of hypocritical self-denial!

4.         Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on ingrates!

5.         Satan represents vengeance, instead of turning the other cheek!

6.         Satan represents responsibility to the responsible, instead of concern for psychic vampires!

7.         Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those which walk on all fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual developments”, has become the most vicious animal of all!

8.         Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!

9.         Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!

Bravo, huh?  Here are a few more tidbits…

Book of Satan, Chapter III, Paragraph 4 states, “Are we all not predatory animals by instinct?  If humans ceased wholly from preying upon each other, could they continue to exist?”

Chapter IV, Paragraph 2 states, “There is no heaven of glory bright, and no hell where sinners roast.  Here and now is our day of torment! Here and now is our day of joy! Here and now is our opportunity! Choose ye this day, for no redeemer liveth!”

In the next chapter, LaVey claims that “it is a popular misconception that the Satanist dos not believe in God.”  He then proceeds to describe a system best known as “deism”, which means “I believe in God, but this God is passive and does not interfere in – or care about – the lives of Men.”  By this definition, the Founding Fathers were Satanists.   Go figure.  In any case, we’re on our own to live, love, fight, die, etc. with no expectation of forgiveness or salvation from any higher power.  Deism is, for all practical purposes, another word for atheism.

Indeed, he says, “all religions of a spiritual nature are inventions of Man.”  That being the case, why bother with Satanism?   LaVey answers that “man needs ceremony and ritual, fantasy and enchantment.  Psychiatry, despite all the good it has done, has robbed man of wonder and fantasy which religion, in the past, has provided.  Satanism, realizing the current needs of man, fills the large void between religion and psychiatry. The Satanic philosophy combines the fundamental of psychology and good, honest emotionalizing of dogma.  It provides man with his much needed fantasy.  There is nothing wrong with dogma, providing it is not based on ideas and actions which go completely against human nature.”   I suppose you could call it hedonism wrapped in ritual, rational self-interest provocatively flavored with historically taboo imagery but with no actual belief in a dark lord of evil downstairs.

Sex.  I’m too young to remember when LaVey and his gang were more famous and notorious – presumably this was during the late 1960s – but there is a chapter here about sex.  And it’s fairly common sense.  Satanism welcomes any and all sexual desires and activities but exclusively with consenting sexual partners.  This includes homosexuality, sadism-masochism, and group sex, but excludes children, animals, or partners who otherwise do not or cannot consent.  Masturbation, which presumably does not invoke issues of consent, is perfectly fine. 

Overall, the gist of this is pretty much the same as Ayn Rand’s Objectivism:  what we do with our 80-odd years on this planet before we die is our own business so long as we don’t hurt anyone else.   Aside from his brief reference to “preying”, which suggests deliberately abusing others, LaVey appears to echo the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) which Libertarians center upon, which is “don’t initiate the use of force on others, but if attacked you are privileged to defend yourself appropriately.”

The second half of the book is absolute bullshit about Satanic rituals and the Enochian Keys, which I recall from the half-assed Necronomicon of days gone by.   The sole element of the book which makes any real, practical sense winds up, as I said before, being simply rational self-interest provocatively dressed in anti-Christian rhetoric.

The truly stupid thing about this whole thing is this.   There are TWO possibilities on this planet.  #1 is that there IS a Good Guy Upstairs and a Good Place, and a Bad Guy Downstairs and a Bad Place (as “The Good Place” TV show seems to show us, with Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, among many others).   #2 is that there is NO Good Guy Upstairs, no Good Place, nor any Bad Guy Downstairs nor any Bad Place.   When we die, whether we were the nicest person on the planet who died saving children, or the nastiest bastard who existed who murdered millions, is exactly the same:  permanent oblivion.

Let me address the second scenario first.   Classic Rock Magazine, up until 2018, had this Q&A thing at the end of the magazine in which they ask rock stars a bunch of deep questions.  “What can you do better than anyone else?”  “Any regrets?”  and 80% of the time, “do you believe in God?”  A surprising minority flat out state that they don’t believe in God.  A similar proportion, also a minority, state that they DO believe in God and identify as Christian.  The rest tend to say something like “I believe in a higher power, but not an old guy in a white beard, or organized religion per se.”  George Thorogood joked that “I pray when I fly”.  

One particular guy, who I can’t recall, said something remarkably different: “Logically, I know there is no God and no afterlife.  But emotionally I can’t accept a world without a God or an afterlife.  So I’ll choose to believe in them anyway.”   To me, that was the best and most honest answer anyone gave.

If scenario #2 is the true situation, then all this nonsense about Satanism, dogma, ritual, etc. is just that: nonsense.  Ayn Rand, who essentially believed and argued the same things as LaVey did – and as noted earlier, clearly influenced LaVey – avoided all that and kept things real.  For all her arrogance and hypocrisy, she didn’t give us this idiocy.   If there is nothing wrong with consensual sex, with masturbation, with enjoying yourself while you live without hurting anyone else, why accept the mantle of evil, of Satan?  “If good’s on the left, I’m sticking to the right.”  Rand wouldn’t accept that.  And neither should anyone else.

And if scenario #1 is the true situation, LaVey, who died in 1997, must be rather warm right now….   

Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules For Life - An Antidote to Chaos

This is Jordan Peterson’s bestselling “how to” book on life.    I recently finished it at the request and/or suggestion of my brother Matt, with whom I generally share not merely interests and genes but also values.   His part of the bargain is to complete the Three Body Problem trilogy.   Ahem.

Almost all of these are fairly straightforward and could be described as “enlightened self-interest”. 

Oddly, throughout this whole book, absolutely no reference is made to Ayn Rand, though the essence of his advice is the same:  look out for your own interests but not at anyone else’s expense.  I notice many references to fascism and communism, not in favorable terms; those discussions were enjoyable on their own merits.  Also, there’s a fair dose of religion in here, but more as a reference and not as a source of morality.  Dante referred to “virtuous pagans”, and sadly too many religious people tend to be hypocrites and less “moral” than others who affect either atheism or merely an indifference to organized religion and going to church every Sunday.   Peterson fits right in here, advising us to be moral – above all, consistently so – without invoking God or retribution to back it up, virtue for its own sake.  Throughout the whole thing I found little or nothing to disagree with. 

Here are the 12 Rules:  

Rule 1.  Stand up straight with your shoulders back.

Rule 2.  Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

Rule 3. Make friends with people who want the best for you.

Rule 4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.

Rule 5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.

Rule 6.  Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.

Rule 7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).

Rule 8.  Tell the truth – or at least, don’t lie

Rule 9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t

Rule 10.  Be precise in your speech.

Rule 11.  Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.

Rule 12.  Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

Fairly straightforward and sensible enough.   He really needs to wake up and read Atlas Shrugged.

Affectations

I once asked my father what an “affectation” was.  He explained it was something superfluous, fancy, or pretentious, like a monocle, or a general using a swagger stick.  Patton was famous for his chrome plated helmet and pearl-handled revolvers, while MacArthur was famous for his equally plain uniform, aviator sunglasses and corncob pipe.  Opposing generals Montgomery (UK) (sweater and beret) and Rommel (Nazi Germany) (trench coat and British goggles on his German visor cap) likewise indulged in this business.  Von Mackensen (August, not his son Eberhard), affected the huge busby with the skull and crossbones, but he only served in World War I.  Probably the most affected of the German generals was Reichmarshall Herman Goering, commander of the Luftwaffe, with his sky blue uniform and baton, among other trappings.

Generals by no means have any monopoly on this.  Among the high class, a monocle (single eyeglass), spats, ascot, etc. remain rare but obvious upper class affectations.  These days the #1 affectation is probably grooming:  bald with a goatee, a look reinforced by Bryan Cranston as Walter White on “Breaking Bad”, also embraced by Andy Powell of Wishbone Ash and Rob Halford of Judas Priest – even used by John Travolta in “From Paris With Love”.  Ayn Rand’s affectation was the FDR-esque cigarette-though-a-holder deal, odd given how much she disliked FDR and his socialist agenda. 

I suppose slavish adherence to fashion doesn’t really qualify as an affectation: if everyone else is doing it, how special can it be?  Pants pulled down two inches below the boxers; Timberland boots not even laced up; baseball cap either backwards or raised up with the brim off-center; and – although I don’t hate the team – the ubiquitous NY Yankee logo, particularly on a cap.  I understand the Yankees have won more World Series than any other team, and have lost more than the second place champion, the St Louis Cardinals, but why don’t we leave the NY logo to true Yankees fans?

I can’t claim to be immune to this: my own affectation is wearing soccer jerseys, and sometimes of mutual rivals (Flamengo & Fluminense, Schalke & Borussia Dortmund, various Premier League rivals) – not necessarily just one team, or even one team per league.  It’s not even just the most popular or well-known teams, such as Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, or AC Milan, but also some of the more obscure European teams, and the Brazilian teams.  Guilty as charged. 

But this is a much less controversial affectation than my high school preference: a World War II German service jacket, first with Wehrmacht insignia, then Waffen SS (Das Reich, NOT Totenkopf or Einsatzgruppen).  I’ve always wanted a 1936 pattern jacket, and At The Front has them for a reasonable price.  But where could I wear it? 

Ayn Rand

Back in college I got into this controversial Russian philosopher.  In high school we had been Rush fans, and knew that both “Anthem” and 2112 were based on Ayn Rand – even to the point of liner notes in 2112 attesting to “the genius of Ayn Rand”.  I read Atlas Shrugged twice in college and once more about 10 years later, and rapidly devoured all her other books as well, even the much less interesting non-fiction philosophy.

 Biography.  Born in Russia in 1905, she emigrated to the US in the 1920s and became a screenwriter in Hollywood.  She was appalled that US intellectuals were leftists, not pro-capitalist, and began writing fiction which expressed her ideals.  She was atheist, but believed in objective morality and hated any form of moral relativism.  She also argued – convincingly, I believe – that fascism and communism were essentially the same, what she called “statism”, vs. capitalism.  For some time in college, I was an impressionable GVPT major, and instead of embracing communism – as many college students do – or being seduced by the dark side of fascism, I got hooked on capitalism.  For awhile I also stopped going to church, until 1994 when I went back again.  She died in 1982, and was honored with her own US stamp, which surprises me as I consider nowadays the stamps seem to be for liberal people, not arch-capitalists such as her. 

 

 We, The Living.  Her first novel, with the heroine Kira Argonova, an engineering student in Petrograd (aka St. Petersburg and Leningrad) who falls in love with two men: Leo Kovalensky, son of an aristocratic general shot during the war, and Andrei Taganov, Red hero of the same war and important man of Cheka – one of the few who were not complete scoundrels.  Kira’s family, disfavored because of their bourgeois background, gets the short end of the stick.  Ultimately she has a hard time deciding between the two men who she loves, and who love her.  I last read this in Bucharest, which seemed to be a fitting environment.  This was made into a movie in fascist Italy, of all places, as it had a strong anti-communist message.

 The Fountainhead.  As described in my blog ages ago – August 2006.  I see that Gary Gooper has a stamp…years after Ayn Rand got her own stamp.  It got a reference in “Dirty Dancing” (featuring Patrick Swayze), in which a character dumps the girl he got pregnant, citing The Fountainhead as an excuse to do as he pleased. 

 Atlas Shrugged.  Her “masterpiece”, still not put into film format [released in three parts, 2011, 2012, and 2014, with a different cast for each].  This seems to elicit strong reactions: among those who actually read it, most either love it or could barely stand it and gave up reading long before the end.  It’s certainly a long book.  The story is basically this: the US goes down the toilet as “looters” and fascists – corporatists we’d identify with the ENRON crowd and Bush today – take over the government.  Meanwhile, anyone and everyone of any talent or ability seems to disappear off the face of the earth, except for three: Francisco D’Anconia, who devolves into a worthless playboy; Dagny Taggart, who keeps her railroad running despite her clueless older brother Jim’s best efforts to run it into the ground; and Hank Rearden, the Boxer (Animal Farm) man of steel industrialist who invents a new metal, only to be hounded and exploited by his less worthy but Washington-savvy competitors such as Orren Boyle.  Finally John Galt comes out of nowhere and explains – at length – what the hell is going on.  Instead of an evil criminal mastermind, Ellsworth Toohey (The Fountainhead), this book simply has a weak and mediocre cabal of pragmatic schemers who succeed because Galt stole all the smart people and Rearden and Dagny refuse to play the Washington game. 

            Most people who hate this book seem to focus on Galt’s character being unrealistically stoic – as with Howard Roark in The Fountainhead.  In a sense, these are over-the-top, super-perfect archetypes unlikely to be found in real life, but they’re meant as ideals.  On the other hand, as committed and dedicated, as honest and of sterling, impeccable integrity as these characters are, with the glaring exception of Francisco D’Anconia, they lack any warmth, humanity, emotions, or sense of humor.  To the extent they derive any pleasure, it’s from (A) building a new railroad using (B) a revolutionary metal, and (C) celebrating their industrial triumphs in the bedroom.  

            I also found a few other interesting concepts which I only picked up reading the book the second or third time around.  One was Lillian Rearden’s preference for insincere flattery: that a man would deny reality and lie to her to stroke her ego, was more important than if he simply – and honestly – told her that she looked beautiful because he really believed it, which is no more meaningful to her than stating that “2+2=4” or “the Earth revolves around the sun”.  Also was Jim Taggart’s marriage to Cheryl Taggart: she eventually realizes that he married her not because of any virtues or beauty she had, but because he perceived that she lacked any merits or virtues at all – this was a pure act of charity on his part, and effectively an indictment on her value.  We can also see George W. Bush as a Jim Taggart type: his top ability, to the extent he has any at all, is schmoozing deals and “getting things done” in an underhanded, back-room, behind-the-scenes way.

 Anthem.  Essentially this is 2112, but instead of the protagonist committing suicide out of despair, he and his lover escape the totalitarian regime and go off somewhere else.

 Non-fiction.  She has various books published in the 60s, including Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, For the New Intellectual, and The Virtue of Selfishness.  Years later I read The Satanic Bible, by Anton LeVey, and found a shocking similarity between LeVey’s philosophy and Ayn Rand’s.  Both preach “enlightened self-interest”, which means “look out for yourself, but be consistent.”  Neither advocated screwing people over to get what you want, lying, cheating, stealing, or anything like that.  Really, it’s very much common sense.  The problem was that Rand herself was arrogant, ugly, judgmental, unwilling to compromise, and even after living in the US for decades still had a thick Russian accent and always seemed to be pissed off.  She also cheated on her husband, which gave rise to the obvious challenge of hypocrisy.   

            Rand also didn’t believe in charity or altruism.  To her, Robin Hood was the worst villain in history.  The only thing worse than a person with no pity, she said, was someone who took advantage of the pity of others.  She was an atheist, and vehemently denounced religion as a fraud, and priests as nothing better than modern-day witch doctors.  Anti-materialists, to her, always seemed to have a direct pecuniary interest in persuading people not to care about money – mainly because they were soliciting money for their own purposes. 

            She also opposed the Vietnam War, not because she sympathized with the North Vietnamese, but simply because she believed the US had no interest in saving the South Vietnamese from communism.  To her, the war was an exercise in altruism and charity. 

 Libertarians.  Rand herself had no use for the Libertarian Party, though she also had no use for the fascists or communists.  The Democrats were watered-down socialists, while the Republicans were watered-down fascists.  Nevertheless, the Libertarians come closest to her ideology: capitalism for its own sake, with no corporate welfare or socialism added. 

Summary.  Probably the most tangible and meaningful way I still “support” Ayn Rand in any way as of 2009, long after having read the books and drifted away from being arrogant and selfish as I may have been in college, is my support for the Libertarian Party today, notwithstanding her vehement opposition thereto.  I go to church, I give money out occasionally when I feel like it (no blanket principled objection to charity), and try to help others when I have the chance. [Still true in 2017.]

            One thing you learn in life is that no one is infallible – even the wisest, smartest people make mistakes from time to time.  And even the dumbest people sometimes say or do intelligent things.  The key is to watch out for both, keep your mind open, and learn as much as you can from as many different sources.  Finally, you have to exercise your OWN judgment, which you cannot outsource to India or anyone else.  Maybe Ayn Rand didn’t have all the answers, any more than Tony Robbins does.  But she had a great deal of great and important ideas, which still hold true today.

Communism vs. National Socialism vs. Capitalism

This is NOT a rehash of my GULAG v. HOLOCAUST blog, nor is it an attempt to apologize for or glorify National Socialism, but more of an overall discussion on a wider topic, authoritarianism vs. totalitarianism vs. capitalism.

Authoritarian regimes are typically the right-wing dictatorships and juntas, such as Brazil’s military from 1964-85, Marcos, Pinochet, Salazar, Batista, the various South Vietnamese governments from 1955-75, etc.  Really you just have a thug or general who wants power for its own sake, little excuse beyond that, and all he cares about it making sure he gets his “piece of the action” and enough pussy (or whatever his particular vice happens to be).  He has no grand vision, no big plans, no grandiose scheme or desire to micromanage the entire country down to the last molecule – and no pretensions thereof.

Totalitarian regimes are what we think of like 1984, where the state encompasses the entire society and attempts to control literally everything.  With the exception of Nazi Germany, they are invariably communist regimes: Soviet Russia, Red China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea.  From cradle to grave, the regime seeks to modify not merely our behavior but our very thoughts.  Unlike authoritarian regimes, which rarely bother to justify their existences, power, or authority, totalitarian regimes cloak their actions in the veneer of ideology and moral superiority.  “We represent the PEOPLE – if you oppose us, you oppose the people, and must be struck down.”

Class.  According to Marxist doctrine, there are three classes: the aristocracy (kings, queens, nobles), the bourgeois (merchants and capitalists), and the proletariat (workers and peasants).  Under feudalism, the aristocracy rules, with a small but growing bourgeois class.  Eventually the bourgeois overthrows the aristocracy and institutes capitalism, then sets about exploiting the proletariat until it too is eventually overthrown in a proletarian revolution - and we get socialism.  Eventually the state withers away to a point of anarchy called communism, and we all live happily ever after.  “Communist” regimes are actually socialist, as true communism has never been achieved in any country – nor is it ever likely.

Under a socialist dictatorship, the state is supposedly the legal representative of the proletariat.  The bourgeois are dispossessed and thrown into re-education camps to be rehabilitated into socialist society.  Without any class besides proletariat, such a society is, theoretically, classless.  By comparison, under the fascist/National Socialist dictatorship, all three classes are subjugated to the state, which represents the people.  Worker, farmer, businessman, industrialist, all are enslaved to the state.  For this reason, fascists and communists ostensibly hate each other and oppose each other vigorously, yet the reality is that they have far more in common than the theoretical ideological deviations would suggest.

In many countries in Western Europe, the socialist party has taken power, yet without installing the dreaded dictatorship of the proletariat.  Instead, they maintain the market system, individual rights, and otherwise a capitalist democracy, though with 90% taxes, free health care, free education, 40 hour work week, pensions, etc.  These are essentially capitalist countries with substantial doses of socialism added.

Stalin v. Trotsky.  Neither had much of any ideological differences with the other: Trotsky was merely the loser of the power struggle.

Cult of personality.  Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Tito, Ho Chi Minh, Ceaucescu.  Despite being about “the people”, communist regimes oddly focused on strong single personalities, individual leaders.  The reality was, none of these leaders cared about the people: they simply cared about power for its own sake, and were predictably brutal and ruthless about suppressing revolt even from within the proletariat.  Lenin dismissed reports of cannibalism among Ukrainian peasants by laughing that this meant they were too weak to oppose him.  The rare examples of sincere patriots inevitably became the first victims of the purges, in which the revolution weeds out the idealists in favor of the pragmatists - who are the only ones devious and ruthless enough to survive or prosper under such regimes.

1984 & Animal Farm.  George Orwell’s pair of books, each explaining these concepts in a different way.  1984 examines the nature of the state itself, which ultimately exists for its own sake, against its own people.  Ayn Rand once defined “dictatorship” as a war between the government and its own, legally disarmed, people.  And this is explained in even more detail in the book Winston reads, provided to him by O’Brien, who is pretending to be part of the resistance but is in fact an officer of the secret police.  Odd, though:  O'Brien turns out to be more of a source of information to Winston than the other way around, and the torture Winston endures is not to extract information - he knows far less than O'Brien does, and little of value - but to corrupt him, force him to betray his lover, and destroy him as a person and an individual.  Indeed, the movie "The Lives of Others", concerning a Stasi agent in East Berlin in the mid 80s, shows that the quality of life of the secret police really wasn't that much better than that of the poets, playwrights, actors, etc. who were the victims of the police state.  It was all one big  dark, depressing prison for everyone concerned.

            Animal Farm works on several different levels.  The animals sincerely want liberation from their human master, and were reasonable in following the pigs’ revolution.  But you can also see how the worker – Boxer, the horse – is ultimately exploited by the same revolution, and how the pigs eventually took over the same role as the human farmer.  Even the vicious, snarling, dogs act as the enforcers for the pigs.

Nazi Germany.  The notable exception, the only totalitarian regime which was not communist.  The Nazis had an ideology, a Final Solution, the SS, the Gestapo, and the will to carry it out.  Hitler had a master plan, as described (vaguely) in Mein Kampf, for anyone patient enough to read it.  Cloaked in German nationalism and anti-semitism, the Nazis terrorized not only the Jews and subject occupied nations, but their own people, as willing victims, co-conspirators in mass insanity as they may have been.  But while the world is fairly unanimous in challenging and condemning this form of totalitarianism, equally oppressive and evil forms – especially Soviet Russia – found no shortage of “useful idiots” apologizing for, or even supporting, their ideologies.  Tom Morello, I’m talking to you...

Statism vs. capitalism.  For all its faults, capitalism remains the ideal form of economic system.  Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes (Nazi and socialist) can be collectively referred to as statist or collectivist.  They boil down to the priority: individual vs. collective, the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few.  The cruel irony of collectivist regimes is that in their rampant and fanatic devotion to “the people”, “society”, “the collective”, etc. they completely negate the individual, yet society is, ultimately, nothing more than an aggregate of individuals.  The ultimate minority is, of course, the individual, who is the ultimate victim, the sacrificial offering to the sacred collective.  By destroying the individual as a person with any rights or importance per se, the collectivists ultimately destroy themselves.  Without freedom for the individual, there is no freedom for anyone.

The response to this, from most socialists, is that left to its own devices, capitalism produces various market failures: poverty, hunger, economic injustice, inequality of wealth and income.  Politics and economics, the distribution of scarce, limited and finite resources, is too important to be left up to the whims, caprices, and apparently random vicissitudes of at best an impersonal market and at worst an aggregate of sometimes monopolistic and oligopolistic markets.  Why leave this to chance, when there are highly intelligent planners who can redistribute wealth and income, and micromanage the entire country, far better?  If we need to do this by a brutal dictatorship, well, so be it – better than being run by Big Business, right?  Raise the spectre of a country run by GM, IBM, Ford, or Bill Gates to scare us into the arms of Big Brother.  (Comrade Moore & Comrade Nader will be happy to oblige).

Who are these geniuses?  They’re the socialists themselves.  Have we ever met an avowed socialist who was not highly intelligent AND fully confident in his or her intelligence and wisdom (e.g. Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, or Christopher Hitchens).  The one problem with their “brain the size of a planet” issue is that no two socialists can ever agree on anything (see “Life of Brian” for this symptom of continually splitting socialist factions).  Fortunately for us, that is.  But there were no shortage of highly intelligent opponents to collectivism, including, but not limited to, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig von Mises.  Bottom line is that for all its faults, capitalism keeps us free – which is far more than can be said for its alternatives.