This must be what it’s like to talk to people who believe earth is flat

Many crazy ideas are popular until they’re proven wrong. People once believed the earth is flat. They believed you’d fall off the edge of the world if you went too far. The sun revolved around the earth, of course. And there were dangerous dragons waiting in far-off lands to greet anyone who dared to go there.

People eventually realized that all of these notions were wrong. Sailors proved that you could sail around the world, thus showing that the world was round and you couldn’t fall off the edge. Astronomers figured out that the earth revolves around the sun. After all of this, everybody with a brain realized that the earth wasn’t flat.

Unfortunately, a few insane or stupid people maintain today that the earth is flat. Ever heard of the Flat Earth Society? It really exists. Here’s the group’s website.

In the late 19th century, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels developed the idea of communism. Although many thinking people rejected the ideas as obviously impossible and contrary to how human nature works, the idea appealed to a lot of desperate people. Starting with the communist takeover of Russia, the idea took over a large part of the globe.

But the idea failed. It didn’t work as promised. Without a market system to supply basic information about how much things were worth and what people wanted, the system fell apart. Central planners couldn’t have enough information and human nature corrupted even the best intentions of the true believers. The Soviet Union collapsed, taking with it the various governments it had controlled and supported.

After realizing that communist economics wouldn’t feed its people, China embarked on a system of installing what’s essentially an authoritarian capitalist system with heavy-handed controls. The place isn’t free, but market forces started working in the late ’70s — and the country has been remade today. It’s still growing rapidly. The few remaining countries that call themselves communists — such as Cuba and North Korea — are economic basket cases.

In other words, communism doesn’t work. It never did and most people have abandoned it. But I ran across something that makes me feel the same way I’d feel if I stumbled into a meeting of the Flat Earth Society. I ran across a website for the Communist Party of Oklahoma. It would be a hilarious satire if the people behind it weren’t so sincere.

The communists in this country today still believe in an economic flat earth. Take a look at this big poster promoting their cause. The headline asks, “What would a communist America look like?” And these are their answers:

• Everyone would receive free, comprehensive, universal healthcare.
• Housing would be affordable, safe, and available for everyone.
• Food would be healthy, free, and freely available.
• Everyone would be entitled to a quality education, without cost.
• Seniors would retire comfortably in dignity and respect.
• Veterans would receive the treatment they deserve for the sacrifices they made for this country.
• Workers Rights would be fully protected, and they would receive the full value of their labor.
• There would be equal pay and benefits for men and women.
• There would be no wealth inequality anymore, and the class system would be abolished.
• Everyone would have equal rights and freedoms regardless their orientation.
• Women would have full reproductive rights upheld by law.
• Everyone would receive equal protection under the law, and an end to racism and racial profiling.

It’s as though someone asked some socialists for a fantasy list to give to Santa Claus. It’s not based on reality. It’s not based on the obvious history of what happens when countries attempt communism. It’s mere delusion, just like people who believe in a flat earth. Or people who believe in Santa Claus.

The Oklahoma communists aren’t just an isolated bunch. The Communist Party of the USA still exists, too. The question is what kind of insane and intellectually blind people can still believe in this failed idea.

When I think about what the Oklahoma communists are promising in their recruiting poster, something strikes me. If you take away the party name and just read the agenda, would you think they’re communists? Or would you just assume it’s a progressive left group that’s pushing a “pure” vision of traditional progressive ideas? Would you assume that maybe they’re just a group of progressive Democrats? I might.

We’re really well down the road toward establishing the things the communists claim they want. It’s been progressively (no pun intended) foisted on us for the last 80 years, starting with FDR’s New Deal. It hasn’t happened quickly, but it’s happened. And the more of that agenda that gets adopted, the more the economy sputters and threatens to fail.

If the economy doesn’t completely collapse first, the coercive statists of this country will achieve the communists’ agenda, at least in theory. In practice, they’ll find that it doesn’t work, just as it didn’t work anywhere else. The political competition in this country is between Communist Lite and Communist Slightly Liter.

They’re achieving communism here — along with the failure that’s sure to follow anyone who tries it. They’re just calling themselves Republicans and Democrats instead. But give them time. It will eventually be obvious that disproven ideas still don’t work when dressed up and called by another name.