Recently, we have witnessed some remarkable rhetoric coming from conservatives in the U.S. Most notable are Glenn Beck’s repeated claims that President Obama is a closet communist. These charges remain unsubstantiated. But they have nevertheless been echoed by other conservative pundits and have circulated throughout the conservative blogosphere. The language in each instance suggests the same scenario: that Obama’s official policies are a cover for a shadow conspiracy, determined to instate communism in the United States. Accusations such as these deserve examination. When the specter totalitarianism is suggested, we should inquire into the matter with severe gravity.
Beck’s rhetoric, in this regard, may be traced back to his report of the military coup in Honduras, June 2009. During his coverage, Beck implied that since President Obama condemned the coup, Obama must be a communist dictator. His logic here is that, since Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro also denounced this event, Obama—by virtue of having done the same—is a totalitarian Marxist. Beck’s logic is clearly fallacious.
Beck has made —what logicians call—a “non-sequitur” fallacy. That is to say, his conclusion logically does not follow from his premises. It is nonsensical to state that (a) Chavez, a communist, denounced the coup; (b) Castro, also a communist, denounced the coup; and (c) President Obama denounced the coup, as well; Therefore, Obama is a communist, too. Based on this logic, one could say that since Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin all denounced Hitler, then Stalin was a capitalist. Such a claim is absurd.
Later, on his radio show, Beck quoted a statement Obama made five days before the election: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America”.
Beck responded: “If our founding principles are somehow or another no longer relevant, if the system in which this country was founded is somehow unjust or unworkable now, and communism, Marxism, socialism is the right and relevant path, then that is the discussion in a republic we must have. But to subversively bring in a new system through the back door in the middle of the night and bring it, piece by piece, by overwhelming the system, that is not acceptable.”
During the campaign, Obama often used vague, emotion-driven language like “hope” and “change”, in lieu of concrete arguments. That much we can grant Beck. But since his election, Obama has been clearer. His administration has posted numbers of documents on websites for public access, all of which outline his complete agenda. And none of these documents’ contents hint at socialist or communist polices—to say so, in fact, is to be ignorant of what communism and socialism is.
These documents were available by the time Beck made his broadcast. Thus, Beck has little excuse for misrepresenting Obama’s position. Also, the only evidence he offers here, to prove Obama’s communist agenda, is a “back door in the middle of the night” conspiracy theory. To misrepresent an opponent’s position, and then refute that misrepresentation is also a fallacy. Logicians call it “straw man”. And that is what Beck has done here.
On the September 4 Glenn Beck Program, Beck aired an interview he conducted with conservative pundit David Horowitz. The discussion was comprised of conjectures, regarding Obama’s hypothetical communist plot. At one point, Horowitz, who is a self-described former communist, stated: “I know in my gut, because I was [a communist], what’s going on. These people want to destroy the system, we live under.”
Horowitz’s publications are notorious for containing disputed events and unreliable sources. Thus, we should not be surprised that Horowitz submits an unsupported argument here, based on a “gut” feeling, yet expects us accept his claims.
But Beck replies: “It sounds crazy. And it’s almost like these things are ghosts, you know? It’s—it’s like you’re chasing ghosts.”
Horowitz then offers the theory that several progressive organizations —such as ACORN and The Center for American Progress—along with millionaire George Soros, are contributors to Obama’s secret plot. He says of this coalition: “They are still seeking to overthrow the system and to create a socialist future.”
Beck: “Do you think the President of the United States Barak Obama has that agenda?”
Horowitz: “Absolutely.”
The list of examples goes on. But the rhetoric by now is clear. Unsubstantiated as these claims are, they make for quite a story. So, let us give Beck and the conservatives the benefit of the doubt. After all, their thesis may still be true. They may just be poor arguers for their case.
The Truth about Communism
Let us now look at the essentials of communism and then compare them to Obama’s agenda. If they add up, Beck may have a point about the president.
Communism is a bizarre amalgam of German philosophy, nihilism, prophecy, and power politics. It can only be understood though an explication of Karl Marx’s concept of History. Marx argued that History, itself, had a predetermined endpoint—an idea he took from his predecessor, Georg W. F. Hegel. Both Marx and Hegel agreed that History’s endpoint would occur upon the realization of utopia, under the ideal state. Only, they differed on the nature of that state. Marx believed it was communism. But he argued that humanity could not force communism into existence. History had to naturally evolve into it, carrying humanity along the way. In the mean time, History would evolve forward as it always had, through violent class conflict. Marx explains this in his Communist Manifesto:
Free man and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and surf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed [in history], stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, [and capitalism] that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with these class antagonisms.
With this logic, “nihilism” is introduced into the traditional philosophy of Marxism. Because the movement of History is driven by violence, violence cannot be condemned. To do so would risk ending the conflict, therefore slowing progression toward the ideal state under communism. Thus “nihilism”, the death of all ethical values, the abolition of all human rights—including that of the right to life—is mandatory. Since revolutionary Marxism equates the meaning of human existence with obedience to the flow of History, life has no value other than servitude to historical progression. Albert Camus explains Marxist nihilism in his book, The Rebel:
Values are thus only to be found at the end of history. Until then there are no suitable criterion on which to base a judgment of value. One must act and live in terms of the future. All morality becomes provisional.
But communism had to be reached because it was the promised land, the ”propertyless” utopia at the end of History. And this absence of private property is crucial to Marxist mythology, since the presence of private property, according to Marx, is what makes man selfish. More importantly, property-inspired selfishness is what causes the class conflict—the battle between the “oppressor and oppressed”—waged throughout History. Only when that conflict vanishes through communism, Marx says, can humanity be free. As conservative historian Richard Pipes explains this in Communism: a History, “the abolition of property is a prerequisite to genuine freedom. Only after mankind has been liberated from this dependency will it attain complete self-fulfillment.”
Capitalism, Marx prophesized, was the final stage before History’s culmination in paradise. He argued the historical conflict specific to capitalism was between the industrial worker (the “proletariat”) and the owner of industry and wealth (the “bourgeois”). Like all previous eras, the struggle between the two forces would result in one force conquering the other. The proletariat, here, would be the victor. According to Marx’s prophecy, the workers would establish a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, a provisional government that abolishes private property—hence ending human selfishness, a phenomena that would foster a classless society.
Finally, communism’s last component: power politics. This element was injected not by Marx, but by a Russian radical named Vladimir Lenin. Lenin, who later became Russia’s leader, firmly rejected Marx’s idea that communism had to occur naturally. Lenin argued for immediate revolution. The dictatorship of the proletariat needed to be established at all costs. Richard Pipes quotes Lenin as saying, “If it is necessary to resort to certain brutalities for the sake of realizing a certain political goal, they must be carried out in the most energetic fashion and in the briefest possible time”. We can see now how communism results in totalitarianism. The dictatorship of the proletariat, once established, never vanishes. But the logic of Marx’s prophecy remains. Communist regimes justify their constant expansion of power—their endless parade of violence and gulags—through a paradox. Since History will achieve paradise through violence, the communist state must keep killing and torturing In order to reach paradise—a reality which never arrives. Thus the horrors never end.
Given how terrifying communist reality is, we should not take Becks’ charges lightly. If they are true, a nation-wide call to action is needed. So let us examine Obama’s agenda.
The Truth about Obama
Having explored communism, we can now answer the question: is Glenn Beck correct in his assessment of Obama? The answer is “no”.
The abolition of private property is the cornerstone of Communism. But Obama’s economic agenda is based on upholding the right to private property. More importantly, the agenda proposes the expansion of that right. His “Stop Fraud Act” provides the first federal definition of mortgage fraud, and increases funding for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute fraudulent mortgage professionals. Equally important, this bill offers counseling to help home owners avoid foreclosures. These measures obviously aim at maintaining private home ownership, not abolishing that ownership, as is done in communist societies.
Obama also advocates a middle class tax cut under the “Making Work Pay” credit. This policy restores fairness to the tax code and, according to his administration’s figures, 150 million Americans would benefit from this adjustment. Adding to this assistance, the credit eliminates income taxes for 10 million Americans, providing relief to small-business owners. If Obama was a communist, he’d confiscate and federalize the small-businesses, not help them grow independently. He certainly would not be giving tax credits to citizens. Communist state policy is to seize all private bank accounts, so that their contents can be equally distributed amongst the masses. Banks are thus unnecessary. Beck should know this, and he should have realized that Obama’s financial corporate “bailouts” are counterintuitive to communist doctrine as well.
Perhaps what troubles Beck most is Obama’s universal healthcare plan. For years conservatives have argued that universal healthcare is the first step toward communism. But this—saying that one proposed measure, if implemented, is but the start of a long train of abuses on the road to destruction— is also a fallacy. Logicians call it “slippery-slope”. Thus, it should be rejected. That conservatives still trumpet this fallacy is bizarre, given that most European democracies—like Britain and France—have established a “public-option” plan without abandoning their capitalist system or market competitiveness. Additionally, as U.S. Senator Al Franken has observed, all studies suggesting “public-option” option healthcare is ineffective in meeting patient needs are based on ideologically-driven, “cherry-picked” statistics.
Enlightenment philosopher John Locke—a darling of conservative intellectuals—is credited for establishing man’s right to private property in Western culture, thus Locke provided the cornerstone to capitalism. But in his Two Treatises on Government, Lock also said that, “every man has a property in his own person; this nobody has any right to but himself.” In other words, an individual’s own body is his own personal property and his alone. And in so far as the U. S. government has “socialized” fire departments to protect private property, in the form of homes and possessions, why should it not follow Locke’s argument to its conclusion and ”socialize” healthcare to protect the other form of private property: a citizen’s own body? To do so—and to support Obama in this matter—would be firmly in the spirit of capitalism.
To these claims, Beck may ask us to wait and see. Sooner or later, the gulags will come. But have they not come and gone already? When George W. Bush’s administration transformed the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay into U.S. torture camps, where was Beck’s rhetoric, condemning these totalitarian practices? Conservative critic Andrew Sullivan observes, in his 2005 article, “The Abolition of Torture”:
Pentagon reports found widespread and severe abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere that has lead to at least two dozen deaths during interrogation. Journalistic accounts and reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross paint an even darker picture of the secret torture sites in Eastern Europe and innocent detainees being murdered.
Now that Obama is closing these prisons, somehow Obama has become the dictator. The absurdity of Beck’s logic here would be laughable, if only he and many conservatives did not accept it as gospel. The only truth Beck has espoused here is found in his statement to Horowitz: “It sounds crazy. And it’s almost like these things are ghosts, you know? It’s—it’s like you’re chasing ghosts.”
Indeed, Mr. Beck, it is crazy. The communist conspiracy that you are chasing is a “ghost” of your own creation.