1984, George Orwell
This was my first time reading 1984 by George Orwell. I definitely recommend reading it. It's the story of a distopian world, where socialism has conquered all. It has taken all rights, property, and freedoms from the people, and Big Brother watches over, controls, "provides", and protects everyone. Anyone who is not fanatically loyal to the Party disappears and is wiped from history and existence.
In his story, some main factors in oppressing the people are removing independent thought, making the masses completely dependent on the government for everything, including food, home, clothing, medical, and work….rewarding turning others in who are suspicious, erasing the past and rewriting it to reflect the current political view, redefining the meaning of words and getting rid of any words or definitions that don’t support the political agenda. and encouraging violence and hate toward anyone, real or imaginary, who might oppose the politically correct ideology.
All material goods, food, supplies, toiletries, clothing, were rationed out. For example, the main character slept naked because in order to purchase pajamas, it would cost over a years worth of wages. He had to buy razor blades on the black market because not enough were ever rationed out, and although there were always news reports about ration sizes increasing, they were constantly getting smaller. The world was in a state of abject poverty for everyone, except for the Inner Party, which always had abundance.
This, my friends, is how socialism actually works. This book, although fiction, shows what will happen when a country is given over completely to socialism. You exchange freedom and liberty to do what you want, for promise of having everything provided. However, "everything provided" eventually becomes less than bare minimum and is never in the realm of abundance.
There is a difference between giving to those in need and socialism. Socialism takes without permission to distribute to others. It takes away choice and freedom. It sounds great in theory that we bankrupt a few billionaires to level the playing field, but if you really look at it, those billionaires have a right to their hard earned and invested money. If they want to give to the poor, that's their choice, their liberties shouldn't be violated just to make it happen.
Or we could look at it on a less financially extreme level...because if it happens to the billionaires, it will happen to the rest of us: Say you bought a three bedroom house. It's for you, your husband, and a child. Socialism would say that you should be able to fit at least 3 people in a bedroom, so your family gets one bedroom, and two other families that don't have a house will move into the other bedrooms. You are also going to share your vehicle, and your backyard is too large, so another house is going to be built back there for another family. You object? If you don't like it, you can have it taken away from you altogether, because it doesn't really belong to you, it belongs to the government.
And this part already happens: you work hard for a paycheck, but now a certain percentage goes to fund all other aspects of government and humanities, and you get no choice over where your money goes. It might go to provide food and shelter for someone who is disabled, but then again, it might go for food and shelter for someone perfectly capable of working but just doesn't want the responsibility. Or maybe you are against abortion, and your paycheck goes to fund abortions. And so on.
In Orwell’s 1984, there was something called the Two Minutes Hate. For 2 minutes a day, the entire country had to throw a hateful and violent temper tantrum against opposing political forces, cursing, screaming hateful things, throwing things. This was required by law and not participating wholeheartedly could be punishable by law. It was important to keep the people riled up in a constant state of hatefulness against opposition. Even if they didn’t understand why they needed to hate, they simply had to hate because they were opposite.
The spirit of the Two Minute Hate is alive and well, unfortunately, as we see people from both political sides spewing hate toward each other based on the news or social media, without really checking to see if their own viewpoint is accurate, and even if it is, do we really need to be villainizing our neighbor? At what point does that political animosity become so venomous that we act out in violence to shut up opposing viewpoints?
I am glad we live in a country where we do still have free speech. We can choose how we want to live and work, and we can choose to disagree or agree with others. But if we don’t guard those freedoms, we will lose it all.
If you have not read this book yet, please go find a copy and read it right away. It is very relevant to today.
