J Robert Smith
- Feb. 13, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb. 15, 2021
George Orwell, who’s famous for his classics,1984 and Animal Farm, deserves a statue in DC – a towering bronze or marble statue. Focused on that statute and pouring forth from it, brilliant light. Hear me out. Orwell’s name is associated with the descriptor “Orwellian,” which means things that government – and, today, what Big Tech and a not-small chunk of corporate America – are doing involving a creepy, pervasive reach into the nooks and crannies of our lives – places where government and big businesses don’t belong.
The universally recognized line from 1984 sums it up: “Big Brother is Watching.” And why is Big Brother constantly watching? To make sure people don’t step out of line. If anyone does, like 1984’s Winston Smith, then the state is pitilessly after the offender. Conformity to the will of the ruling elite means everything. God-given rights are nothing. Today, cancel culture is Orwellian, as is “gaslighting” facts and reality.
Yes, Orwell was a socialist, but he had the detachment and wisdom to see where collectivism could go. The Soviet Union was the exemplar. Lenin said that “The goal of socialism is communism.” He was dead right, though socialists still argue that communism (and its intrinsic tyranny) isn’t inevitably socialism’s terminus. Well, it is.
Many socialists prattle about “democratic socialism.” Mixing in democratic principles to socialism is supposed to be a cure-all for socialism’s excesses, serving as a break on its course to tyranny. But isn’t socialism supposed to be inherently democratic? Why the need for the qualifier? One wonders, if socialism is so good and benign, why affix “democratic” to it? The truth is that it’s like adding “nice” to rattlesnake.
And if democratic principles redeem socialism, why not fascism? Why wouldn’t doing so ameliorate the worse of that awful ism?
Tyranny can and does present itself in many forms. So-called democratic socialism inevitably involves the imposition of the majority on the minority. The rights of the individual are diminished, if not erased.
Our founders were worried about the tyranny of majorities, and with good reason. Hence, our Constitution is a document of checks and balances, aimed at frustrating majority tyranny and the trampling of individual rights (group or collective rights are a construct of the left and falsehoods; only individual rights exist).
We’re in a fight for liberty that involves, in part, creating potent symbolism and powerful narratives. A grand Orwell statue (erected on the Mall, no less) isn’t happening with Big Brother Democrats/leftists and globalists running Congress and the White House. But freedom-lovers should boldly proclaim an Orwell tribute as a goal to be achieved when Democrats are sent packing.
Oh, and the days of toppling statues of great Americans, defenders of liberty, and those, like Orwell, who illuminate the threat of tyranny must end, too.
J. Robert Smith can be found on Parler @JRobertSmith, when Parler returns, and is new to Gab, again @JRobertSmith.
