1. After a delay of several decades, Comrade Duch has been convicted. The man was one of the participants of Communist Cambodia’s efforts to commit self-genocide. Today everybody condemns Duch. His party affiliation, which is as relevant for the crime as, is his person, however, gets little mention. Except perhaps that, the talk is about “stone-age Communism. The term implies an excuse. It insinuates that people such as Duch have somehow abandoned the real humanistic party line. Accepting the killer’s condemnation has a related reason. It helps to avoid the kind of look in the mirror that would bring the past and its record back.
 
Originally, the Reds could take power in part because their protective supporters in the West hindered their defeat. Today we have Afghanistan and its Islamist fundamentalists benefiting from something comparable. Here, too, with the collapse of the home front, an anti-Western and backward looking force is being helped by giving it multi-cultural understanding. Also in Afghanistan’s case, Taliban victory will lead to the completion of the already ongoing carnage. No surprise. One day, however, the butchers themselves might be judged the way the Khmer Rouge are now. All will cheer that development. Including those that now help the Taliban to execute their program. It is the program for which, those who will wear the robe of surprised righteousness, will prosecute them.
 
 
2. Another page from the “what is wrong with us” notebook. This writer sent a video to a few potentially interested acquaintances. The footage shows an Islamist crowd in London holding up signs. Their message‘s implications are impressive. A sample: “Freedom, go to hell. Europe, take some lessons from 9/11. Europe you will pay, your 9/11 is on its way. Be prepared for the real Holocaust. Butcher those who mock Islam. Behead those who insult Islam. Europe is the cancer, Islam is the answer. Islam will dominate the world. Exterminate those who slander Islam.” Presumably, the last slogan about slander refers to those that give publicity to the rest of the placards.

If one guesses at excusing responses then one thinks of apologies such as “they do not mean it”, or “it is for the attention-grabbing show only,” and “they only represent a fringe” so there in nothing to be concerned about. The reaction that made the writer pensive was this comment: “why show such pictures? Riding around on the Moslems that are so sensitive regarding their Mohammed, will only provoke their fury.” Seldom has moderation been enlisted in the support of more extremism than by the implications of this warning.
 
 
3. Political illiteracy might be an unkind and therefore seldom used term. However, it is not a recent phenomenon. As freedom spread – primarily the right to vote and majority-legitimized governance are meant - the inability to comprehend neglected politics, and therefore the limited comprehension of the consequences of political decisions, have produced tragic results.
 
 
4. Americans elect presidents only to lose their confidence in the Chosen one’s ability and policies by mid-term. The answer is not necessarily in the limited ability of the Prexy. The pattern suggests that the voters overestimate the person and misunderstand their promises as well as the real causes of the problems the country must cope with. This happens regularly. This is because, in part due to its own choices of dreams, the electorate is ignorant. In addition, it also has a brief attention span that reduces complex issues to short slogans. So the voters repeatedly fall for an image that is projected with their consent – only to regret subsequently their decision.

 
5. A majority without an ideology –a set of beliefs that creates a context for an interrelated and compatible set of ideas- is an assembly without a mind and a will. Such a mob is ready for a takeover by whoever understands their instinct sufficiently in order to exploit it. By this criterion, Eastern Europe is a danger zone. The majority of the region’s countries have no principled majority able to comprehend such things as functioning wealth generating policies and the laws that explain a policy with whose aid the good life can be created.

 
6. The politically disappointed, the ones whose expectations were not met and could not be met by the political redistribution of wealth, might choose to become politically abstinent. In the abstract, there is nothing wrong if the gullible and those without the ability to see the consequences of their political choices, drop out. In theory, the political neutrality of the uninformed and irrational element’s abstinence from the political process is not be bemoaned. However, the negative consequence of abstinence is undeniable. When the area of public affairs is abandoned, the beneficiaries of misused power that favor a few will fill the vacuum. The result is hard to reverse.  At the same time, the new governors will, as they have promised, ignore the rules of sound economic policy.

 
7. Once in total control of the political process, and as soon as their opposition is made catatonic, Socialists will begin to implement their real agenda. The first step to emasculate resistance created by its implementation will be to demand selfless sacrifices in favor of those that are likely to be the population of a future generation. This implies that the moment’s majority must defer to the wishes of a majority to come. That majority will be represented now by a party, which, as an avant-garde, claims to express the interest of a majority to be created. Therefore, the moment’s existing majority is in the name of higher ethics that others formulate, compelled to subordinate its wishes to the judgment of these elect. This equals the subordination of the existing and verifiable majority to a still nonexistent majority that the future will produce. More prosaically but also more in accordance with the tenets of conventional democracy, Capitalism works in behalf of its participants of the moment. In doing so, it caters to the self-interest of existing but also prosaic majorities without reference to future chimeras. Accordingly, the choice is between sacrifice for others determined by an elitist arbiter against an investment in a future that is determined by perceived individual advantages.
 

8. Activity on a free market creates competing products. To the authoritarian mind, this equates disorder that is to be regulated by fiat. Meanwhile, the existence of competition will regulate the comportment of the market’s participants. The state, which some are tempted to call upon to overcome contradictions, redundancies and conflicts is –especially if it can assume the role of regulator- a monopoly. While it can create “order”, it will stifle creative conflicts and it will be subjected only to the mediating effect of the corruption that its role will fuel.

 
9. Your motives, base or noble, might explain the intention that leads to the facts you create. Even so, these actual of claimed causes do not have the power to alter the substance of the facts. Remember, all totalitarian systems that we have on record had claimed to want to create a better world and an improved human being inhabiting it. Claiming that you act unselfishly for mankind frees you of much criticism. This will be true regarding those who confuse good intentions with the likely sorry outcome of actions and who believe that a current wrong can bring bliss in the future. This blind spot for evil deeds in the service of salvation has consequences. The claimed service of world-redeemers generally implies that certain persons and goods are to be sacrificed without their consent. This for the benefit of causes whose constituency exists only in the imagination of the enlightened that command the present making it inch toward its determined future.