America's 30 Years War --- Who is Winnng?

Book Review

America's 30 Years War ---
Who is Winning?

Balint Vazsonyi

(285 pp., $24.95, ISBN 0-89526-354-8, Regnery Publishing, Washington, DC, 1998.)

America's founding principles have been subverted and our country is on a steady course toward socialism. Our four founding principles --- the rule of law, individual rights, the guarantee of private property, and a common American identity --- are being replaced by group rights, redistribution, entitlements, and multi-culturalism, and our entire Western culture is in serious jeopardy. This is the message Hungarian-born Balint Vazsonyi, a world renowned concert pianist and historian, brings us based on his encyclopedic knowledge of the past. "It must count among the most amazing spectacles of history to be inundated with the rhetoric, theory, and practice of communism, and see not one communist around. We read and hear daily about class warfare, redistribution of wealth, the "dispossessed" masses, the disadvantaged, universal health care, speech codes, sensitivity training, restrictions on parents' rights, school-to-work --- the list goes on and on. The agenda is with us, the Party is not."(1)

Vazsonyi outlines the development and characteristics of two opposing philosophies. The concepts of liberty, equality and government developed differently in England and in France. The Franco-Germanic philosophy supposedly leads to the perfect society, where all will find contentment. Supported by those who espouse big government, utopia, statism, and collectivism, it attributes to human reason an unlimited capacity to understand and manage the affairs of our world, and ultimately it results in the totalitarian, socialist or communist state.(2) This philosophy has been promoted by (today's) liberals, "progressives," New Dealers, socialists, and communists (as well as present-day Democrats and Republicans), and has resulted in the graduated income tax, Social Security, Medicare, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the gun control laws, among many others. Its proponents have waged a campaign of deception against the fundamental tenets of Anglo-American political thought, and against America as a nation. This all-out effort has included thousands of projects, campaigns, organizations, agendas, and publications. America has been the "immovable object" standing in the way of the "irresistible force" of socialism.

The search for "social justice," though it sounds "wonderfully warm, humane, even lofty," has won over tens of millions of "caring" Americans but has been responsible for the horrors of the 20th century. "Social justice" was as much Hitler's slogan as it is of America's liberals today. In order to attain "social justice," social tensions must be eliminated. This causes a constant state of social warfare, which fuels discontent and results in a permanent state of hopelessness. Those who promote "social justice" have nothing to give, but can only take away: first opportunity, next possession, and finally, life itself. Far from promoting a better America, they look forward to no America. What will result is collectivism, socialism, and its end state, communism.

Affirmative action and group rights are manifestations of the search for "social justice." Affirmative action purports to "compensate for the shortcomings of God, Nature, History, and Happenstance."(3) It is counterproductive and insupportable. As the author points out, nothing has been found that is better than equality before the law. Group rights promote inequality, create stereotypes, instill fear, are granted by political action, and therefore can be taken away.(4) As in the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, Americans have been taught to be afraid of each other. Women are afraid of men (all men are potential rapists), men are afraid of women (possible sexual harassment charges), and employers are afraid of employees (potential minorities lawsuits). The worst feature of group rights is that they perpetuate a man's inability to escape the constraints of birth. For example, "A Jew is always a Jew" (Hitler) or a "bourgeois is always a bourgeois" (Lenin and Stalin).

Two other facets of America's march to communism are noteworthy. First, the Clinton administration's successful campaign for "school-to-work" (which establishes a regulated society) is listed as number ten in Marx's essential steps in the Communist Manifesto. The second involves children. The title of Hillary Clinton's book is: It Takes A Village. As the author points out, the essence of communism is the rearing of children by the village.

Opposing the disastrous Franco-Germanic philosophy is our Anglo-American philosophy, as enriched by the Scottish Enlightenment and the American founders. It regards human reason as bounded by limitations and in need of moral guidance.(5) Its economic system is free enterprise; it employs the rule of law as its method; and it does not presume the existence of an end state. The rule of law has allowed individual rights and the guarantee of private property --- and our common American identity. Rights are invested exclusively in individuals, are inalienable, are guaranteed by the Constitution, promote equality, and permit each of us to be special. They allow the conditions under which more people can have more liberty, more rights and more possessions. Every citizen has the opportunity to rise to the highest level possible.

Vazsonyi's book demonstrates the crucial roles that philosophy and history play in allowing us to understand our current problems. The "Franco-Germanic" philosophy was present in the works of Plato, and was further developed by the German philosophers Georg Hagel and Immanuel Kant. It is based on subjectivism, which holds that reality is dependent on human consciousness,(6) and that feelings create facts. It relies on the ethics of altruism and collectivism, and has caused the deaths of untold millions of people at the hands of government during this century. The "Anglo-American" philosophy, originated with the ideas of Aristotle. The Aristotelian revival of the 13th century led to the Renaissance, and via John Locke, to the United States Constitution.(7) Aristotle's ideas were rediscovered and systematized by Ayn Rand, resulting in the modern philosophy of Objectivism.

In summary, I believe it must count among the most amazing spectacles of history to find a naturalized American citizen sounding the clarion call to an impending national tragedy, of which 90 percent of his fellow citizens are not aware. This modern-day American hero is working tirelessly to save us from our ignorance of philosophy and of history, and to convince us that we must return to our founding principles. The book should be read by all Americans, and should lead us all to support the Center for the American Founding, of which Vazsonyi is the director.

References

1. Vazsonyi B. America's 30 Years War. Washington, DC, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998, pp. 176-177.
2. Ibid., pp. 17-18.
3. Ibid., p. 209.
4. Ibid., p. 79.
5. Ibid., pp. 17-19.
6. Rand A. The Ayn Rand Lexicon. New York, NY, Penguin Books, 1986, p. 488.
7. Ibid., pp. 34, 36.

Reviewed by Jerome C. Arnett, Jr., MD
Elkins, WV

Dr. Arnett is a pulmonologist in Elkins, West Virginia and a member of the Editorial Board of the Medical Sentinel. His address is P.O. Box 1926, Elkins, WV 26241.