(Minghui.org) There is a saying that you can't judge a book by its cover. But people often forget this. One example is the socialist movement in the U.S.: behind the promises of freedom and progressivism are the legalization of marijuana, mixed-gender restrooms, and other programs that carry both moral and societal costs.
Drug Abuse and Chaos
The democratic candidate is known to embrace decriminalizing cannabis possession, but the consequences are serious. “California, for instance, has had medical marijuana since 1996, yet the number of opioid deaths continues to rise,” wrote Ken Finn, the editor of Cannabis in Medicine, in the December 2020 issue of Emergency Medicine News. “Colorado has had medical marijuana for nearly 20 years... in 2019, it had a record number of opioid deaths, and preliminary 2020 data are pointing to yet another record year in drug deaths.”
Similar trends were also observed in other places. Data show that states with medical marijuana have a 23% increase in opioid overdose deaths, according to research published in the June 2019 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
On October 2, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized 2,224 pounds of methamphetamine in California during an investigation of a drug-trafficking organization. DEA Acting Administrator Timothy J. Shea said the drugs were enough to provide a dose of meth for every man, woman, and child in the United States and Mexico. He said drug use is always correlated with increases in violence, robbery, and murder.
Another example is Proposition 47, a law that classifies nonviolent offenses such as drug and property offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies. Referred to as the “Safe Neighborhoods and School Act” by advocates to successfully convince voters to pass the law in November 2014, its effect was opposite to what was expected, as seen in increased crime rates such as shoplifting and auto break-in thefts.
After the law was enacted, crime rates in Los Angeles went from decreasing to increasing. In 2015, a spokesman for George Gascón, District Attorney of San Francisco, said the law “has made it easier for drug offenders to avoid mandated treatment programs.”
A similar outcome was observed in San Diego, where Proposition 47 was exploited to commit crimes. The police chief of San Diego described Proposition 47 as “a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card,” reported the Washington Post in October 2015. In one instance, a criminal brought a calculator into a store to steal less than $950 worth of goods and then walked away. (Theft involving amounts of less than $950 would be charged as misdemeanors instead of felonies under the new law.)
Drug addicts, who are often homeless, need money for a fix so they walk into a store, steal merchandise, sell it for half the value and use the money to buy more drugs, said Del Seymour, founder of the non-profit Code Tenderloin, of the situation he had observed.
Harm to Society
Drug abuse is just one example among many. Once moral values are undermined and social order is disrupted, the consequences are devastating.
“The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth,” wrote Thomas Paine, one of America’s founding fathers. This country was established on faith and has played a critical role in safeguarding traditional values and countering communism. That is why it was blessed with wealth and prosperity.
In the past few decades, however, communist ideology has gradually infiltrated the West, including the U.S. Although there has been no bloodshed like the October Revolution in the Soviet Union, the ideology has pushed American society toward a big government, including in the New Deal in the 1930s and the War on Poverty in the 1960s.
After Nixon visited China during the Cultural Revolution in 1972, the U.S.–and Western society in general–began to support communist China, hoping a wealthier China would lead to a healthier political environment. By ignoring the Chinese regime’s continued human rights violations, including the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 and the persecution of Falun Gong that began in 1999, the Western nations welcomed China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and enabled it to become the second-largest economy in the world.
Taking advantage of the West's freedom and rich soil of democracy, however, the communists wasted no time propagating its core culture of violence, deceit, and hatred globally, including in the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO).
As the coronavirus broke out in late 2019, the communist regime in China–now strong and dominant–censored information domestically and misled the public overseas, including the WHO. No country, including the United States, was able to resist such a catastrophe.
When Trump entered the scene, he began to counter communism and restore traditional values. He took steps to curb drug abuse, tighten enforcement of immigration laws, and advocated that people needed to work and earn their share of wealth. That is why he was heavily targeted by news media and officials who have taken up communist ideology over the past decades.
During the October 22 presidential debate, the democratic candidate said if he were to become president, he would “send to the United States Congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people” within 100 days. Furthermore, he supports open borders, no deportations, sanctuary cities, and other similar initiatives.
The Real Story of Communism
Growing up in South Vietnam, Buck Soggs knew communism is different from what its propaganda had claimed. “Communism [in Vietnam] advocated voter suppression, using the media to tell lies or to manipulate you, telling you what the North Vietnamese did in history. They controlled the newspapers and all the other media; they turned around and tried to get everybody to support them, when everything they said turned out to be all lies,” Soggs said.
He said voting fraud in the U.S. general election reminded him of his experience of communism in Vietnam. “I see it happening here; we see it,” he continued, “Our Vietnamese community treasures what the U.S. stands for. We lost our country to communism, so we all recognize what communism looks like, and we won’t go for that,” Soggs said, adding he supports President Donald Trump and what he stands for.
Laura Lozano Zuniga from Austin, Texas, concurred. She said nationalizing industries is socialism. Mexico, where she came from, was on its way to socialism in the 1940s. Free health care sounded good in theory but deteriorated quality in reality. Very soon, doctors and lawyers went to drive taxis because they made more money that way.
Zuniga said it was no surprise for Trump to win many minority votes this year because socialism only leads to communism. Zuniga said she supports Trump for opposing socialism and communism.
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Category: News Commentary
