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Socialism Violates the 10 Commandments
“Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren’t about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy?” — Ben Shapiro
I’ve never heard socialism described this way, and it makes sense: anyone who is supposedly religious can’t subscribe to both socialism and religion. Well, of course, they can, but it must be difficult to ignore the cognitive dissonance.
How often have you heard Progressivism described as just another religion? Since Progressivists adhere to socialism (whether they admit it or not), they can’t legitimately engage in a religion, certainly not a theistic one.
Shapiro’s comment about socialism approving of thievery is also true; anyone who believes that you can take others’ money and give it to others who have less money violates religion, too. Everyone is entitled to have as much wealth as they desire — but they must earn it themselves. And covetousness is a precise description, too; isn’t socialism truly about desiring what others have and insisting you are entitled to have as much as the people who have actually worked to earn their wealth?
No matter how they try to justify it, socialists are violating the Ten Commandments, the moral foundation of our Judeo-Christian system, when they insist that socialism would be good for this country; it is neither moral nor ethical. Yet these folks expect us to join them in their efforts to steal from us and they are angry when we don’t.
When they can’t get what they demand, socialists/Progressives are unhappy people.
And those of us who work for a living — their unhappiness is our fault.
Do you see other violations of the Ten Commandments by people who believe in socialism?
Published in Politics
Coveting is wanting someone else’s stuff to use for your own purposes.
Because the “progressive” Christians claim their purposes are to help some third party (the poor, the neglected, etc.), the “progressive” Christians don’t seem to recognize that they are still wanting someone else’s stuff for their own purposes. To them, if their own purposes are to help some third party that somehow makes it not their purposes. And then they rationalize that since their purpose is supposedly to help some third party, it is a good thing (virtue) to want someone else’s stuff for their own purposes.
Wanting someone else’s stuff to use for your own purposes is still coveting, even if your own purposes are to do something you think will benefit a third party. Just because the purpose to which you want to put someone else’s stuff isn’t simply your own pleasure doesn’t change the fact that you want someone else’s stuff for your purposes.
Thanks. I think this type of thinking is true for a lot of Progressivism. If my motives are “pure” (according to my own definition) and I am trying to meet some goal of perfection, than any action is justified. Scary stuff.
Christianity is very open to socialism. pure socialism or even communism would be man in his highest state of grace. No one wants, no one lacks necessities and no one is not contributing.
Now when you apply socialism or communism and make it coercive, then you run into problems.
But none of the 10 commandments are economic in any way. Not until you get to 10, coveting, if you want to describe envy as an economic motivation (coveting neighbor’s wife?).
When Marxism was promulgated, it recognized religion as a competing authority. So leftist economic political philosophies will be hostile to religion. But no purely economic.
In the early days of the Americas, man religious communities were socialist in nature (an initial problem for the Pilgrims). A specific Jesuit society in the area of Uruguay back in the 15 or 1600s created a wonderful society of natives, fully christian and fully communistic. It was so successful that the Spanish from Argentina invaded and destroyed it.
Leftists have abandoned faith, but it has nothing to do with economics.
As I said earlier, a person of faith shouldn’t separate faith from any other part of life. A key part of Progressivism comes down to controlling power. And one way to get people to come on board ro Leftism is through economics. I believe Shapiro was trying to say that if you are a person of faith, and you are prepared to take away a person’s agency and freedoms for the sake of power, you are not being true to your faith. Economics is just one means of seizing power.
It occurs to me that “voluntary communism” is kind of an oxymoron. “Voluntary exchange of goods,” is the definition of a free market. How the producers are compensated doesn’t really matter as long as they are satisfied.
Economics is necessary for seizing power, be it left right or other. Capitalism requires, to be successful, some decentralization, which means loss of control (power). Germany in 1933-1939 was capitalist to an extent, but it was a coerced capitalism, and not by law, but by threat.
Socialism is the government control of the means of production. The initial Plymouth Colony was a socialistic commune:
The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice.”
From the memoirs of Plymouth governor William Bradford.
“This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.”
It is quite well document, nor little remembered. Voluntary and agreed upon socialism, which failed horribly.
Note:
As a youth I read ScFi a lot. A favorite writer was Ursula Le Guian. She wrote a book called “The Dispossessed” about a world which was capitalist and chaotic, and it’s moon, which was populated by a peaceful and purely socialistic society.
The leftist Presbyterian Church that my wife and I attended from 2014 through 2017 didn’t get too political for the most part. But near the end of my time of attendance at that church, the pastor’s husband quoted Matthew 25:31-36 as an argument for writing members of Congress to tell them not to “cut” social welfare programs.
I briefly argued against this line of thinking. But eventually my wife and I lost interest in the Church and stopped attending.
I suppose it isn’t surprising that both conservatives and leftists would search the Hebrew Bible and/or the New Testament hoping to find support for their political views. But asking questions like, “Would Moses have supported a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage?” or “Would Jesus have supported amnesty for illegal immigrants?” seem ridiculous, in my opinion.
Then again, Heavy Water, I find atheism ridiculous and I eat vegans, so we are even.
One can effectively prevent cognitive dissonance by avoiding cognition. Meanwhile, a person can believe himself religious if he simply cares about ‘evils’. Hating (for example, Poverty) and hating people who are unaffected by it while clearly not caring enough about it can be the height of spirituality for some people. Fortunately few of them care enough to go through with the sacraments such as actually voting.
Very nice, but insufficiently cynical with regards to socialism.
I do think that it is morally acceptable to kill terrorists. So, I don’t subscribe to “Thou shalt not kill” under any and all circumstances.
I think it is morally correct to lie under some circumstances. If the Nazis ask you if you have seen any Jews, lying to them is morally acceptable.
Also, these days we don’t have much use for
We generally think that treating a child badly because his grandfather was a jerk isn’t particularly moral. So, we need to scratch that so-called commandment too.
I’m pretty far from a Biblical scholar but to my mind what is meant by the ninth is that you don’t claim that your neighbor has done something he hasn’t or that you don’t know that he has, and this in context of something that would harm him; you don’t claim he stole something as that would get him punished. Unless, of course you witnessed him stealing something. There is no obligation to offer anyone up to the authorities under the ninth.
They didn’t have “authorities” back then as we have today. There was no such thing as a police force. At most you and your neighbors could form a posse and drag the accused to a recognized elder or the king.
We don’t need to scratch any of them if you understand them. The word is not “kill”; it’s murder.
You can also lie to save lives.
The purpose of the third and fourth generation is to remind parents that their actions can have long-term consequences and for more than their own actions. And it’s not about treating anyone badly; it’s about family accountability, and how our actions impact many others, for a long time.
Authorities beyond elders and kings did exist. You could report people to the authorities.
In some places, there were also the equivalent of town (or tribal) councils.
Children grow up, and have more children so that when they are adults and act like their evil parent and grandparents they are held accountable.