Quote of the Day
The victorious radicals had proclaimed a theology of Reason in which equality of condition was the natural and true order of creation. In their Genesis, the loss of equality was the ultimate source of mankind’s suffering and evil, just as the arrogant pride of the primal couple had provoked their Fall in the religious myths now discarded. The ownership of private property became a secular version of original sin. Through property, society re-imposed on every generation of human innocence the travails of inequality and injustice. Redemption from worldly suffering was possible only through the Revolution that would abolish property and open the gates to the socialist Eden — to Paradise regained.
The ideas embodied in this theology of liberation became the inspiration for the new political Left, and have remained so ever since. It was half a century later that Marx first articulated the idea of a historical redemption, in the way that became resonant for us:
Communism is the positive abolition of private property, of human self-alienation, and thus the real appropriation of human nature through and for man. It is therefore the return of man himself as a social, i.e., really human, being… – Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
This was our revolutionary vision. By a historical coup we would create the conditions for a return to the state of true humanity whose realization had been blocked by the alienating hierarchies of private property. All the unjust institutions of class history that had distorted, divided, and oppressed mankind would be abolished and human innocence reborn. In the service of this cause, no burden seemed too onerous, no sacrifice too great. We were the Christopher Columbuses of the human future, the avatars of a new world struggling to emerge from the womb of the old. – David Horowitz, The Politics Of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future
(h/t to PhilB)
That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a Leftist (former or otherwise) put in print why there is such an assault on private property rights today. The Endangered Species Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the multiple various and sundry EPA regulations about “wetlands” and pollution, Eminent Domain abuse, etc., etc. I mean, I’d come to that conclusion myself, given the evidence, but to have it admitted in print. . .
In fact, the entire piece is full of quotable excerpts. Expect the remainder of the Quotes of the Day this week to be from this one link.