Continued apologists for the communist monsters, particularly on the left and in academia. Imagine the uproar if Anita Dunn had said “…Hitler, one of my favorite personal philosophers.” And yet Mao murdered many more people, an order of magnitude more, than Hitler ever dreamed of killing.
And unfortunately, the old demon isn’t dead. It continues to insinuate itself into our political discourse, but in more subtle ways, via watermelon environmentalism, and demands that health care is a “right,” and that profits and those who earn them are evil.
“And yet Mao murdered many more people, an order of magnitude more, than Hitler ever dreamed of killing.”
Yes, but let’s be fair here: Mao started with a MUCH larger country. Hitler did the best he could with what he had to work with.
Keep mind that at the peak Germany had control over hundreds of millions of people. I haven’t done the math, but I bet the population numbers favored the Nazis. What he didn’t have was a few decades to go even more nuts. Imagine what a mess Europe would be, if Hitler ran it for a couple more decades.
OTOH, even then China probably had more people than Europe did.
Imagine the uproar if Anita Dunn had said “…Hitler, one of my favorite personal philosophers.”
Which is exactly why she would never say that.
Regardless of the numbers of lives involved, Mao and Stalin are never going to represent evil in the minds of Americans the way Hitler does, just as Norman Borlaug is never going to be a household name for saving millions of lives. The U.S. never went to war against Mao or Stalin (and in fact were allied with them in World War II), and very few Americans have any personal acquaintance with one of their victims. It isn’t “fair,” but that’s the way it is.
Dunn knows that most people won’t bat an eye at a joking reference to Mao, and so felt free to make one. That makes her someone who knows her audience; it doesn’t make her a Maoist.
As Duranty excused Stalin, Jim excuses the Maoists.
“The U.S. never went to war against Mao or Stalin.”
No, they went to war against us.
You get an F in History for 1950-53.
So we should just accept the ignorance of millions? So I guess it’s okay to stop teaching Americans about atrocities against the American Indians, our slave-owning past, the evils of Christian activities like the Crusades and the Inquisition, and so forth? No? Why not?
There’s the idiot Jim–I didn’t say his name three times fast, so it took
a while for him to show up
God help us, but I could have written almost the same comment that Jim did. Just because he’s usually wrong doesn’t mean he always is.
However … Mao was not our ally during World War II.
And I wouldn’t have written those last six words … It doesn’t make her not a Maoist. I don’t necessarily think she is a Maoist, but I also don’t think she sees anything particularly wrong with being one, either.
Mike G
Does the Korean War mean anything to you?
Yes, it does. But I honestly don’t see your point.
Here, let me take what Jim wrote and remove all of the iffy historical assertions:
Regardless of the numbers of lives involved, Mao and Stalin are never going to represent evil in the minds of Americans the way Hitler does, just as Norman Borlaug is never going to be a household name for saving millions of lives. … It isn’t “fair,” but that’s the way it is.
Mao and Stalin (and Kim Il-sung and Pol Pot) were objectively worse than Hitler. But the average American won’t perceive them as worse, mainly as a result of ignorance. I don’t see that as praise for them.
Similarly, Che Guevara was a far worse (i.e., far more “successful”) psychopathic murderer than, say, Charles Manson … yet nearly all Americans would consider a Manson T-shirt outrageous, and a Che T-shirt is in many quarters (not mine) considered kewl.
If I understand your point, you’re inadvertently helping Jim make his point.
Yes, Mao and Stalin and Kim were our enemies. Yes, they considered themselves at war with us. But even though our troops fought their troops, the United States did not declare war on Russia or China, the U.S. was officially in a “police action” rather than a war, and the U.S. was willing to live with a cease-fire rather than press for total victory over the enemy as we did with Hitler. That is one reason (of several) that Hitler is perceived to have been worse than Stalin and Mao — if Hitler had offered a cease-fire in 1944, would we have accepted it? Hell no! Hitler was evil!
Did you read the Volokh Conspiracy discussion thread?
“Dunn knows that most people won’t bat an eye at a joking reference to Mao, and so felt free to make one. That makes her someone who knows her audience; it doesn’t make her a Maoist.”
Note how Jim is promoting the party line defense of Dunn. ‘Why Dunn doesn’t really agree with Mao, she was just making a joke you silly people!’ Good grief!
Oh, Jimmy. I believe Dunn’s audience was a bunch of high-school students. Her comments were not only revealing but odious.
Mao and Stalin (and Kim Il-sung and Pol Pot) were objectively worse than Hitler. But the average American won’t perceive them as worse, mainly as a result of ignorance. I don’t see that as praise for them.
Americans, particularly those who read this blog, are not as ignorant as Jim may hope us to be. And judging by the backlash to her comments, I would say many more Americans are not as ignorant as Jim wishes they would be.
So if the argument is Dunn did no wrong because she knew her audience was ignorant, and thus wouldn’t bat an eye to her loving comment of Mao; then she earned all the criticism she is receiving and more. Jim earned his as well.
Hmmm, this sounds sort of like the hoary old philosophical question, “if a skunk sprayed Anita Dunn in a room where everyone had a bad cold and couldn’t smell anything, would she still stink?” I say we try it.
Meanwhile, there’s now a second post and discussion thread over at the Volokh Conspiracy that might be worth your attention:
Why the Neglect of Communist Crimes Matters
While we’re arguing over whether Anita Dunn is really a Maoist, there’s a comment from the VC thread that Rand linked to that highlights a more important issue:
Solzhenitsyn argued that the gulags, mass murder, etc. were an essential feature of Marxism, no matter who did the implementation. It’s instructive to see how he was treated by our government, universities, mainstream media, etc. in the US in the mid-’70s; the word “pariah” comes to mind. The more things change, the more they stay the same…
“The U.S. never went to war against Mao or Stalin.”
Those of us who were “Cold Warriors” would disagree.
Those who currently spend time tracking new Chinese submarines would disagree.
There are those whose experiences span those two items, who would disagree.
Then, “The U.S. never went to war against Mao or Stalin.”, may be totally wrong, hollow, incorrect and off base by a thousand miles.
Personally I try to avoid repeating slogans from any group. When I talk to people who are left of center, I typically begin by talking about the things we agree on. Believe it or not, most people who are left of center — at least in the part of the world we inhabit — actually support free, democratic cultures. They do have a different take on the problems we face, though. They will tend to blame large corporations rather than large government for problems in our society. I try to help people see the similarities and suggest ways of addressing problems that will wind up making us freer and better off.
I don’t much care for the Dunns or, for that matter, the Limbaughs.
Birds of a feather…
Shameless plug: anniversary comparison.
Old n’ Stumpy, if you were part of that effort, then I thank you for your service. What you did was worth doing. You helped protect our nation.
But no, that wasn’t war. Words have meaning, dammit.
Rand’s post was about why there are still apologists for communist monsters like Koba and the Great Helmsman. Why is it that Hitler is regarded by the American public as Ultimate Evil, although Mao and Stalin cheeerfully murdered more than 100 million people?
Yet FDR shook hands with “Uncle Joe,” and Nixon shook hands with Mao. That is one reason they aren’t perceived as being in the same league as Hitler.
Being vigilant, being prepared for war, is essential for national survival. But no, it isn’t war, otherwise you’d have to accuse every U.S. President from Roosevelt to George W. Bush of treason for refusing to engage the enemy.
Is Hitler really more evil than any head of state from previous centuries, as many commonly believe?
Tyranny is the rule and not the exception, and it often got incredibly nasty. What separates Hitler from the rest of the bunch is access to modern technology. Would (say) the Mughals had have been just as cruel and destructive as the Nazis if the former had the internal combustion engine, the telephone, rifling and Zyklon-B?
Cultural priorities: Google “celebrates” the creation of “Sesame Street” for the past four or five days, and ignores the fall of the Berlin Wall.
During the 1980s, the Left was allegedly so traumatized by the possibility of nuclear war that it would do anything to defuse the situation. But as soon as the Soviet Union fell, the only thing coming out of their mouths were eager proposals about how to spend all the money they would now have from the “peace dividend.” No celebration, no ecstasy over being out of the danger they supposedly thought us all in.
And now they are blithely allowing South Korea and Iran to resurrect the danger.
Seems like all that “concern” was and continues to be the only thing the Left is good at: a lie.
I think you mean “North Korea.” But yes, I agree — after the Wall fell, there was some celebration, but it turned sour pretty quickly. For example: a few years later U2 put out a couple of albums with gloomy songs about the miseries of living in a Europe that had “lost its way” and didn’t know what to do with itself now that there was supposedly nothing to fight against. Everyone seemed deflated; the Cold War sucked but it was exciting too, and also it was a good excuse to put off being serious about life: “You mean we have to go back to an ordinary life of jobs and family and dying peacefully in our beds? But I’d invested so much in the idea of living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that looked like that looked like that cool Billy Idol video!”