Walter E. Williams Liberals, Progressives and Socialists

In Europe, especially in Germany, hoisting a swastika-emblazoned
Nazi flag is a crime. For decades after World War II, people have hunted
down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers, who were responsible for
the deaths of more than 20 million people.

Here's my question: Why are the horrors of Nazism so well-known and
widely condemned but not those of socialism and communism? What goes
untaught — and possibly is covered up — is that socialist and communist
ideas have produced the greatest evil in mankind's history. You say,
"Williams, what in the world are you talking about? Socialists,
communists and their fellow travelers, such as the Wall Street occupiers
supported by our president, care about the little guy in his struggle
for a fair shake! They're trying to promote social justice." Let's look
at some of the history of socialism and communism.

What's not appreciated is that Nazism is a form of socialism. In
fact, the term Nazi stands for the National Socialist German Workers'
Party. The unspeakable acts of Adolf Hitler's Nazis pale in comparison
with the horrors committed by the communists in the former Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Republic of China. Between
1917 and 1987, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and their successors
murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 62 million of
their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, China's communists, led by Mao
Zedong and his successors, murdered and were otherwise responsible for
the deaths of 76 million Chinese. The most authoritative tally of
history's most murderous regimes is documented on University of Hawaii
Professor Rudolph J. Rummel's website, at
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills, and in his book "Death by Government."

How much hunting down and punishment have there been for these
communist murderers? To the contrary, it's acceptable both in Europe and
in the U.S. to hoist and march under the former USSR's red flag
emblazoned with a hammer and sickle. Mao Zedong has been long admired by
academics and leftists across our country, as they often marched around
singing the praises of Mao and waving his little red book, "Quotations
From Chairman Mao Tse-tung." President Barack Obama's communications
director, Anita Dunn, in her June 2009 commencement address to St.
Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral, said Mao
was one of her heroes.

Whether it's the academic community, the media elite, stalwarts of
the Democratic Party or organizations such as the NAACP, the National
Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club and the Children's
Defense Fund, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism — a
system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other
systems combined.

Today's leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the
suggestion that their agenda differs little from those of Nazi, Soviet
and Maoist mass murderers. One does not have to be in favor of death
camps or wars of conquest to be a tyrant. The only requirement is that
one has to believe in the primacy of the state over individual rights.

The unspeakable horrors of Nazism didn't happen overnight. They were
simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas leading to
consolidation of power in central government in the quest for "social
justice." It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans —
who would have cringed at the thought of genocide — who created the
Trojan horse for Hitler's ascendancy. Today's Americans are similarly
accepting the massive consolidation of power in Washington in the name
of social justice.

If you don't believe it, just ask yourself: Which way are we headed
tiny steps at a time — toward greater liberty or toward more government
control over our lives?

Perhaps we think that we are better human beings than the German
people who created the conditions that brought Hitler to power. I say,
don't count on it.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason
University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features
by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.