The Communist Party of the Soviet Union — like most communist parties — came to power as the great defender of workers. In reality, the Soviet Communist Party didn’t give a hoot about Russian workers. The party was nothing more than a totalitarian organization that used workers to gain power — and then suppressed the proletariat, just as it suppressed every other group. One of the first things the Communist Party did after attaining power was disband independent labor unions and prohibit workers’ strikes. Yes, the “workers’ party” banned strikes. The one major exception was the Chinese Communi ..read more

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) twice described Israel as a “pariah” among the world’s nations: “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah. … [The Israeli public] understands better than anybody that Israel cannot hope to succeed as a pariah opposed by the rest of the world.” It was for that reason that the majority leader said that Israel should choose a leader other than Benjamin Netanyahu, its current prime minister. Then, Schumer implied, Israel will presumably no longer be a pariah. In Schumer’s view, and in the view of most of the Democratic Party, as well as ..read more

In a television interview watched by millions, Pope Francis recently made a comment about hell that has been widely reported. In the words of the Catholic News Agency: “When asked by the interviewer, Fabio Fazio, how he ‘imagines hell,’ Pope Francis gave a short response. ‘What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is.'” I have a different — indeed, completely opposite — view. I should make it clear that I, too, hope that sometime in the future — hopefully the near future — no one will be sent to hell. That would mean go ..read more

Millions of Americans, depressed by the ideological divide in America, harbor a wish that something or someone can bridge this divide. This wish is understandable. But it is fantasy. The divide is unbridgeable. One might as well wish that daily consumption of a hot fudge sundae will lead to weight loss. To cite a few samples: How are we to bridge the gap between those who believe men can become women and women can become men and those who don’t believe this? Between those who believe men menstruate and those who believe only women menstruate? How are we to bridge the divide between those who b ..read more

The moral confusion of our time is therefore not new. Almost 3,000 years ago, the Prophet Isaiah lamented, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” But at the start of the 20th century, a new form of moral confusion was introduced. While there were always those who called good evil and evil good, shortly after Einstein discovered relativity in the natural order, Western civilization applied relativity to the moral order. As the late historian Paul Johnson wrote in “Modern Times”: “At the b ..read more

It is impossible to understand what is happening to America — and to the rest of the West — without understanding the most dynamic ideology of the last hundred years: leftism. We need to begin with the understanding that leftism (or “progressivism”) and liberalism are not only not the same ideologies, they are in fact opposed to each other on virtually every major issue. Leftism and liberalism have only two things in common: One is belief in big government, which, given that individual and societal liberty decline as the state grows, is a significant similarity. The other Left-liberal commonal ..read more

Antisemitism on American college campuses is not new. College presidents and professors didn’t begin tolerating or teaching antisemitism last Oct. 8. Students marching on behalf of the annihilation of the Jewish state, student activists tearing down posters of kidnapped Jewish children, locking Jewish students in a library at Cooper Union and “70% of Jewish college students feeling forced to hide their Jewish identities” are the result of decades of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish rhetoric. One example I recently came across is a column titled “When Young Jews Major in Antisemitism ..read more

If you say “men give birth,” we all know your position on Hamas. Now, why is that? Why, if a person says “men give birth” or says that men who say they are women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, can we be virtually certain that the person sides with Hamas in its war to eradicate Israel? Theoretically, the two claims — that men as well as women give birth and Israel is the villain in its war against Hamas — have absolutely no connection. But they do — for two reasons. Reason No. 1: When people have a distorted moral value system, that distortion applies to just about every issue ..read more

Last Friday, ahead of the anniversary of Jan. 6, President Joe Biden gave a speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to kick off his 2024 campaign. His theme was that the upcoming presidential election will determine whether or not America remains a democracy because a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end democracy in America. Politically speaking, the purpose of the speech was clear. Given that Biden has among the lowest favorability numbers ever recorded for a sitting president, he cannot make the election about his achievements. Because he has none that warrant his reelection. In every way ..read more

Imagine a group of people who work to destroy Italy because, they claim, Italy’s origins are illegitimate. Imagine further that these people maintain that of all the countries in the world, only Italy doesn’t deserve to exist. Then imagine that these people vigorously deny that they are anti-Italian. Would you believe them? Now substitute “Israel” for “Italy,” and you’ll understand the dishonesty and absurdity of the argument that one can be anti-Zionist — that is, against the existence of a Jewish state — but not be anti-Jew. Yet, that is precisely what anti-Zionists say. They say that Israel ..read more