The Left's Ideology

As Democrats continue to embrace "sacrifice" and "the common good" as campaign themes, it's important to remember that any philosophy built on the foundation of sacrificing individuals for the common good will lead to gulags and mass murder if carried out consistently. At every step, policymakers have a choice between letting individuals go their own way in life or forcing them to go along with the "common good". And, of course, by common good people usually mean "what I think should be done." I'm not suggesting that if Democrats take over Congress in November that mass murder will follow. But, when it comes to gulags, where else are they going to put people who don't want to take part in - or pay into - socialized medicine? Jail, of course. Right next to their fellow citizens who sell gasoline at a price higher than what Democrats think it should be. Jails and graves are the only place to put people who won't "get with the program".

OK, enough with my gratuitous bitch-slapping of leftists. (I could equally bitch-slap conservatives). The real purpose of my post was to link to Kevin Site's excellent post on his tour of Cambodia's killing fields, where two million people were sacrificed for the common good.

Standing amidst the shallow pits, now covered with grass, is a white pagoda covered by glass on all four sides. It looks to be at least 70 feet high. Inside the pagoda are ten separate wooden platforms, stacked to the top of the structure. Arranged on these platforms, according to sex and age, are the skulls of eight thousand of the 17,000 victims murdered at Choeung Ek.

[snip]

Inside the glass-lined pagoda, the clothes and skulls are open and exposed on their platforms. You can touch them, pick them up and stare closely if you feel the need. There is little separation from the living and dead.

Standing inside the pagoda I begin to understand that whether intended or not, this memorial is not a museum piece. Detaching yourself from this tragedy is not an option.

Here, inside this place, while you look at them, eight thousand skulls look back at you from empty eye sockets, asking you to see more than just their deaths, but their lives.

They once knew laughter and breakfast, the feel of rain and the taste of tea. It was these things they were robbed of and these things they seem to ask you to remember, so that they are more than statistics of a heinous crime, more than skulls on a platform.