Life Is Worth Living: Do Not Give Up Your Freedom

The principle of democracy is a recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift from God, the Source of law. 

Bishop Fulton Sheen, Whence Come Wars (1940), p. 60 

Karl Marx explained it quite differently when he said, "Democracy is the road to socialism.¨ 

Now today just like Bishop Sheen predicted many years ago, several of the candidates for President of the United States are trying to outdo each other in who can promise more free things so they could be elected.   In essence without realizing it completely, Bishop Fulton Sheen was preparing the people living in the 21st century a greater understanding of what was about to happen to them. 

 Karl Marx, whose writings define modern socialism, claims that human society will transform from capitalism through socialism into true communism. Global communism will be the final state of humankind, and in it we will all be happy and prosperous. Marx wrote: 

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” 

Marx was, in essence, creating heaven right here on earth.  A heaven for the here and now not the hereafter.  Clearly the idea has been created here that there is no need for God under Socialism because we basically will turn the earth into heaven.  If this is indeed the case do we need a God?  If we do not need God to get to heaven- do we even need religion or a Church?  

This was the philosophy that Bishop Fulton Sheen was warning about in the 1930s.  The twin evils of Nazism and Communism created the concept that religion was not needed only the government is needed.  Their arguments are sly and slowly get you to listen to their ideas.   

While studying socialism, you might get sucked into arguments so thoroughly that you question your faith. When all that you have in front of you are their books, and perhaps their friends, it is easy to lose sight of God and his wisdom. If you study socialism and Marxism, take time frequently to reflect on your studies, researching what God has said.  Do you consider yourself part of the “working class?”  

Congratulations, you’ve accepted socialist terms and arguments into your thoughts. There is a truism that says if you can define the terms of the debate you’re halfway to victory. Here is a shortlist of terms frequently used by socialist propagandists. 

• Class: As in “class warfare,” “working class,” and even “middle class.” Socialists specialize in putting people in boxes, and insisting that they acquire “class consciousness.” You can see why there is such offense to them when, say, a black man supports President Trump. He’s “not being true to his race.” 
• Intersectionality: This word is used when a person can belong to several groups at once. This merely creates more, and smaller, boxes for people to fight over. 
• Universal Something: If you’re promised “universal healthcare,” or “free college education for all,” that means society must again let the government do something. It usually means that only the government can provide this. 
• Redistribution: Nothing less than stealing, under color of law. Everybody owns it, they say, but only the favorites of the new rulers get it. 
• Social Justice: The idea that there is one justice for this group and a different justice for that group. If there are no truths, no common morality, then anything goes. 
• Something Privilege: In the end, this is another version of redistribution. In this one the marked people are pressured to inflict themselves with the wounds. 
• Progressive: A recycled word that means socialists. 

Our rights come from our Heavenly Father, they do not come from us.  If they came from us we truly have few rights.  Socialism is not compatible to free will or individual rights- it is full of dogma that is actually anti-individual rights.  Why? The entire concept of socialism promises larger government and with large governments, you have little or no individual rights.  

Look at what Bishop Sheen had to say about this: 

1. Communism is the final logic of the dehumanization of man 

1. The basic struggle today is not between individualism and collectivism, free enterprise and socialism, democracy and dictatorship. These are only the superficial manifestations of a deeper struggle that is moral and spiritual and involves above all else whether man shall exist for the state or the state for man and whether freedom is of the spirit or a concession of a materialized society. 

1. Never will we be able to understand our times if we naively 'think' of this system of self -government as the work of a few gangsters or the creation of a pack of criminals we call a political party. The appeal of Socialism, Fascism, and Communism was principally negative; they were protests against a live and let live anything goes liberalism, a spineless indifference to causes, a failure to recognize that nothing was evil enough to hate, and nothing was good enough to die for. 

1. The industrial civilization of the Western world has no intent to destroy man's freedom or to deny his personality. But Communism does. Denying God, it reduces man to a robot. 

Brothers and sisters, look toward freedom, look to God, and do what is right.  What earthly good does it do then to inherit treasures here on earth if these are but temporary?  Make the best decision both now and forever-worry about the hereafter- right here, right now, not in the future.  Clearly your future begins right here and right now.