RJ Rummel is one of the most important academics alive today. His landmark studies on democide have been crucial influences on my thinking, and if there was justice in the academy, he would be an intellectual star and not racist buffoons like Cornell West. Today, he provides a brief summary of his thesis on WorldNetDaily:
Our academic and intellectual Marxists today are getting a free ride. They get a certain respect because of their words about improving the lot of the worker and the poor, their utopian pretensions. But when empowered, Marxism has failed utterly, as has fascism. Instead of being treated with respect and tolerance, Marxists should be treated as though they wished a deadly plague on all of us.
His work should be read by everyone who believes that giving more power to a government, be it Communist, Fascist, Nazi, Democrat, or Republican, is a bad and often lethal idea. I am not a libertarian because I am optimistic about human behavior, I am a libertarian because I am extremely pessimistic about it. I’ve seen far too many people go mad with tiny and insignificant bits of power over others to believe that anyone should be trusted with great amounts of it.