Damned Hippies!

Real Fascism Has Never Been Tried

If you don’t live in Canada, you may have missed that we had an election a couple of weeks back. It didn’t go well. That’s not what I want to talk about though. Not directly at least.

A couple of days before the election, I was walking to the grocery store and someone tried to hand me a flier. This is not uncommon. More often than not, it’s someone from Amnesty International. I made the mistake one time of answering “yes” when I was asked if I had a minute. What proceeded was an attempt by the volunteer (salesperson) to get me to sign up for a $50 per month donation. Hard pass. I take a dim view of “charities” which pay their executives hundreds of thousands per year and where only 65-70% of donations go to the supported programs. Lesson learned, don’t stop.

I didn’t stop this time. I just waved him off and went into the store. To be honest, listening to podcasts has largely saved me from these people. No, I have not learned any great anti-volunteer strategies from podcasts, but having my earphones on most of the time means that a simple handwave and polite “no thanks” is sufficient to ward these people off.

Sometimes, though, it’s just easier to take the flyer and move along. I passed on the flyer on the way into the store, but as I was coming out, a different guy shoved the flyer in front of me. I could see his lips moving, so I just took the flyer and kept walking. I got about 3 steps before I looked down and saw this:

“Vote Communist.” Sigh.

“Peace and prosperity, not war and austerity.” Double sigh.

It’s a free world (more or less), vote for whoever you like. You should probably have a basic understanding of the ideology you support though. Oh, and a little historical knowledge couldn’t hurt either. Here’s a one-question quiz to see if you know what you’re supporting:

Why does communism always fail?

1. Real communism has never been tried

2. Communism is a utopian dream that cannot survive in the real world

(Answer: really? You need an answer key for this quiz? Fine, the answer is “b.” If you got the answer wrong, go back and try it again. I’m sure you’ll do better the second time.)

Despite the protestations of its supporters, communism has been tried, repeatedly, and it always ends in mass murder (it’s odd that no other ideology is allowed to use this excuse. Can you imagine anyone trying out “real fascism has never been tried?”). Why does communism always end in mass murder?

Well, inevitably someone with the right mix of ambition and moral flexibility (read: psychopath) decides that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is not doing a very good job – imagine having the gall to suggest a committee of amateurs can’t run a modern society - and decides that it would be much better if everyone just listened to him. You are, of course, free to ignore the new leader, but if that is your choice, you will be “strongly encouraged” to do that from the comfort of a gulag or mass grave.

There is a more cynical interpretation as to why communism always fails:

Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
-- George Orwell, 1984

I briefly considered going back and engaging the gentleman in a debate. Very briefly. Why bother though? He looked like Santa Claus on his day off. If you’re that old and haven’t figured out communism doesn’t work, my limited debating skills aren’t going to provide you with that eureka moment you so desperately need. Given his age and where we live, he may be living on a commune somewhere outside the city and being spoon-fed this nonsense daily. Damned hippies!

Sadly, communism isn’t going anywhere. Its message (cough, lie, cough) is just too “nice” for it not to keep attracting the naïve and simple-minded, the “useful fools” as Stalin called them. The good news is that it’s not very popular. There were 19,583,016 votes cast in the 2025 Canadian election, of which 4,685 went to the Communist Party (CPC) and 4,996 went to the Marxist-Leninists (MPLC).

Combined, this is only about 3000 more votes than the satirical Rhinoceros party received. The Rhinos promised, among other things, to repeal the law of gravity, abolish all laws to end crime, and not to keep any of their promises if elected. These promises were only slightly more ridiculous than the communist platform, which promised to pay the unemployed 90% of their previous wages. Anyone willing to take a 10% pay cut so that they can stay home and goof off for the rest of their lives?

Note: Don’t ask me what the difference between the CPC and MPLC is because I don’t know, and I don’t care. Scratch that, I couldn’t resist looking into it. Suffice it to say there is too much detail to reproduce here, so I’ll have to summarize; the CPC are fools while the MPLC are more ideologically rigid fools.

For the record, no one in Canada voted for fascists. I mean, unless you’re a progressive, in which case you probably believe everyone who didn’t vote for the Communists or the Marxist-Leninists voted for the fascists.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.