Are We Victims or Victimizers?

Commentary

Under communist, fascist, Marxist, progressive, and socialist world views, there are two types of people in the world. They are placed in the categories of oppressor (victimizer) and the oppressed (victims). This simple attempt to place all human beings into two neat little boxes fails to factor in the complexities of human behavior.

If the secularists would study history, they’d discover that human beings can be both victims and victimizers during a lifetime. Despite our best efforts, we can fall victim to a random accident, crime, or disaster by being in the wrong place at the wrong time or being in the right place at the wrong time. We can be victims of events beyond our control, such as job cuts or job eliminations.

At times, we can victimize others inadvertently with careless words or behavior that doesn’t uplift anyone. Or we can victimize others because of perceived slights that we experienced from them previously. Sometimes we can be hard on others because of our own imperfections that are projected outward randomly or specifically targeted. We can even be victims of our own destructive tendencies, such as negative thoughts or a choice to partake in vices.

Those who utilize the communist playbook claim that the victimizers in society are folks who are educated and accumulate wealth off the backs of the masses. What they fail to take into account is that those who succeed through hard work don’t have to victimize the less ambitious as they attain upward mobility.

In a strange twist of irony, the Marxist worldview turns justice on its head. Thomas Sowell once questioned why socialists think it is greedy to keep one’s own hard-earned money, yet they believe that taking another person’s money to redistribute is not greed. How can it be termed greed to keep one’s honest day’s pay to invest, save, or spend as one wishes?

Nowadays, far too many college students and even some older folks idealistically believe that Marxism is beneficial as it allegedly generates equality for everyone in society. They haven’t lived under communism, so they don’t comprehend that under authoritarian rule, folks have limited opportunities. The state is in charge of the economy (statism) and the infrastructure that powers the economy.

Every business must answer to the edicts of the state, while the state victimizes anyone who opposes state mandates that are often arbitrary. Visualize a society that allows the ruling elite to seize your business, housing, land, or money, and use it for what they consider to be the common good of the collective. Under this system, there is no sense of individual liberty or opportunity for success because the authoritarian leaders believe that they are more equal than the folks they keep under their heel.

In the Marxist system, the union phrase “Workers of the world, unite” becomes meaningless because workers cannot unionize or find recourse for their grievances related to occupational safety, wages, and working conditions. The big lie that everyone is equal under socialism is just that, a colossal lie.

It’s more likely that the vast majority are equally miserable existing under a regime that doesn’t reward creativity, initiative, innovation, and risk-taking. It rewards only compliance and a lazy groupthink mentality. Anyone who deviates from the coerced orthodoxy is similar to a nail that sticks out and gets hammered down into subjugation.

Moreover, tyrannies use the Orwellian ploy that disagreeable speech is violence, while the physical violence that tyrants carry out against the innocent is justified. This is playing the victim card on steroids.

Do the folks who think that Marxist propaganda is peachy keen truly believe it? They may rail against capitalism and America’s first principles, yet they lack the courage to move to the authoritarian systems they look up to. Perhaps they want to have their cake and eat it, too, benefiting from freedom’s blessings while at the same time lambasting free markets and ordered liberty as oppressive.

It’s extremely difficult to get ahead in undemocratic societies because human rights are devalued, while the individual rights of the ruling elite are paramount. In a free society, the individual rights of all people are protected under the rule of law, and individuals can fight for their inherent, God-given rights. In secular-run nations, the spiritual component is missing, and people who believe in the divine must hide their beliefs or else be persecuted for their faith.

In unfree societies, people are constantly victimized just for attempting to be fully human, while in democratic societies, folks have ample opportunities to fulfill their potential and avoid being a victim. Certainly, unlimited choices can generate stimulus overload, but for those who realize that the world doesn’t owe them a living, success is certainly within reach.

Life can often seem unfair, but that doesn’t mean that we are victims of fate. Ultimately, it is up to each one of us to decide whether we will be a victim or a victimizer as we go about our daily lives.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.