Next Monday, November 9th, marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. For 28 years, from 1961 to 1989, it stood as a symbol of the tyranny of the totalitarian state under which the individual was viewed as the property of the state, with no right to leave the “workers’ paradise” without the permission of that state. And if you tried, you ran the risk of being killed by the armed guards of the East German communist government.
In a new piece that I’ve written, “The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tyranny of the State,” I explain the history and human tragedy of the Berlin Wall, in terms of the dozens of people who lost their lives trying to escape to freedom over the Wall.
We need to emphasize the threat that Big Government represents to all our freedom — including the right of freedom of movement — and which should be remembered on this 20-year celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Unfortunately, the Collectivist mentality did not end with either the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union. It remains alive and well in America and around the world, with its insistance that the individual lives for and is to be sacrificed to “interests” of the state.
We still have our work cut out for us, to demolish the numerous political “walls” with which the government continues to enslave us through its police power in the growing interventionist-welfare state and the threatening economic fascist order.
Richard Ebeling
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{ 6 comments }
as anna funder points out in her book “stasiland”, about one in six were in the employ of the stasi, the secret police.
there is now a desire to forget about the entire episode. convictions for abuses committed under the regime were few, probably because the perpetrators were so many. the shame will probably be exposed after a couple of generations have passed.
“the lives of others” is romanticized film of a much sadder reality.
lest we forget.
A current wall of enslavement is exemplified by Israel’s Apartheid Wall, which continues the same sort of heinous destruction of liberty caused by the Berlin Wall as well as the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto.
As an added bonus, the Apartheid Wall is another ‘infrastructure project’, partly funded by taxpayers of the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’.
Which is it that ends up the largest ‘gated community’ on the face of the earth, Israel or Palestine?
“Unfortunately, the Collectivist mentality did not end …It remains alive … with its insistance that the individual lives for the “interests” of the state.”
Collectivism is not the problem, the problem is that the people driving these states act in their own interest.
But you should not blame an idea for actions done by people that claim to believe in it.
@ Daniel M
My mother escaped East Berlin in ’61 when she was 24, and – thank God – convinced her whole reluctant family to come with her, leaving everything behind though – that meant, for my grandfather (60 years old), to leave his private gynecology clinic (the only one left in east Berlin after the war destructions !).
All their belongings were of course seized by the Communist Collectivist State and never returned to us later…
That’s because the Nazi People’s State had murdered and plundered the former owner of the house in ’39 and thus the social-democratic State decided after the German reunification not to reimburse our loss but only the Jewish claim.
Our family got the house back in the 90ies, to free market prices.
So please, allow me to criticize collectivist ideas.
Collectivism isn’t the problem? What do you think the entire justification of such a system lives on? When things done for yourself are evil and things done for others are good, and you apply that to a government, you have a sacrificial furnace. Millions dead for the greater good.
fascist america is full of garbage like this article. The Wall should have remained up and been defended until death
Long Live COMMUNISM DEATH TO PIG U$A
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