Category Essays

Capitalism Vs. Communism

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An essay by Isabelle Sorrells

 “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” (Orwell 133). 

When George Orwell wrote Animal Farm, it served as a satire for communism, but he still demonstrated its basic principles. Capitalism, in stark contrast to communism in the 21st century, is a favorable economy designed for the people. Capitalism provides the opportunities and freedom that communism does not. A communist government doesn’t benefit the people, it is designed only to benefit its politicians.

      The opposing side believes that capitalism is broken. When looking at their solutions, communistic ideas and class grievances are common themes. One solution being, “a worker tax credit is the most direct way to send a signal to lower-paid workers that their contributions are valued and respected” (Shierholz). Isabel Sawhill believes that these workers are owed better, and in the process of giving them what they deserve, everyone else has to pay the price. Nell Abernathy, Darrick Hamilton, and Julie Margetta are inebriated of the belief that, “Our economy rewards those with power. Unchecked power does what it does best: replicates and concentrates” (Shierholz). However, Capitalism allows anyone to achieve power, if they were just willing to put in the effort, and those who rise to power with selfish goals never last very long.

      Capitalism gives liberty and fortuity to the people like none other. In communistic countries there isn’t a middle class, one is either part of the bourgeoisie, the government, or the proletariat, the people, and the people are poor. The communist party seeks control over their people, deciding on what businesses get to stay or go. But what happens when the chosen one fails? “The particular advantage of capitalism is that failed businesses don’t necessarily equal a failed economy; they make way for successful businesses” (Forbes). Under this system, people have the right to fail and try again. Through competition, businesses are forced to keep the people (consumers) in mind, as well as what their competitors create, thus preventing them from surviving as a self-serving company. Nothing better than some healthy competition, in fact, it fuels the creative mind, encouraging people to come up with the next best thing. Creativity equals power. But what is one thing a communist government rejects? Creativity. Since its birth, America has drawn the world’s most brilliant minds to its shores. Einstein, Tesla, Elon Musk, the co-founders of Google, the list goes on and on. You don’t see these ingenious people going to China or Venezuela.

      Capitalism is a system that relies on and is made for the people. In communism, the party decides what is made, often times not taking into account, or just not caring, if it is needed. But in capitalism, “The market is people… We decided what to and what not to do, where to shop and where not to shop, what to buy and what not to buy” (Forbes). Capitalism runs on supply and demand, so that people get what they want, and resources aren’t used up to make things no one needs. Communism is what you would call a top-down system. One that is under complete control by the government and stunts creativity. Basic communist principles stress that humans are imperfect and incapable of making their own decisions, thus the party makes their decisions for them. But are the members of the party not human too? A communist believes, “There are two levels, that of the advanced party and that of the ordinary masses… a man under communist rule enjoys not the hope of personal development to the fullness of his own nature, but has before him… forward and upward movement only in the direction of a human type suited to the rulers’ culture and the rulers’ needs” (Niemeyer). Who gets to determine what is the perfect human? Certainly not another human. Yet, communists set these standards without religion, so it is a human deciding what type of human everyone else should be.  

       When asked, which is the better form of government, between capitalism or communism, capitalism would be the obvious choice. In communism, there are no rights, there is no opportunity for an individual to get ahead. You’re stuck. The communist party dehumanizes its subjects, seeing only the masses and not the individual. What the communist party will never understand, but America’s founding fathers knew, is that there is no government without the people.   

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Schools Today Are Indoctrinating Our Students To Hate America; A High School Student’s Perspective

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An essay written by Isabelle Sorrells

         American pride is facing extinction in today’s world, and the source of that can be traced back to our nation’s schools and education systems. American citizens – no matter what age – when posed the question of how they feel about their country, answer with mixed feelings of hate and shame for who we are and who we were. But when asked why they feel this way, most lack the insight and understanding to clearly state the reasons for their beliefs. When you break down the reasons of those who have any, they are based on fallacy and prevarication, instilled in them through systems intended to better education, created by politicians with more than one intention in mind. This includes the inability to think critically, and the absence of respect or understanding of value a subject, or the knowledge of a subject, holds. 

       Leftist politicians (progressives; to be specific) push curriculum onto teachers that feed biased material to students. George Orwell predicted this in his dystopian novel 1984. One of Big Brother’s methods to ensure public obedience and subservience was to rewrite history books, to the point where it was no longer history but entirely propaganda. The most recent example of this would be the 1619 project that was created in 2019, based on an article written by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a New York Times journalist. There have been numerous outcries against this project by many journalists and respected historians, a portion of which helped fact-check the article before its publication, each of whom pointed out the various mistakes, historical inaccuracies, and in some cases, lies that were written into the piece. However, these protests have been largely ignored and the piece was published anyway, with only a few if not just one issue actually addressed. Not only this, but the article was eventually used as a foundation for a curriculum many schools nation-wide have already accepted into their history classes. Why are we accepting a journalist’s opinion piece as part of a historical curriculum?

       I have read this article, and the unmitigated hate for this country the writing exhibits is unquestionable, overwhelming even. Hannah-Jones speaks out against America as a white-supremacist, black-oppressing nation based on slavery in everything it does. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Ironically, she views everything as black and white, there are no shades of gray in this world she has created. It doesn’t take much to realize the clear bias and even racism Hannah-Jones harbors. This woman has not “re-framed” our history, but has re-written it all-together. 

       “White America dealt with this inconvenience by constructing a savagely enforced system of racial apartheid that excluded black people almost entirely from mainstream Amercian life — a system so grotesque that Nazi Germany would later take inspiration from it for its own racist policies,” writes Hannah-Jones. This entire statement is both completely false and sure to sow seeds of disgust and shame in our young Americans’ minds once they read this. It did mine, but thankfully I know the truth. But most of these kids won’t be told it is false, and since they aren’t told, the majority of them will believe it is true and accept it (wrongly) as fact.

       This brings me to my next discovery. Students in the average public school aren’t encouraged to be free, critical thinkers. This then prevents them from making their own decisions, deprives them of the ability to truly differentiate between fact and opinion, and ultimately provides the influential progressive bureaucrat and politician with malleable minds to which they can mold through social media platforms, articles, t.v. shows, books, and other things that just about everyone has access to, whether obvious as to its purpose or not. 

      But how is this done? The first place one should look is basic classroom rules and set-up. For instance, students must raise their hands if they wish to speak and are not allowed to speak without consent from the teacher. Not only does this prevent kids from learning how to have a proper and respectful conversation or argument, but it discourages them from asking questions at all. And those who do raise their hands with a question won’t always be called upon. Not only this, but the classroom setting with students aligned in individual rows is very industrial, hampering the ability for kids to bounce ideas off one another, to work together, or to further discuss an educational topic. The occasional group project is a short-term solution for a long-term issue. 

     Another way this is done is through curriculums like the Common Core and Critical Race Theory, which are detrimental to the building of national pride, and are the means to which leftist and/or progressive politicians can achieve nation-wide contempt for our country. Critical Race Theory is a marxist doctrine that one will find, “approaches issues such as justice, racism, and inequality, with a specific intent of reforming or reshaping society. In practice, this is applied almost exclusively to the United States,” reads the article What is the critical race theory?  “Critical Race Theory is grounded in several key assumptions. Among these are the following: American government, law, culture, and society are inherently and inescapably racist. Everyone, even those without racist views, perpetuates racism by supporting these structures. The personal perception of the oppressed—their “narrative”—outweighs the actions or intents of others. Oppressed groups will never overcome disadvantages until the racist structures are replaced.” 

       This entire curriculum was designed to teach kids that America was founded on racism, and that no one can get ahead because of the system we operate under. But if one looks at the actual documents and the general history of this country’s founding, this curriculum would be seen as nothing but propaganda fed to our students to create generations of people with the desire to tear it all down. And for what? Because they were told so many lies about this country and taught these lies in such a way, if they were ever shown the truth, they would call that the lie. 

     With these new curriculums, teachers must abide by stricter rules than ever when it comes to what and how they teach, and those who oppose the curriculum can’t do much to improve it. “A new proposal for a school district outside of Washington, D.C., would penalize teachers who criticize critical race theory,” writes Emma Colton for the Washington Examiner. This is but one example of how teachers no longer have a say in what they teach their kids.  

    “Too many standards projects have been efforts to move decisions about teaching and learning away from educators and schools, and put them in the hands of distant bureaucracies and politicians,” Stan Karp says in his article for the Rethinking Schools magazine. In regards to the creation of the curriculum, “Zero teachers were in the work groups. The feedback groups had 35 participants, almost all of whom were university professors. Cody found one classroom teacher involved in the entire process. According to teacher educator Nancy Carlsson-Paige: “In all, there were 135 people on the review panels for the Common Core. Not a single one of them was a K_3 classroom teacher or early childhood professional.” Parents were entirely missing.”

      Hillsdale college has also recognized this problem, writing in “A Failing Grade for Common Core”, “in regulating education the federal government has overstepped its constitutional boundaries, by attempting to control teaching strategies, preventing teachers from exercising their craft effectively.”

      I’ll tell you why an opinion piece is used as historical material. Progressive politicians with nothing but politics and their personal agendas in mind are forcing their hands where they don’t belong to get what they want. But what do they want? 

   They want America to fall.

     With the recent installment of common core I have found teachers either won’t or just can’t focus on the value, quality, or depth of what they are teaching. “It does not allow teachers to be teachers. Teachers in the Common Core are teaching to tests,” Kenneth Calvert says in “A Failing Grade for Common Core”. This curriculum forces them to focus on what their students must know that will be on the test, and ultimately, that they will get a 100. The flaw in this is that the students no longer see value in what they are learning, they only see value in the grade. Instead of chasing after the knowledge, they chase after a number on a sheet of paper. 

     Because of this, nothing stays with them. They only remember it long enough to put it on the test. After that, they forget about it. If they are only supposed to know it for the test, why should they try to remember it or even think about it afterwards? I would wager most adults who went through public school don’t remember what they were taught. Unless they use some knowledge regularly, everything else is gone from their memories. Only how they were taught, and the absence of certain skills remains.

     Teachers are often frustrated when no one asks any questions, but why should they? What students are being taught is not viewed as important. The kids won’t use it later in life, and they’ve been given no reason to find interest in it. 

     Teachers will see this and try to make it all as important as they can. Most often I have been told it is important because it will be on the test and if I want to pass I need to know all of it. Sometimes, that’s all they can do.  But how often will kids hear this and just not care anymore? In making everything seem important it takes away the importance of a subject. It does the opposite effect. Now, after a student gets over the stress and confusion of it all, they just see it as pointless. They get through the day, and once its over, push all knowledge they may have retained through rare bursts of attention out of their minds. 

    Other teachers will try to make the learning fun so that kids will actually pay attention, but this is a dangerous path to tread on. If not done right, in the right subject, the well-meaning teacher only causes more damage. I will never forget two years ago when my eighth grade history teacher tried to get kids to pay attention or make learning about WW2 “fun”. He put on a video of little, drawn, stick figure-men running out of horribly drawn and simplified trenches and getting shot by the other side. They would make funny noises as they died, blood dripping out of their little stick-figure bodies, their eyes turning into little X’s and their tongues sticking out of their mouths. Laughter erupted in the room every time someone was shot or blown up. 

    No one took it seriously. Where was the respect? I was sick to my stomach, thinking about it, I still am. This kind of teaching dehumanized all those people who died in trench warfare and this teaching didn’t give the kids a true understanding of how impactful and horrifying WW2 was. This is not the kind of subject you make fun of. 

    Teachers are forced to prioritize the wrong things. The grade, and how it is achieved, is what they are made to focus on, not the actual material.

      Common Core encourages kids to get the process right every time. In “How Public Schools Indoctrinate Kids Without Almost Anyone Noticing”, Auguste Meyrat says, “It effectively trains students not to think by emphasizing skills over content, process over product, and relative standards over absolute ones.” The answer doesn’t matter anymore. Its the steps you take to get it that matters and will get you the reward.

    This philosophy has been excruciatingly frustrating for me, especially when I primarily experience it in math — not one of my favorite subjects, I’ll admit. My brain goes faster than my hand when I do a math problem, which results in my forgetting to write down a few specific details. These “mistakes” cause reductions on my score. The answer is often right, but I get the entire question wrong because I forgot to add a positive sign here or a negative sign there when I was working it out. Do you see what’s wrong here? I do. 

     The way the curriculum is written, kids are rewarded for doing something they were “supposed” to do, instead of for understanding a subject. This effectively discourages kids from finding something out their own way, solving problems their own way, or doing anything on their own. They won’t trust themselves to make the right decision, which will force them to look to those who seem to know better than them. These people may be wrong, but these kids won’t trust themselves to know the difference. 

      I just finished my freshman year of high school, and of course, everyone has an opinion, I’ve learned that as much. But ever since I started to actually become aware of those around me, starting in the beginning of middle school, when I engaged these individuals in discussion to discover why they thought a certain way, often the individual and I would realize they had no idea why they thought that way. 

    Many kids my age have very definite opinions of President Trump, but when you actually ask them questions about it, they can’t back up their opinion. They have no idea why they feel a certain way about the man. Their options usually come from what they see on social media or what they hear others say. No real thought goes into their opinions. They are trained not to trust their own judgement, so they just take the opinions and judgements of others. Intrinsically, the school encourages and teaches tribalism.

     Those who have valid arguments however, on any subject, (which was very rare), they were individuals who came from families who regularly had discussions and debates on the topic, and often talked about why they thought something and the logic behind things, not just their definite, unquestionable opinions. Students didn’t acquire this skill from school. 

      The shield and microphone social media provides amplifies the voices of those who hate America, and influences the young minds that are trained to accept these opinions as their own. What these people are saying is just another version of what they are told in school, so they must be right. The consequences and aftermath of everything I have mentioned is in the actions of people today, from protests to riots and vandalism. You can clearly see critical thinking and American history is no longer taught in our schools, let alone respect for it.

      For example, protestors vandalised Fredrick Douglass statues in the name of Black Lives Matter. A black. Abolitionist. Critical thinking? Nope. None there.

    On June 27, 2020, local Democrats of Orange County California were calling for the John Wayne Airport to be renamed because of supposed racial comments he once made in a recently unearthed interview for Playboy magazine done fifty years ago.

    The flaw in this is that this airport was not named after John Wayne to commemorate any racial views he may have had (if he truly held those beliefs), but for his countless achievements and contributions to America after his death. Why should one’s achievements be defiled by their personal beliefs? And who are we to know what a man believes deep down in his heart? The sheer ignorance and speed with which the public formed such a definite opinion of this man and the should-be fate of his memorial is sickening. It was a snap decision made with the obvious absence of critical thought. I thank God these fools have not been successful thus far.

     183 statues and memorials have been reported as torn down, defaced, or vandalised in the last year. One-hundred. Eighty-three. Each was erected to stand for something. To remember or honor a person, an event, an idea. These heinous acts of destruction are out of disrespect to our nation’s history. Something that is only taught in a way to make others ashamed of it and to despise it. 

    George Orwell’s Animal Farm portrayed what is going on here the best. A pig named Napoleon, who is an allegory for the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, took the puppies of the farm (or the children of the union) away and brainwashed them to become his personal guard under the rest of the animals’ noses. He turned them into the unquestioning followers of a dictator. His own secret police to enforce his will on others. If we aren’t careful to end the indoctrination of American children in American schools, we will end up in the same situation. 

       The United States of America is the single greatest country in the world. I believe that to my very core. But we have been infiltrated in some of the most important positions one can have by people who wish to see this great country fall. Many if not all of these people reside on the political left. Progressives, globalists. They’re all here. In our government and in our media. Both of which are fighting to gain control of our schools and curriculum, feeding the children of America lies, and turning them into their own personal guard dogs. 

      The founding of America is not something to be changed. These people that wish to topple our nation must be defeated. I will stand and fight for this country and what our founding fathers meant for it to be. Why would I do this? Because America is worth fighting for.