By Louis Avallone
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The Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961 to provide a physical barrier between East and West Berlin. That’s the textbook explanation, but there was a greater, underlying purpose. The eventual fall of the Berlin Wall seems to foreshadow the predictable failure of government policies that, despite their stated and noble intentions, trample upon the innate dignity of human liberty.
Let me explain: As you may know, before 1961 (and after World War II), Berlin had been divided into a Soviet occupational zone and a joint U.S., France, and Great Britain occupational zone. In fact, during the 1950s, nearly 3.5 million people from East Berlin escaped communist repression into West Berlin, where they could travel into West Germany and other Western European countries. West Germans, by contrast to East Germans, were being led by a chancellor committed to a broad vision of democracy, capitalism, and anti-Communism. Understandably, West Germans enjoyed higher living standards and freedoms, in a growing economy, compared to their East German neighbors who were chained to a stagnating economy and deteriorating living standards – ruled by a socialist-led government, controlled by the Soviet Union.
Along with its other controlled communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, the Soviet Union claimed that the Berlin Wall was necessary to protect East Germans from those who seek to prevent the “will of the people” in building a socialist state in East Germany. This was hogwash, obviously, as even before the Berlin Wall was erected, 3.5 million East Germans crossed the border from East Berlin into West Berlin.
Nonetheless, the East Germans started with 96 miles of barbed wire fence in 1961. Then, the next year, a second fence was built, parallel to the first, but about 100 yards further in. Despite this formidable discouragement, more East Germans continued escaping into West Berlin. So, to stem the continuing tide of defectors, the East German government chose to add a concrete wall in 1965, and yet another one in 1975, complete with reinforced mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, over 300 watchtowers, and thirty bunkers.
And still yet, after all that, almost 30 years later, the Berlin Wall fell. Despite the formidable, and often fatal, man-made obstacles at the Wall, those yearning for liberty simply concluded that the consequences of failing to escape were greatly outweighed by the consequences of failing to try. This is why communist states fail: They underestimate the basic human craving for individual freedom.
So, are there any parallels to be drawn between our nation’s current political and economic environment? You bet there are, and as it is often said, if we do not heed the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat it. You and I cannot let that happen.
Consider the official explanation provided by the communists in 1961, for justifying the Berlin Wall: It was to protect the “will of the people” in building a socialist state in East Germany. Again, this was hogwash. In fact, the only “will of the people” here was to escape socialism altogether.
But think about our own nation, for a moment: Some people might say that the seemingly complicit cooperation, between our mainstream media and those promoting socialist ideology, is intended to do exactly in our nation, what the communists’ stated purpose was for building the Wall begin with: Protect the “will of the people” in building a socialist state.
Trouble is, like in East Germany, it’s not the “will of people” in the U.S. to build a socialist state. And yet, our government continues to build walls to separate us from those certain, unalienable rights for which we have been endowed by our Creator.
These rights are under attack from those who support government policies that promote the redistribution of wealth through higher taxes, or restrictions on the freedom of religion, through the imposition on churches to provide contraception. Or by supporting socialized medicine and allowing the government to ration your healthcare, or continuing the expansion of government by mortgaging our country to foreign nations, for generations of Americans to come.
Those in power in our nation today are gradually and silently building a “wall” between our fellow citizens and our unalienable rights. In fact, it’s the only way to give Socialism a chance.
But there’s no need for that. No need for experimentation. The outcome is certain…as history has taught us over and over and over: Josef Stalin in the Soviet Union; Pol Pot in Kmehr Rouge; Adolph Hitler in Germany; Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union; Fidel Castro in Cuba; Mao Zedong in China; Kim Il Sung in North Korea; Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam…the list can go on and on.
The Berlin Wall was built because the socialist system in East Germany discouraged the more productive members of their society. This is because socialism values equality over freedom and the best and brightest fled East Germany, taking their skills, their capital, and future generations with them.
Are we building the Berlin Wall in America, in order to give Socialism a chance? If we are, and if Germany was any indication, where then, will our best and brightest flee, in the meantime? “Tear down this wall, Mr. Obama,” ought to be the refrain. If you and those who share your beliefs won’t tear it down, rest assured, if history is any indication, that the indomitable human yearning for individual freedom will eventually do it for you.