When I think of leftism, I often conjure my memory of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). If you haven’t seen the film, here’s the premise of the action:
Dr. Miles Bennell returns to his small town practice to find several of his patients suffering the paranoid delusion that their friends or relatives are impostors. He is initially skeptical, especially when the alleged doppelgangers are able to answer detailed questions about their victim’s lives, but he is eventually persuaded that something odd has happened and determines to find out what is causing this phenomenon.
The essence of what follows is captured in the following excerpts of the script:
Dr. Miles Bennell:
Jack! Thank God [you’re here]! The whole town’s been taken over by the pods!
Jack Bellicec:
Not quite. There’s still you and Becky.
Miles, it would have been so much easier if you’d gone to sleep last night.
Relax. We’re here to help you….
There’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re not going to hurt you. Once you understand, you’ll be grateful.
Remember how Teddy [his wife] and I fought against it. We were wrong.
Miles:
You mean Teddy doesn’t mind?
Jack:
Of course not. She feels exactly the way I do.
Miles:
Let us go! If we leave town, we won’t come back.
Jack:
We can’t let you go. You’re dangerous to us.
Don’t fight it, Miles. It’s no use. Sooner or later, you’ll have to go to sleep….
Miles, you and I are scientific men. You can understand the wonder of what’s happened.
Just think. Less than a month ago Santa Mira was like any other town — people with nothing but problems. Then out of the sky came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer’s field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life….
There’s no pain. Suddenly, while you’re asleep they’ll absorb your minds, your memories — and you’re reborn into an untroubled world.
Miles:
Where everyone’s the same?
Jack:
Exactly.
Miles:
What a world.
We’re not the last humans left. They’ll destroy you!
Jack:
Tomorrow, you won’t want them to. Tomorrow, you’ll be one of us….
[Later, Miles is trying to flee the city with his girlfriend, Becky]
Becky:
I went to sleep, Miles, and it happened….
They were right. Stop acting like a fool, Miles, and accept us.
Miles [interior monologue]:
I’ve been afraid a lot of times in my life but I didn’t know the real meaning of fear until I had kissed Becky.
A moment’s sleep, and the girl I loved was an inhuman enemy bent on my destruction.
That moment’s sleep was death to Becky’s soul just as it had been for Jack and Teddy and Dan Kauffman and all the rest.
Their bodies were now hosts, harboring an alien form of life, a cosmic form. which, to survive must take over every human man….
Miles [later, screaming at passers by]:
You fools! You’re in danger! Can’t you see?
They’re after you! They’re after all of us! Our wives, our children, everyone!
They’re here already!
You’re next!
You’re next!
You’re next!
You’re next!
You’re next!
Miles’s pleas go unheeded and the pod people seem destined to conquer humanity. Resistance is met by force, of course, because there must be no dissent from the true way.
So why not just let go of yourself and give in to the allure of leftism? It’s as easy as going to sleep.
All you have to do is forget …
the bonds of love and fellowship that attach you to family and friends … because all human beings (and animals, too) are brothers and sisters under the skin, and even unknown strangers half a world away must be treated as family, notwithstanding human nature (and the mendacious nature those who spout this nonsense);
the ancient, civilizing, and uniting moral code that is embedded in the Ten Commandments … for it teaches hate toward those who don’t observe it (hate being whatever offends the stated beliefs of those who spout this nonsense);
the derivative practice of taking others as individuals, judging them by their actions, and rewarding them for their contributions … for that is discrimination and it must be remedied by celebrating and elevating persons because of certain preferred characteristics that they happen to possess (skin color, sex, sexual orientation, gender “identity” — preferred characteristics that are subject to change without notice);
the vast improvements in the well-being of humanity that are due to the free exchange of products and services, and which are diminished by governmental dictation of the scope and kind of exchange (beyond obviously harmful products and services) … for it is not right that some persons (owing to their inborn intelligence, creativity, effort, and willingness to take risks) should reap “inordinate” rewards for having made and done things that benefit others (though it is right that those who spout this nonsense should be honored and rewarded for doing so);
the lessons of failure seen time and time again where the foregoing practices have been suppressed in favor of social and economic “equality” (though the rulers and the favorites have always been more equal than everyone else) … because the next time it (the suppression) will be done right.
As Miranda says in The Tempest, about another realm of magical thinking,
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in ’t!
Related page and posts:
Asymmetrical (Ideological) Warfare
An Addendum to (Asymmetrical) Ideological Warfare
Insidious Leftism
Intellectuals and Authoritarianism
Socialism, Communism, and Three Paradoxes
Understanding the “Resistance”: The Enemies Within
Leninthink and Left-think
The Subtle Authoritarianism of the “Liberal Order”
Society, Culture, and America’s Future
The Democrats’ Master Plan to Seize America
Politics and Prosperity 