Dr. Yuri Yarim-Agaev was born into the Soviet Union in 1949, the third generation of his family to live under communism, and he spent his life fighting it from the inside: a physicist at the Academy of Sciences who joined the Moscow Helsinki Group, expected prison, and was exiled instead. He says the word affordability came from the left on purpose. Spell it out and it means to each according to his needs, the communist motto; capitalism says to each according to his means. Everyone in Washington picked it up, including President Trump, and that is how an ideological war gets lost one word at a time. In the first half of a two-part conversation in the Surviving Communism series, Jenny Beth Martin asks him what life under mature communism was like, why a privileged young scientist chose to risk everything, how a handful of dissidents broke the pact of fear, and why he believes the Democratic Socialists of America grew on President Trump's watch.
Guest: Dr. Yuri Yarim-Agaev, physicist, Soviet dissident and member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, exiled from the Soviet Union, founder of the Center for Democracy in the USSR, who worked alongside the Reagan administration to bring Soviet communism down.
Today's topics:
• Affordability: the communist motto says to each according to his needs, the capitalist motto says to each according to his means, and the word everyone in Washington now uses, including President Trump, carries the first one.
• Born in the Soviet Union in 1949, the third generation under communism: what mature communism looks like after the terror, when people censor themselves and nobody needs reminding.
• Totalitarian means total: the clothes you wear, the songs you sing, the books you read, all decided by the party.
• Why a privileged young physicist at the Academy of Sciences became a dissident: moral responsibility, a love of freedom, and the courage to think a dangerous thought all the way through.
• Most of his friends went to prison. He had already escaped one arrest. The Soviet Union exiled him instead and told him never to come back.
• How a small group of dissidents broke the pact of fear, broke the state's monopoly on information, and earned respect by telling the truth in a country built on lies.
• Human rights were the founding idea of the Declaration of Independence and the banner of every dissident. The left turned them into group rights, and conservatives stopped using the words.
• Conservatives decided to care about business, religion, and the military and gave away education and culture without a fight. The left came for the other three anyway.
• There is no defensive strategy in the battle of ideas. Reagan won with a peaceful offensive; compromise loses step by step.
• About 20 countries are still communist, by his count: China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, and Nicaragua among them.
• China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea act as one bloc against the United States, and the stronger they get abroad, the more comfortable the totalitarian movement is at home.
• Conformity is how totalitarian thinking spreads: the pandemic, climate change, professors at leading universities who are afraid to hear an argument.
• The Democratic Socialists of America grew substantially on President Trump's watch. Executive orders cannot change the minds of millions of young people.
• Jenny Beth Martin reads the Democratic Socialists of America website: a day without capitalism, no bills, housing and health care as human rights. It sounds wonderful. It is not.
• Political correctness as a weapon: who controls the language controls everything.
• Part one of a two-part conversation in the Surviving Communism series. Share it, then vote for liberty and against communism: iwillsaveamerica.com
The Jenny Beth Show airs live Monday through Friday at 1:00 PM ET. Hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party movement and Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action. Subscribe for daily analysis of politics, policy, and the fight for constitutionally limited government. teapartypatriots.org
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