NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! When Americans defend free markets, they look at real-world results and cite economists. When radicals defend communism, they ignore history and those who lived it firsthand. The omissions are deliberate. The survivors of communist regimes are dangerous to the argument because they are proof of its outcome. They know what happens after the government acquires the power it promised to use only for the public good. I recently gathered survivors of communist regimes at the Capitol to hear their stories. They came from Cuba, Venezuela, the Soviet Union and China. One suffered torture in prison. Another watched supermarket shelves empty as his community declined. Others saw schools turned into instruments of indoctrination and churches treated as enemies of the state. THE MEN WHO FLEED THESE SOCIALIST REGIMES HAVE A TERRIFYING WARNING José Daniel Ferrer spent more than 12 years in Cuban prisons. He endured physical and psychological torture and watched his fellow citizens die from the same abuse and malnutrition that he experienced. He understands the deception used by the communists that made these prisons possible. President Lisa McClain hosts panel discussion “A Warning to America: Stories from Survivors of Communism.” (Courtesy of the House Republican Conference) “It’s the best evidence that communists trying to come to power in democratic nations are crooks,” Ferrer said. “Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez denied what they were until they gained power.” Chávez sold himself as a democratic reformer before turning Venezuela into an authoritarian state. The radical label is hidden while votes are needed and then adopted once the institutions capable of containing them have been weakened. We see the same deception among American politicians who call themselves “democratic socialists.” They insist that the label separates them from communism while embracing the concentration of economic and political power that has defined every communist movement. THE SOCIALIST WAVE OF THE DEMOCRATS PROVE THAT THE UNITED STATES’ 250-YEAR FIGHT FOR FREEDOM HAS NOT ENDED Defenders of communism respond to witnesses like Ferrer by looking for an excuse. They blame sanctions, corruption, foreign interference, or the alleged betrayal of an otherwise noble idea. His theory is always innocent. The people who suffered this are somehow wrong about what happened to them. Daniel Di Martino’s family suffered the same communist deception in Venezuela. Before the Bolivarian Revolution, they had an apartment, a stable job, and a normal middle-class life. Then the promises were replaced by empty shelves and government rationing. Milk disappeared from stores. Meat became scarce. The government assigned citizens shopping days and required them to scan their fingerprints before determining what they could buy. This is how communist control enters everyday life. It doesn’t always start with soldiers in the streets. Sometimes, it’s just a few regulations at the supermarket. SOCIALISM WILL ‘CONTROL THE PEOPLE’ AND ‘TAKE EVERYTHING AWAY’ FROM THE UNITED STATES, ACCORDING TO THESE EXPATS “The common denominator is that they destroy free enterprise,” Di Martino said. “You can’t start a business, you can’t feed your family, so you either die or run away.” When the state controls food, employment, and housing, citizens lose the ability to support themselves without the permission of bureaucrats. The government does not need to imprison all dissidents. It can garnish your wages, your apartment, or your next meal. People who depend on the State for their livelihood live according to the will and convenience of their captor. SEN TOM COTTON: DEMOCRATS SAY SOCIALISM WILL HELP. HISTORY SAYS IT WILL PAIN Communism not only controls physical needs. Mike González shared how he wages war on faith, conscience and independent thought. As a child in Cuba in the 1970s, he was harassed for attending church and pressured to join the Communist Pioneers. Regime thugs interrogated him when he was 11 years old. Defenders of communism respond to witnesses like Ferrer by looking for an excuse. They blame sanctions, corruption, foreign interference, or the alleged betrayal of an otherwise noble idea. His theory is always innocent. The people who suffered this are somehow wrong about what happened to them. “Why did the communists try to control the schools and they didn’t like the church?” asked. “Because they tried to control the message.” EXPERT WHO FLEED CUBA WARNS OF ‘VICIOUS CYCLE’ THAT WILL LEAD TO ‘DOUBLE-DIGIT COMMUNISTS’ IN CONGRESS Faith, family and national traditions remind people that the state is neither the source of truth nor the greatest object of devotion. Therefore, religious freedom becomes an obstacle to totalitarian control. Communists cannot tolerate independent institutions that demonstrate loyalty to anything other than the state. That is why communist movements teach citizens to despise their country. Its history becomes irredeemable, its traditions oppressive and its culture illegitimate. Once people are convinced that their institutions are rotten, destroying them can be sold as an act of liberation. PASTOR RELEASED FROM CHINESE PRISON AFTER TRUMP PRESENTED HIS CASE TO XI JINPING Pastor Ezra Jin experienced what happens when a regime decides that even faith itself is a threat, after he and 20 other church leaders were arrested in China just last year. The Chinese Constitution formally promises religious freedom, but the Communist Party places itself above the Constitution. Jin was eventually released, but eight of his fellow pastors remain behind bars. His only crime was worshiping something more than the party. His story exposes the vacuum of rights that only exist on paper. A constitution offers no protection when the ruling party recognizes no authority above itself. Use any Marxist label you like; each variation uses the same model. Discredit institutions that limit your authority. Subjugate economic freedom, education, religion and public expression. Punish those who refuse to give up their independence. CLICK HERE FOR MORE OPINION FROM FOX NEWS Proponents of communism prefer abstractions because abstractions cannot contradict them. Survivors can do it. They have seen prison cells, confiscated businesses, empty shelves, demolished churches and childhoods marked by fear. They expose the arrogance of those who insist that this time the results will be different, even though the underlying demand for power remains unchanged. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP We must be wary of politicians who call themselves “democratic socialists.” Before we believe their promises, we must listen to people who have already lived under leaders who made the same promises. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM REPRESENTATIVE LISA MCCLAIN Republican Lisa McClain represents Michigan’s 9th Congressional District. She serves as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference for the 119th Congress.
