I remember standing in my grandfather's bathroom at 12 years old and watching him put in his false teeth.  He looked at me and said, "Take care of your teeth, Greg."  The pain in his face conveyed much more than his words.  Have you ever noticed that suffering brings a level of conviction and passion to the words of those who speak them?  I have seen even deeper expressions of pain in the faces of those who have described to me what it was like living under communist regimes.

One of my best friends in my Army infantry unit was a high-speed Cuban immigrant named George Gonzales.  He told me a story of his father being arrested.  What was his crime?  He butchered their pig without notifying the state.  He was turned in by a neighbor and subsequently arrested. No due process — just a knock on the door and whisked away to jail, where he stayed for over a week.  George said his family knew little about his arrest or his whereabouts.  When he eventually returned home, he began to plan his family's escape from communist Cuba to America.

I'm reading a book called Escape from Communism: A True Story and Commentary, written by a Romanian who defected to America from the ruthless communist regime of Nicolae Ceauﾈ册scu.  He speaks of fear, intimidation, and the lack of trust not only in the government, but in neighbors and co-workers as well.  Those who spoke against the communist regime were often reported by informants and made examples of to establish fear in the souls of the population.  He said, "Fear works like magic, and the communists were masters of its use."

I am married to a woman who lived under the same regime the author writes about, and she vouches for every word.  I see the pain in her face when she speaks of life under communism.  I told her recently about my son who lives in Kansas City.  He was turned in by someone in his apartment complex for being outside by the pool, exercising.  Pictures were sent to the office with a description of his activities and the times and days he exercised.  She said, "It makes my stomach turn.  That's exactly how I lived under communism.  You couldn't trust anyone, not even your neighbors.  We stood in lines just as we are doing now to get into a store only to find empty shelves."  As she spoke, the pain in her face spoke louder than her words.

What are some of the differences in our government and a communist form of government?  To begin with, you will never see this in a communist manifesto:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them[.]

The rights that we hold come from God, not man.  There is a superseding principle, an entity that transcends the rule of man, and it is the God of nature and nature's laws.  Granted, not all the founding fathers were King James–toting fundamentalist Christians.  Some were Orthodox, some were Anglican, and some were Deist, but they all had a point of reference that eclipsed man.  Man wasn't the focal point of their worldview.  When they looked out at the horizon, they saw something far greater and far wiser than themselves.  In fact, their views on human nature were less than flattering, which influenced their concepts of government with checks and balances.

For the communist, there is no God, period.  Man is the sun in their solar system that all lesser ideas revolve around.  What few rights they allow you to have come from man — a man who usually comes in the form of a tyrant, but not all tyrants wear swastikas and Charlie Chaplin mustaches.  Some come smooth and polished with a silver tongue and pleasant words.  They may even sing a little for you.  Others come in the form of nerdy computer geeks or disheveled geniuses, or smiling politicians.  In the end, they're all just as deadly.

And you most certainly will never see this in a communist manifesto:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

There in plain script is a mandate to throw off oppressive governments, and it's not just a right, but a duty.  You will never see such a mandate in the founding documents of the People's Republic of China or any other communist regime.  That would be a self-defeating admonition, and a perpetual thorn in the side of state oppressors.

Here is a modern-day description of communism articulated in a popular song from a few years back:

"Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people Living for today ... Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too ... Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man, Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world, ooh" —John Lennon

There's your succinct description of the utopia that communism forever promises but never delivers.  I wonder what John would say about the greed of hoarders in the current pandemic.  The first thing a communist regime does is confiscate all property rights.  I guess that's where Mr. Lennon's "no possessions" come in.  By the way, this was the song that a group of Hollywood elites chose to sing to all of us average folks to soothe our anxieties during a worldwide pandemic, a pandemic that started in a communist country.  Irony, anyone?

It's not the founders, whom the liberals hate and are always maligning for their flaws, who at the same time curiously ignore their own.  No, it's the document our founders created that they so despise — a document that secures our freedoms from oppressive godless governments and gives a standing mandate to throw off any government that becomes so...a document that guarantees the right to bear arms for that exact purpose.

Who are the closet communists among us?  The ones who are forever demonizing the founders because of the document they produced, while perpetually undermining the document's influence in our government and lives — the only document that stands between them and the power they so assiduously seek.

Finally, despite the leaders who have worked relentlessly to sell us out to China for personal enrichment, the differences between our government and communism are vast and stark.  When leaders arise who care more about power, profit, and prestige, and neglect the principles and precepts this country was built upon, it could be time for the people to harken back to our mandate and once again do our duty for ourselves and posterity.