This I Believe...and This I Don't Believe

I believe in DeLeonism.  Daniel DeLeon was one of the people who organized the Socialist Labor Party at the end of the 19th century.  I believe that the SLP had it right: a clear path for the making of a free, socialist society based on trade unions.  The working class - the creating class - would wrest power from the capitalist class - the parasite class - through the nonviolent use of the vote....the overwhelming strength of the workers.

When I was seventeen, I read in a book by the linguist Mario Pei about Esperanto, devised by Dr. L.L. Zamenhof to serve as a second language for all peoples.  I learned Esperanto with the help of teach-yourself textbooks, and I’ve used it to meet and befriend people in several countries.  I believe in Esperanto as the solution to the problem of the diversity of languages.  It’s also a wonderful way to meet a kind of elite of humanity.  Esperanto-speakers tend to be internationally-minded, liberal, open-minded and educated...my kind of people.

I believe that there is no invisible man in the sky, no talking serpent, no angels, no gods, no demons.  I am a proud atheist.  I believe that George Carlin and Bill Maher are good spokesmen for people like me.  I remember hearing Marilyn Murray O’Hair on the radio talking about American Atheists, which she founded. I tried to believe in god, I really did.  I heard all about heaven, and hell, and angels and demons.  And it all seemed to make some kind of sense to me.

Then I turned twelve, and I started to think.  Whoa, said I to myself. Whoa, baby!  This just doesn’t make sense.  There are hundreds of different religions, and each one insists that it, and it alone, has got it right.

There's one religion that says its god told a man to bring his son up to the top of a mountain, and to sacrifice him to the god. Sounds a lot like the Incas and the Aztecs, but it wasn't them.  And I asked myself what kind of god would pull a sick stunt like that? And what kind of father would blindly obey?

Another religion says that god sent his son, who is also god, to earth to sacrifice himself for our sins, but it only works when we believe in him, because if we don't, we're still going to hell, where we'll burn for ever and ever, 'cause he loves us!

Still another religion says its prophet – the latest and greatest in a long line of prophets – is so holy, that if you make a little joke about him, or draw a picture of him, or god forbid, do both, then it behooves his true followers to try their best to murder you, or at least burn down your country's embassy wherever they can light a match to it.

So pretty soon I stopped believing in god altogether, which millions of other people all over the world have done, but they're too chicken to admit it out loud.

I believe in world government.  It doesn’t make sense that in the 21st century humankind is still split into hundreds of countries.  I believe the world should be one country.  Years ago, I met Garry Davis, the founder of the World Government Authority.  He wrote a book called The World is My Country.  That small book says it all about why we should have a world government.

I believe that a woman should have the final say about what should happen with a pregnancy.  It’s not a matter for Big Government to come into the doctor’s office and intercede between doctor and patient.  That’s not what government is for.  If your religious belief is that abortion is wrong, you have every right to your opinion.  But you don’t have a right to impose your religious beliefs on others.

I believe that when some politician refers to the Eastern elite, he’s just talking about people who have the nerve to read books and wear eyeglasses.  He or she is trying to use a wedge issue to keep people separated.  When they harp on things like respecting the flag, and whether or not the President was born in the United States of America, they are able to turn the voters’ attention from the reality that they are being led to vote against their own self-interest.
It’s hard to believe that such a thing is possible, but when you have an endless supply of money to pour into mind-numbing advertising, you can convince some people of absolutely anything.