When Theories Trump Evidence

Have you ever known anyone who insists that Communism is a wonderful system, despite all the evidence - particularly the piles of hundreds of millions of dead bodies - contradicting their theory?

I have.

Without exception, they always reply with some variation of the following statement when I point to that evidence: "But they didn't do it correctly".

My reply to that excuse is always the same.  It doesn't matter how an idea works in theory.  All that matters is the results of its application in real life, and Communism applied in real life always, without exception, results in misery, poverty, repression, oppression, a complete loss of civil liberties and millions of people murdered by their own government.

So, why do some people continue to sing the praises (or at the very least make excuses on behalf of) Communism?  Bill Whittle explains that some people are just so personally invested in a theory, that no amount of evidence will change their minds.



This explains why most of the people I've met who still think Communism is a good idea, or at least not all that bad, were in college.  Ideas have consequences in the real world.  Academia shields people from the consequences of their ideas.  It shields people fro the real world.

There's a good reason for that.  People become gun shy after facing negative consequences brought on by their ideas, so they get stuck in an intellectual rut.  By protecting people from the consequences of their ideas, academia encourages people to think big.  But that protection is supposed to be temporary.  People are supposed to leave the academic cocoon, apply their ideas in the real world and face the consequences.

Those who stay in the cocoon never learn the lessons that experience alone can teach.  Which is fine.  Until they take that lack of experience to the White House.