Quickies: Laughter Is The Best Tactic

     A few Gentle Readers have made note of the new “Monopoly: Socialism” game Hasbro has introduced as a parody of the original. It does look wildly funny, especially as Hasbro has accurately caught the essence of both socialism and the socialist promoter. But what a lot of younger folks don’t realize is that this isn’t the first of its kind.

     The first “socialism game” was meant seriously.

     Some years ago there was a university professor named Bertell Ollman. Ollman was a socialist. He sought tirelessly for ways to promote the socialist ideology...and eventually happened upon the idea of representing it in a game. He designed a game board and some rules, persuaded some like-minded friends to try it out with him, and decided to give it a go in the marketplace. He titled it “Class Struggle,” borrowed heavily to produce and distribute it, and sent it forth.

     “Class Struggle,” to put it gently, didn’t find many takers. It lost Ollman a lot of money. But he did write a book about his experiences: a moderately funny book, in its wrongheaded way. You can still get it at Amazon, if you’re interested.

     There are socialists who can have failure take them by their ideology’s throat and half-strangle them, and still never give it up. There are socialists who’ll claim that the failures of socialism throughout history “weren’t real socialism.” And there are socialists who’ll blame every failure of a socialist program on “enemies” determined to “sabotage” their noble ideal.

     Hasbro has the right idea: Make fun of them. And note: the Left is completely humorless. Thus, they regard any jape at them as a lethal attack, which reinforces the public’s perception of them as humorless scolds who merely want to control all our lives.

     “The devil...the prowde spirit...cannot endure to be mocked.” – Saint Thomas More