Ezra Taft Benson was appointed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture by President Eisenhower in 1953 and grew to hate Communism and speak out against it during and after his 8 year term as Secretary. As a Mormon, he was asked to give the devotional address at Brigham Young University in 1968. Below is a potion of that speech.
I have talked face to face with the godless communist leaders. It may surprise you to learn that I was host to Mr. Nikita Khrushchev for a half day when he visited the United States, not that I’m proud of it. I opposed his coming then, and I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor. But, according to President Eisenhower, Khrushchev had expressed a desire to learn something of American Agriculture — and after seeing Russian agriculture I can understand why. As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren will live under freedom, he arrogantly declared in substance:
You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.
The Boiling Frog story is a perfect metaphor for the slow and steady chipping away of the cornerstone of our country; the founding documents. The allure of “free stuff” seduces some people into believing that they can be cafeteria constitutionalists to pick and chose which sections can be marginalized by playing a game of mental gymnastics to rationalize their new interpretation. If one wants to play a convoluted game of connect-the-dots, please go purchase a children’s puzzle book instead of playing with our Constitution.
“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
- Ronald Reagan
