If you do not believe that free speech is a necessity of life: please leave this blog now officially and legally as of reading this, your obligation to this statement is formally required.
Freedom of speech is understood to be fundamental in a democracy. The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights.
The author of the Constitutional Rights Blog does not affiliate with any other organization or people on the internet or the world for that matter. I have been saying this since I first logged on to the internet. Just because I like organizations like the ACLU; does not mean I believe in everything they believe in or stand for. Just like in our great country when we vote; we will never believe in everything the candidate we vote for; believes in or stands for. That does not mean we should not vote.
I make typos allot. I do not get paid to do this. I do not have a editor or anyone working for me at all. Sometimes it may take me more than one day to finish a article.
Communism:
Billy Graham on communism: “Satan’s religion” (1954)
Billy Graham addressing one of his Crusades in Germany, 1954
Billy Graham (1918-2018) was an American Baptist minister and probably the best-known evangelist preacher of the 20th century. Born and raised in rural North Carolina, Graham converted at age 16 before studying in Florida and Illinois. Ordained in 1939, he served as a pastor in several locations, earning a reputation for forceful and fiery oratory.
Graham started his own ministry in 1947 and embarked on a series of ‘crusades’, essentially sermons, preaching and consultations conducted before a mass audience. He held these ‘crusades’ in more than 180 countries, including Poland (1978), the Soviet Union (1982-84), Romania (1985) and China (1988). Graham was a vociferous and often provocative critic of communism who aligned himself with politicians of similar views, such as Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
In the following extract from the August 1954 edition of The American Mercury, Graham describes communism as “Satan’s religion” and a “doctrine of death and destruction”:
“The Communist revolution that was born in the hearts of Marx and Engels in the middle of the 19th century is not going to give up or retreat. No amount of words at the United Nations, or peace conferences in the Far East, is going to change the mind of Communism. It is here to stay. It is a battle to the death: either Communism must die, or Christianity must die…
Has it ever occurred to you that the Devil is a religious leader and millions are worshipping at his shrine today? … The name of this present-day religion is Communism… The Devil is their god, Marx their prophet, Lenin their saint and Malenkov their high priest. Denying their faith in all ideologies, except their religion of revolution, these diabolically-inspired men seek in devious and various ways to convert a peaceful world to their doctrine of death and destruction.
So fanatical and ruthless are these disciples of Lucifer that in thirty years they have slaughtered millions of innocent persons and stand prepared with poised weapons to kill millions more in an all-out effort to spread their doctrines to the ends of the earth…
What is the subtle creed of Communism? What sort of ideology is it that has captured the loyalty of countless millions of the world’s people? [Christian writer] Dr Roy Laurin has suggested the following appraisal:
Politically, a Communist is one who believes the state is supreme and the individual exists only for the welfare of the state, thus destroying the God-given status of the dignity of the individual.
Economically, a Communist believes in the replacement of private property in land and capital by common ownership and the replacement of private management by collective management.
Socially, a Communist does not believe in marriage as an institution of God but only as a biological arrangement suited to the reproduction of heirs to the Communist state.
Internationally, a Communist is a revolutionist who is behind much of the unrest in the world today, whether in Korea, East Germany or Morocco.
Ethically, a Communist is a believer of and a devotee to the ‘big lie.’
Theologically, a Communist is an atheist, a despoiler of churches, a murderer of Christians…
A war of ideologies is being waged throughout the world, a war of the secular against the spiritual. The actual battles in the areas of combat are only material manifestations of the larger battle that rages in the hearts of men throughout the earth. Will it be truth or a lie? Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or spiritual power? Will we be led by Jehovah God – or duped by Satan? The battle lines are clearly drawn…” From HERE.
I made this serries of graphics to honor the above article. View HERE, HERE and HERE. Put them on your phone.
Karl Marx’s Obsession With the Devil
Jul 1, 2024 8 min read It’s well known that Communism killed 100 million people — but few are aware of the obsession Communism’s founder Karl Marx had with the Devil. Karl Marx (1818–1883) is the economist and social theorist whose enduring footprint on the world is the political system known as Communism. Read HERE.
AI Overview
The estimate that communist regimes killed 100 million people originates primarily from The Black Book of Communism, a controversial 1997 book edited by historian Stéphane Courtois. While this figure is widely cited by political organizations, memorials, and various governments to highlight the massive scale of human suffering under authoritarian states, it remains a subject of intense debate among mainstream historians regarding methodology, definition, and the exact data.
Origins of the FigureThe calculation was popularized in the introduction of The Black Book of Communism. The book compiled deaths across several 20th-century regimes, listing the following approximate breakdowns:
China: 65 million (primarily during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution)
Soviet Union: 20 million (through the Gulag system, forced collectivization, and political purges)
Cambodia: 2 million (under the Khmer Rouge genocide)
North Korea: 2 million
Other regimes: Millions more combined across Eastern Europe, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan
The sum of these specific estimates in the text actually totaled roughly 94.3 million, which the lead author rounded up to approximately 100 million for the book's overarching theme.
Historical Consensus and Debates
While historians universally agree that communist governments caused tens of millions of avoidable deaths through execution, political repression, forced labor, and poorly designed economic policies that triggered catastrophic famines, the specific "100 million" figure faces notable criticism from academic experts:
Methodological Concerns: Critics—including some of the book's co-authors, such as Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin—publicly distanced themselves from Courtois's introduction. They argued that Courtois was obsessed with reaching the 100-million milestone and utilized sloppy math, such as counting unborn children from projected birth rates or counting casualties of civil wars as intentional executions.
Famine vs. Intentional Murder: A core debate is whether deaths resulting from economic mismanagement and forced agricultural collectivization (such as the Soviet Holodomor or China’s Great Famine) should be classified under the same umbrella of intentional "killing" as political purges and direct executions.
Varying Estimates: Depending on the specific methodology and available archival data, individual historians project lower or higher totals. For example, modern consensus estimates for Soviet deaths often range between 15 and 20 million, while estimates for China's Great Leap Forward vary widely between 30 million and 45 million.
Ultimately, while the precise statistical shorthand of "100 million" is heavily contested among academics, it serves as a prominent cultural and political reference point for the massive human cost of 20th-century authoritarian regimes.
