Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The words fly off the tongue without much meaning many times.

Communism and capitalism.

What do that they mean?

First, here is the dictionary definition of the terms:

• Communism is a political and economic system that aims to build a classless society with no private property, featuring common ownership of the means of production.  Key concepts include public property, economic equality, and the removal of social classes.

• Capitalism is an economic system defined by private ownership, market competition, and the profit motive.  In this system, individuals and private companies own the tools, factories, and resources used to make goods, and they decide prices and investments based on free market demand.

To this, I should add socialism.

• Socialism is an economic and political system featuring public or collective ownership of the means of production, a focus on reducing economic inequality, and the distribution of resources based on human need rather than private profit.

Why do I report these definitions?

Simple.  I saw the definitions up close and personal on our trip to Eastern Europe this week.

On one hand, our guide on a tour in Balgrade, Serbia appeared to long for the days of Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia (1945–1980) who was defined by political independence from the Soviet bloc, workers’ self-management, and a multi-ethnic federal system.

So, it was that she longed for a version of communism that strayed far from the Soviet’s definition of the term.  She liked the fact that, if persons worked, they were given housing and other benefits. But she did not have a good answer for what happened to person who, for some reason, were not able to work.

Here is the way my wife put it in a text to our kids:

“Here in Belgrade, Serbia, we ended up in the most bizarre conversation with our guide who grew up in communist former Yugoslavia and our fellow travelers, two couples from United States. 

“Our guide was totally brainwashed about how good communism was.  For some unknown reason, she brought up (after a lot of wine!) how she could not see how anyone could accept into our families the unknown genetics of adoption.

“You would have been so proud of our fellow travelers, who passionately love their adopted daughter, and of us!

“Under atheist communism, seeing the individual as devoid of responsibility to anyone greater than ones self, why reach out with love for others?  We and our fellow travelers talked about our cherished adoptees and what you mean to us!  

“Our lives would have been so depleted without expanding our love beyond genetics!  

“It was a dramatic contrast for our small group!  Do we live just for us?  Is there something, “Someone” greater than us?  Are we here for greater purposes than our own?  With a fair amount of wine inside me, I told our guide she had bought into a whole lot of crap and missed the whole reason for living!  And I truly mean that!

“How sad our lives would be without you, Drewsie!  And we are so, so glad you are part of our family!  Living to bless others ends up blessing all of us.  Hallelujah!”

Great point!

On another side, I thought of the contrast between what we heard in Serbia and the history of what we saw in Bucharest.  There, real people – including Egmont Pecasu, whom we saw up close and personal – rose up as a group in 1989 to risk their lives to overthrow a Communist regime that lived by this motto:  “What’s mine is mine what’s yours is mine.”

So, I, the state, take it and you suffer.

Residents of Romania, including those in Bucharest, rose up to throw off Communism under gunfire, thus giving themselves food, water. and a place of live, all of which has been taken from them by the communists.

So, with all due respect to our tour guide here in Belgrade, I choose the ability to think, act and decide on my own without the repression of a government that believes it knows best, even if, in the old Yugoslavia, Tito practiced government control with, apparently, a good heart. 

Even as he deal with the West and the East.  Which may be why he was able to last in power for more than 40 years.