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One serious problem is that people often define a group they're not part of in their own terms, and don't see the borders that are relevant to those in the group.
So "communists" to Skousen was a fairly undifferentiated mass of people who called themselves Communists--some Soviet and Stalinist, some who didn't like Stalin but liked communism (however they defined it), some of whom were communists but had other goals as well. Some were communists because they were anti-establishment, whatever the 'establishment' was. To those in the movement, the differences would be clear; to Skousen, things had to be defined in his own terms, the borders between his group and "communists" clear.
Moreover, "communism" has shifted its meaning more than a bit, and not always in the same direction. Take the Soviet use of the term: they were building "sotsializm", called themselves a "socialist" republic, but defined their ideology as "communism" and themselves as communists. Communists that were committed to socialism? The key to understanding isn't just comparing the word that's used against your definition; the key is to take that comparison, identify when the word isn't used the same way, and determine the meaning the other person's using. Words have no "right" meaning when used in a context, as long as they're consistent--that confuses a personal need for prescriptivism with the need for communication. When you're conversing, you can cheerfully debate terms, but again--the purpose of the exercise is to settle on consistent definitions. It's an on-going process, either way, because it's important to spot when a writer or speaker shifts the meanings of his terms ... that way there be fallacies.
Also some of the points don't mean what you'd think they'd mean. Take this one, for instance: "Permit free trade between all nations regardless of communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war."
This isn't what we'd call "free trade" today--there's overlap. But many socialist countries at the time had a deficit in certain goods, and didn't have access to technology to make them. The Soviets had a very active reverse engineering program. At times, they seriously did not want trade: It was more important to eschew the enemy (at such times, Skousen's point is in error). At other times, they desparately wanted trade: It would help their economy immensely, and that would eventually hurt the anti-communist bloc. The US had the opposite view, until the '70s, when it was newly believed that tade would "open up" the Soviet economy, allowing all kinds of influence in that would subvert, instead, the communists. To some extent it worked; however, Russians had been told that they had it better than everybody else, Soviet technology was all home-grown and the pinnacle of human achievement. When VCRs were imported (mostly by the few that travelled to the West), this assertion was undermined. Had the assertion not been so well maintained, who knows? The same argument--trade entails liberalization--is applied to Cuba, but Cubans *know* they're not at the pinnacle of human technological well-being. With China the argument was employed, but they're like Cuba in that crucial respect; and instead of just importing, they did what the USSR did, but with a twist--instead of manufacturing just knockoffs that were reverse engineered, they started taking jobs and manufacturing the real things (no reverse engineering needed). They saw what happened to the USSR (in this respect), and managed to make our sluggishness to revise our thinking work in their favor.
Most of the points are true for any group that wishes to reinvent the political and economic culture, and aren't unique to "communism". "Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents" is common enough here, as regards "knuckledraggers", and you see some screams of "witch, witch!" when homeschooling comes up.
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