Led by three South Florida Republicans, the Florida Legislature last week finalized a measure recognizing the victims of communism across the ages.
The issue was so obvious even liberal Democrats went along. Lawmakers in both chambers unanimously approved the bill – sponsored by Reps. David Borrero, Alex Rizo, and Tom Fabricio – that sets aside Nov. 7 as an annual moment for Floridians to recall the 100 million people who have died and suffered under communism.
But as lawmakers did that, the Florida’s flagship public university has honored the intellectual godfather of this evil, murderous ideology.
According to Campus Reform, the University of Florida has named a study room in one of its libraries for Karl Marx.
The website notes that, according to a plaque on the door, Room 229 in Library West is dedicated to the author of “The Communist Manifesto,” who is hailed as a “philosopher, radical economist, and revolutionary critic.”
The plaque identifies Marx as the “founder of scientific socialism,” and points out that his “reputation as a radical thinker” in the second half of the 19th century eventually helped drive “socialist and communist movements throughout the world.”
“The unique extent of the influence of Marx’s materialist explanation of the workings of society, economics and history, inevitably saw Marxist theory extend its influence to literary criticism,” the plaque states.
That stands in sharp contrast to Florida House bill 395, which says that “based on the economic philosophies of Karl Marx, communism has proven incompatible with the ideals of liberty, prosperity, and dignity of human life and has given rise to such infamous totalitarian dictators as Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.”
Moreover, the communist regimes worldwide that attributed their philosophy to this “radical thinker,” as UF puts it, “have killed more than 100 million people and subjected countless others to exploitation and unspeakable atrocities, with victims representing many different ethnicities, creeds, and backgrounds.”
Campus Reform notes that the Marx room is one of 15 such group study spots in the library. Some of the others are dedicated to people like William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Jane Austen, Mahatma Gandhi, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Martin Luther King Jr. One room is named for Florida author Zora Neale Hurston.
But Marx, with a capacity of 12, gets the largest space.
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