World Freedom Day

This year, 23 JAN 2012 happens to be both Chinese New Year and World Freedom Day.  If you thought World Freedom Day was in November, then you may be as new to this celebration of freedom thing as is president Obama.

For my fellow Americans, it is easy to be unaware of the day when China and South Korea celebrate the 1954 repatriation of 14,000 Chinese prisoners of the Korean War.  22,600 Communist soldiers total refused to return to Communist People's Republic of China or to Communist North Korea and instead requested repatriation to the Republic of China or to South Korea.  14,000 of them were Chinese and they formed the "Anti-Communist League" after arriving in free Taiwan. (Note: 86 chose India over China)

People like Noam Chomsky may toss out the true but still misleading trivia that soldiers of both sides refused repatriation to the countries they were fighting for, just like he did in his famous 1960s "Firing Line" appearance that I like to call his "which way did those refugees go" moment.  During the first installment of the Korean War, 22 American Soldiers and on British soldier refused repatriation too.  Thus, to folks like Noam Chomsky who say "refugees went both ways" later in Vietnam, the 1,000-1 ratio is meaningless.  Just as the 7-1 ratio of those fleeing North Vietnam to those leaving the South is no issue.  The issue to them is that somebody went to the Communists.  A list of the 22 from WikiPedia is copied at the bottom of this post.  Not the fate of each, when they were returned to freedom.

Here is a video about the UN forces who refused repatriation, known as the Turncoats, that passes itself as a documentary. Any reasonable assessment is that it is modern Communist Chinese propaganda. One of the keys is their referring to the Chinese Red Army as volunteers, when in fact they were conscripts.  The propaganda so preposterous that the truth shines through the lies, especially in clips of the Turncoats who spoke of how things changed in China after their propaganda value ended.  I add it in the interest of fairness. Speaking of "fairness," the video notes the Courts Martial and sentencing of two Americans who returned and were convicted of Treason.  The video mentions their sentencing, but not that they did not serve a single day in jail after their trials.  See the Wiki information farther down.

See more in parts two, three, four, and five.  This series of videos will be the subject of another post and this general issue will be covered in great detail in Would You Like Borders With That Socialism?


On the other hand, people like president Obama seem to have deep seated reasons for not recognizing the free zone of China.  In September, 2009 the Communist Chinese were celebrating the 60th anniversary of Maoist Stalinism on the Ellipse,with the White House as a backdrop.


Since the 1954 POW exchange there has been the occasional American service member who defected to North Korea, not unlike college students and others who decide to get involved with terrorist causes, Communist or not.

Six American servicemen are known to have defected to North Korea after the war:

• Larry Allen Abshier (1962)

• James Joseph Dresnok (1962)

• Jerry Wayne Parrish (1963)

• Charles Robert Jenkins (1965)

• Roy Chung (1979)

• Joseph T. White (1982)

United Nations Service Members who defected during the first installment of the Korean War (via WikiPedia):

American

Adams, Clarence (Cpl.)

A soldier from Memphis, Tennessee. Adams cited racial discrimination in the United States as the reason he refused repatriation. While a prisoner, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. During the Vietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling black American soldiers not to fight:

You are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, but what kind of freedom do you have at home, sitting in the back of the bus, being barred from restaurants, stores and certain neighborhoods, and being denied the right to vote. ... Go home and fight for equality in America.

He married a Chinese woman and lived in China until the increasingly anti-Western atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution led him to return to the United States in 1966. Adams was charged with treason by the House Un-American Activities Committee, but charges were dismissed.^[2] He later started a Chinese restaurant business in Memphis. Clarence Adams died in 1999. His autobiography An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China was posthumously published in 2007 by his daughter Della Adams and Lewis H. Carlson.^[3]

Adams, Howard (Sgt.)

From Corsicana, Texas.^[4] He worked in a paper factory in Jinan, China.^[4] He refused all media requests for interviews.^[5]

Belhomme, Albert Constant (Sgt.)

A native of Belgium who immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He lived in China for ten years, working in a paper factory in Jinan, before returning to Antwerp, Belgium.^[5][4]

Bell, Otho Grayson (Cpl.)

Originally from Olympia, Washington.^[4] In China was sent to a collective farm with William Cowart and Lewis Griggs (see below). Bell described himself, Cowart and Griggs as "the dummy bunch", saying they were sent to the farm because they could not learn Chinese. They returned to the United States together in July 1955, were arrested, but were released when it was found that the military no longer had jurisdiction over the defectors after they were dishonorably discharged. Bell died in 2003.^[5]

Corden, Richard (Sgt.)

A native of Chicago, Illinois. He returned to the United States on 19 January, 1958. He was reported to live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1961 and moved to Chicago in 1962.^[4] He reportedly continued to favor communism even after returning to the United States.^[5] He died in 1988.

Cowart, William (Cpl.)

Returned with Bell and Griggs. Later the three soldiers sued for their back pay. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which held that Bell, Cowart and Griggs were entitled to their back pay from the time they were captured to the time they were dishonorably discharged.^[6]

Douglas, Rufus (Sgt.)

Died in China a few months after arrival in 1954. The manner of his death is not certain but is believed to have been from natural causes.^[5]

Dunn, John Roedel (Cpl.)

From Altoona, Pennsylvania.^[4] He married a Czechoslovakian woman while in China and settled in Czechoslovakia in December 1959.^[4][5]

Fortuna, Andrew (Sgt.)

Originally from Greenup, Kentucky.^[4] He was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service in Korea before he was captured.^[5] He returned to the United States on July 3, 1957. He worked in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1958, in Detroit, Michigan from 1963-64 and Chicago in 1964. He was reported to be in Gary, Indiana as of 1964.^[4] He died in 1984.^[5]

Griggs, Lewis Wayne

Returned with Bell and Cowart in 1955. He was listed as a senior majoring in sociology at Stephen F. Austin State University, graduating in 1959.^[7][8] He died in 1984.

Hawkins, Samuel David (Pfc.)

From Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He married a Russian woman in China and returned to the United States in February 1957, shortly before his wife was permitted to come to the United States. He successfully petitioned the government to change his discharge from dishonorable to other than honorable. He raised a family, and has given interviews to the press on the condition that his location not be disclosed.^[5]

Pate, Arlie (Cpl.)

Worked in a paper mill before returning with Aaron Wilson (see below) in 1956. He died in 1999.^[5]

Rush, Scott (Sgt.)

Married in China. After living in China ten years, he and his wife moved back to the United States and settled in the Midwest.^[5]

Skinner, Lowell (Cpl. )

His mother begged him to come home over the radio at the time of the prisoner exchange, to no avail. He married in China, but left his wife behind when he came back to America in 1963. Later he would have problems with alcohol and spent six months in a psychiatric hospital. He died in 1995.^[9]

Sullivan, LaRance

Came home in 1958 and died in 2001.^[5]

Tenneson, Richard (Pfc.)

Came home in 1955. He went to Louisiana a few months later to welcome home fellow defector Aaron Wilson (see below). He settled in Utah before dying in 2001.^[5]

Veneris, James (Pvt.)

From Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. ^[4] He stayed in China and became a dedicated communist, taking the Chinese name 'Lao Wen'. He worked in a steel mill, participated in the Great Leap Forward, hung posters during the Cultural Revolution, married three times, and had children. He visited the United States in 1976 but returned to China, where he is buried.^[10]

Webb, Harold (Sgt.)

From Jacksonville, Florida^[4]. He married a Polish woman in China and moved to Poland in 1960, reportedly settling in Katowice.^[4][5] In 1988, he was given permission to settle in the United States.^[5] He is the subject of the Youth Defense League song Turncoat about rejection of a Korean War defector seeking a return to America.^[11]

White, William (Cpl.)

Married and got a bachelor's degree in international law while in China. He returned to the United States in 1965.^[5]

Wills, Morris (Cpl.)

From Fort Ann, New York.^[4] He played basketball for Peking University and got married in China. He came back to America in 1965 and got a job in the Asian Studies Department at Harvard University. His autobiography, Turncoat: An American's 12 Years in Communist China, was published in 1966. He died in 1999.^[5]

Wilson, Aaron (Cpl.)

Originally from Urania, Louisiana.^[4] He came home from China 06 December 1956^[4]. Wilson married an American girl and worked in his Louisianahometown's mill.^[5]

[edit]British

Condron, Andrew (Marine)

Scotsman of 41 (Independent) Royal Marine Commando, was the only Briton to decline repatriation. He returned to Britain in 1960, and faced no disciplinary action.

Asians For Sale! The New York Times Suggests A Price For Asian Women (And Men)

Updated 12 JAN 2012 with video (at bottom).

The price that the New York Times is urging the Obama administration to sell the people of Taiwan to mainland China for is $49,793.8708 per person. The only thing Leftists, including their Communist faction, care about is money.  In this case, the New York Times agitates for selling almost 23 Million people into slavery for the  sum of $1.14 trillion.  If you think the NYT is trying to deflect criticism by sticking a former Marine on this topic, you are probably right.  That is another favorite tactic of the Left, see John F. Kerry (he served in Vietnam) and others.

Slaver Paul V. Kane

Op-Ed Contributor
To Save Our Economy, Ditch Taiwan
By PAUL V. KANE
Published: November 10, 2011

 . . .  There are dozens of initiatives President Obama could undertake to strengthen our economic security. Here is one: He should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United States-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015.

This would be a most precious prize to the cautious men in Beijing, one they would give dearly to achieve. After all, our relationship with Taiwan, as revised in 1979, is a vestige of the cold war.. . .

The NYT vision of Taiwan's future.

That was just the money quote.  More at the link. So the New York Times, along with this former Marine of indeterminate rank, have placed the price of $49,793.8708 on the lives and livelihoods of 22,894,384 living people, with a proposal to sell them into the slavery of Communism.

Yes, the same New York Times that employs Thomas Friedman, regular agitator for the mainland Chinese version of "capitalism", which resembles most closely the National Socialism of Adolph Hitler, with a higher death toll.

What has happened since the days of 1863 when Henry Raymond manned a Gatling Gun to defend the paper against rioting pro-slavery Democrats?  Nothing good, I assure you.

Update: I do not recognize Paul V. Kane in this video, allegedly of Marines urinating on corpses in Afghanistan.  I am not yet convinced that it is authentic either.

If you want to piss on corpses, piss on these.

Newt Gingrich: The Liberal Fascist H.G. Wells Was Waiting For

The original Progressive laughing.

Reason had a good article the other day tracing Newt Gingrich's ideas on how to manipulate the US court system to those of the Progressives of the past.  It is worth the read.

A Liberal Fascist laughing.

An even better read is from a little earlier than that at National Review.  Mark Steyn spends four wonderful pages recalling Gingrich's comments about himself and plots involving massive government expense.  High speed maglev rail is kid stuff compared to what this National Socialist superman has in mind for the federal treasury ant your hip pocket.  This in particular Romney quote about Gingrich caught my eye (emphasis mine):

Vote for Newt and work with me in the mines.

With his numbers sinking, Mitt was driven to go negative. Asked where his policies differed from Gingrich’s, Romney cut to the chase: “We could start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon.” You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, folks. Both leading conservative candidates have supported government mandates on health care. Both leading conservative candidates have supported massive expansion of entitlements. But they differ on the critical issue of whether we should use large numbers of welfare claimants to mine unpasteurized green cheese from the dark side of the moon. To be fair to Gingrich, he’s generally sounder on economic issues than Romney: Mitt’s reforms would leave us with a corporate-tax rate twice as high as Newt’s, and, in contrast to the Gingrich abolition of taxes on capital gains, Romney is proposing to end them only for those making under $200,000 because it would be wrong to “spend our precious tax dollars for a tax cut.” When “conservatives” think tax cuts are government “spending,” who needs Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank?

If you think Steyn and Romney are puffing a bit, let's cut to the video of Newt defending his moon mining idea, straight from a Jules Verne novel:

Of course, now it is "for the children".  Children who saw the original Star Trek, or the reruns, and thought that the government could send rescue workers through a transporter to the Louisiana Superdome in the aftermath of hurricane Kartrina can dream of working beside sexy moon maidens, or for them.

Mining the moon with the technology we have today carries with it an incredibly negative return on expenditure, especially as a public works project.  If government would just get out of the way (including their habit of picking favorites with tax dollars), then the free market will find a way to visit heavenly bodies and extract marketable material for use wherever people want to use it, when it is practical to do so..

In the 1930s, H. G. Wells coined the term Liberal Fascism:

H.G. Wells's ‘Liberal Fascism’

Philip Coupland

Abstract

During the 1930s H.G. Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis centred around a concept of ‘liberal fascism’ whereby the Wellsian ‘liberal’ utopia would be achieved by an authoritarian élite. Taking inspiration from the militarized political movements of the 1930s, this marked a development in the Wellsian theory of revolution from the ‘open conspiracy’ of the 1920s. Although both communist and fascist movements evinced some of the desired qualities of a Wellsian vanguard, it was fascism rather than communism which came closest to Wells's ideal. However, in practice, despite the failure of approaches to parties of the left and centre as possible agents of revolution, Wells rejected the British Union of Fascists. The disparity between Wells's theory and his actions when faced by the reality of fascism echoes the unresolved tension between ends and means at the heart of the concept of ‘liberal fascism’.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review rediscovered the phrase and used it to title a book about the liberal roots of both fascism (National Socialism) and Progressiveism.  I now own the domain Liberal-Fascism.Com.

The more Newt Gingrich talks, the more he fits the mold of the Wellsian Liberal Fascist Superman to swoop down and save us all with technology, backed by massive monuments to government.

Interestingly enough, Newt Gingrich is quoted as commenting on Goldberg's book here:

Of the book former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says: 'Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism will enrage many people on the left, but his dire thesis deserves serious attention.... Goldberg will lead you to new understanding and force you to think deeply.' Following Goldberg's remarks, a panel of experts will present their commentary on the book.

Maybe if he actually read the book he might have used different words.

See the video of Jonah Goldberg on  Fora.tv:

Ron Paul: Politician, Obstetrician, Gynecologist, and Zionologist

This is what a Zionologist looks like.

If it is a new election cycle, it is a new round of Dr. Ron Paul controversy.  By far the most popular one is the alleged racism towards Blacks by the House of Representatives member for Texas, an issue that crops up like clockwork every four years.  Another is the growing evidence of Ron Paul's thinly veiled antisemitism.

Gun toting Socialist, David Weigel

This post is not so much about Paul's racism as much as it is about the antisemitism.  David Weigel of Slate produced some historical evidence linking Paul to racist comments in his news letter and he has been following this issue for several years.  If you did not know, Weigel is a fired Reason staffer who interviewed Ron Paul in 2007 about his 9/11 Trutherism.  In the comments of that article one Eric Dondero, now a source about Ron Paul's alleged lack of racism in almost every blog besides Reason's, claims to have been given a $10,000 bonus by the Ron Paul machine before departing and clams that he was not fired (this was the first link in the Eric Dondero search of the Reason blog).  Ron Paul's office has been claiming for years that Dondero was fired.  If you want to know more about Ron Paul and his decades long bigotry controversies, please point your favorite search engine in that direction.  This post ties Ron Paul to Zionology.  Not as a pioneer or researcher, more as an evangelist and it matters little if he is a knowing or unknowing practitioner.

The practice of Zionology, also known as Soviet Anti-Zionism, appears to have originated in the Ukraine.  The brief Wikipedia article on the topic currently describes it as:

Soviet Anti-Zionism was a doctrine promulgated in the Soviet Union during the course of the Cold War, and intensified after the 1967 Six Day War. It was officially sponsored by the Department of propaganda of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and by the KGB. It alleged that Zionism was a form of racism and sometimes argued that Zionists were similar to Nazis. The Soviet Union was officially opposed to racism of any kind, and therefore Zionologists stated that they were not anti-Semitic or racist themselves.

The way this has played out over the years is similar to the Stalinist Soviet view that National Socialism is Right Wing, a falsehood which over 90% of the people educated in the West since World War II believe.  In the same repetitive manner, Soviet attacks on Israel took on a life of their own through the Stalinist fellow travelers in the commanding heights of western society, eventually adopted by many who wanted to shoehorn Jews in as a scapegoat for any conspiracy that they saw.

Remember, true Conservatives tend to use descriptive words when they speak and Socialists tend to use codewords.  Socialists love to accuse people of using codewords just to call them names, or to make some false point of faith with a 'bonus' of smearing a Conservative at the same time.  Examples like "individual choice is code for racial discrimination" do not come from people who abstain from codewording, it comes from those who engage in the practice.  When you hear people complain about: The Israeli Lobby, Neo-Conservatives, Zionists, and similar, you can bet these people are engaged in codetalking to veil their antisemitism.

How does this relate to Dr. Paul?  Quite simply he uses all the right words along with the tactic of emboldening any antisemitic group that comes along.  Just see his comments on Israel vs. his comments toward Iran on very similar issues.

In a June 2011 interview with Don Imus, Ron Paul defends terrorist group Hamas, a country with a charter that calls for the destruction of Israel.  Paul attacks Israel for defending itself in a war that Hamas started.  The subject of the exchange is the legal intercept of a ship trying to run Israel's legal Gaza blockade.

Throughout the interview, Ron Paul ignores the fact that the blockade was a joint effort between Egypt and Israel gets his blame for everything.

Ron Paul thinks Hamas are the nice guys.

He opens with some non-interventionist boilerplate and then says that we have every right to intervene against Israel, justifying it with a short list of military hardware that was made in the United States.  Not one word about aid to Gaza's Hamas terrorist government.  The first paragraph of the Hamas charter for Gaza calls for the destruction of Israel and Ron Paul says that Israel created Hamas. This echoes the Soviet client state relationships during the Cold War, when they began claiming that Israel had no right to exist and started rumors that Israel was the secret puppet master behind every ill in the world.

As transcribed by The Right Scoop:

[Ron Paul] I think it’s absolutely wrong to prevent people that are starving and having problems that are almost like in concentration camps and saying “yes we endorse this whole concept that we can’t allow ships to go in there in a humanitarian way”.

I think it’s just terrible and I don’t think we should be part of it. Even though if we weren’t involved I would say nothing. So I think this would be a perfect opportunity to argue the case that, you know, “Israel, if you want to do this, you’re on your own. We’re not backing you up!”

To his credit, Don Imus tries to inform Dr. Paul that humanitarian aid was not being blocked by Israel.  Interestingly enough, Ron Paul says not a word about Egypt's blockade of Gaza, in an alliance with Israel at the time of the interview.

When the topic is an actual act of war by another country with a dedication to destroy Israel, Dr. Paul takes a different stance, the same stance the Soviets took and their useful idiots parroted around the world during the Cold War.  He says that Iran's talk of destroying Israel is just big talk and that is the way tough guys talk in that part of the world (also revealing a whole other facet of soft bigotry).  Blocking the Straits of Hormuz is perfectly understandable, in the words of Paul.

Iran says they want nuclear weapons, and Ron Paul says that Iran needs them to make things equal.  Now, just examine that for a moment.  Iran wants nuclear weapons to "wipe Israel off the map," but Paul says that is just talk.  Then Paul says that the international belligerent behind 9/11 (per US District Court, Manhattan, 23 December 2011), and funded the Hezbollah war with Israel in 2006, needs nuclear weapons to make things equal.  He also condemns the only country in the region that needed a nuclear deterrent, Israel, for having nuclear weapons.  Ron Paul has been warning of an American/Israeli invasion of Iran, that never happens, for ages.  He uses that as his basis to debase Israel and try to gain support for those who want to wipe Jews from the earth.

Ron Paul supporters have recently begun accusing the United States of bombing Iran.  They cite an article from 2003 where claims were made that a village bordering Iraq was bombed.  Frequently Ron Paul sounds like these are his closest advisers.

Countries or political movements with a stated goal to destroy Israel that Ron Paul openly supports are:

Judaism Without Embellishment

Another tactic common to both the Soviets and Ron Paul is switching public positions when it suited them, just like George Orwell's 1984.  In the case of Ron Paul, he comes out with occasional statements saying he supports Israel's right to exist, before going back to supporting any group that wants to incinerate all the Jews in Israel.  In the case of Zionology, first the Soviets published and promoted Judaism Without Embellishment, by Trofim Kichko.  When fellow travelers around the world got upset about the antisemitic contents of the book, the Soviets made an April 6, 1964 press release through their own news service, Pravda, denouncing the publication of Judaism Without Embellishment (If you have a strong stomach, you can view some of the book's illustrations  here):

LONDON, Apr. 5 (JTA) –

The Ideological Commission of the Soviet Communist Party this weekend criticized the publication by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences of the anti-Semitic book, "Judaism Without Embellishment," it was reported here today from Moscow. The book, which contains anti-Jewish caricatures reminiscent of Nazi propaganda, has already been attacked by Communist parties in various Western countries.

The Soviets continued to smear Jews internally and just three years later the Soviets dusted off, published and distributed at least 12,000 copies of this antisemitic tripe labeled as science.  The 'science' of Zionology was born in response to the 1967 Six-Day War.  The Soviets continued their 'work' in the 'field' of Zionology, publishing other antisemitic books, including Trofim Kichko's Judaism and Zionism in 1968 without much resistance by Communists in the West.  The Communists even gained a few more apologists.

Today, Ron Paul picks up the torch of Soviet Zionology and presents it to a new audience already prepared by Helen Thomas, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and of the throngs who continue to support Stalinist Socialism, as well as those who just hate Jews.

Another Soviet tactic, shared by Ron Paul, is showing off Jews in their respective camps.  This has the added benefit of giving cover to anybody who wants to join in on the race to shove Jewish Israelis into the Mediterranean.  Many keep forgetting that Socialists are Socialists first and Jewish, Catholic, Atheist, Pagan, or anything else, second.  Socialistic Jews are no different and the Soviets capitalized on this for most of the 20th century.

This is not to say that Ron Paul is a Socialist at all, far from it.  He is as far away from Socialism as one can get on fiscal issues.  That said, one can still adopt the unquestionably effective tactics of Socialistic rhetoric to use against a nation full of people that you hate.

Ron Paul has been so effective at getting his Jew hate message out that he gets financial support from White Supremacists who specialize in antisemitism and all but owns the 9/11 Truthers who blame the USA and Jews for the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.  Much of that support gained when Ron Paul blamed the USA for the 9/11 attacks on the floor of the House of Representatives before the smoke had cleared.

Rival politicians who do not share Ron Paul's Zionology are attacked by Ron Paul for "hating Muslims."  There is no evidence at all that Michelle Bachmann hates Muslims.  What she does speak out against is something that Ron Paul is for, Islamic terrorist organizations that want to destroy Israel and Ron Paul translates that into Bachmann hating Muslims.

This position by Ron Paul has absolutely no basis in fact.  If all of these "Muslim haters" in the US government only wanted to murder Muslims they would be paying a lot more attention to attacking the most populous Muslim nation on earth and ignoring the seat of Islamic jihad.

For more on Ron Paul's anti-Israeli history, read this.

About Those Libertarians, Take Ron Paul For Example

Libertarianism is not a strange thing to most people in the United States, it is just a strange word to them.  The desire to be left alone by government is widespread.  However, libertarianism comes in many stripes and those who profess to be libertarians can express an odd combination of beliefs.

It is not within the libertarian ethos to have government create regulations that hinder competition, especially those that favor big businesses over smaller businesses.  Conversely, it is within the libertarian philosophy to defend the nation from military attack.  However, the line where defense becomes interference in the affairs of another country seems to be set in different places by different libertarians.

Judaism Without Embellishment

For example, a large portion (being conservative here) of vocal libertarians are also pacifists.  Pacifist to the point of inadvertent advocation for enslavement of all under the jackboot of brutal authoritarian expansionist regimes.  Like when some talk of Israel vs. Palestine and begin using Zionoligist talking points, without having ever heard of Zionology.

Now, I am not talking about 20/20 historical vision, like say, what if Abraham Lincoln had actually extended the 1862 emancipation of slaves beyond the confines of the nation's capital.  Although that would have been the right thing for the Congress and the President to do, and quite expensive, there is little doubt that the States that began leaving the Union in December 1860 would have returned at that point.  Of course, war could have been averted if the federal government had recognized the right of any State to secede from the Union in the first place, as was the thinking among some at least as far back as 1798, long before the secession of South Carolina.  No, I am talking about wholesale rewrites of history by people who should know better and/or are banking on the fact that their listeners do not know any better either.

Which brings me to the case of Doctor Ron Paul, Republican Representative to the Congress, from Texas.  In 2007, his solution for averting the American Civil War was for the Union to purchase slaves from their Southern owners. (video)

Beyond what I mentioned above, and as you probably know, the Civil War was already underway before Lincoln took office and seven States had seceded.  This is far from the only case where Dr. Paul has been historically or fact challenged and it fits in with the pacifist leanings of him and his supporters.

Recently, Dr. Paul had a simple solution to the ongoing issues that Iran is having with pretty much every nation on the planet, other than China, North Korea, Venezuela and Russia.  Unarguably, the greatest friction is between Iran and the countries that are within range of Iranian ballistic missiles, or will be within range in a few years.  According to Dr. Paul, all President Obama needs to do is pick up the phone and call Iran, and he likens it to when President Kennedy "called Nikita Khrushchev" to avert a war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Around the 3:00 mark in the video):

Again, Dr. Paul misses a great deal of the factual historical record, like the fact that Kennedy never called Khrushchev.  Here is his comment via MondoWeiss.Net:

Paul: "If she (Michelle Bachmann) thinks we live in a dangerous world, she ought to think back to when I was drafted in 1962 with the nuclear missiles in Cuba. And Kennedy calls Khrushchev and talks to him and talks him out of a nuclear excahnge (sic). You’re trying to dramatize this... we have to treat Iran like we've treated Iraq and kill a million Iraqis and 8000 some Americans have died since we've gone to war.

Shortly after the debate where Representative Paul uttered this comment, Charles Krauthammer and others began pointing out a few items Ron Paul left out.  The highlights (some from me, some from the Krauthammer video, some from other places around the 'net):

- The hard evidence that the Soviets were installing nuclear tipped missiles in Cuba came partly from reconnaissance flights by U2 high altitude jets over Cuba.  Part of the analysis was the similarity to the layout of the missile installation to aerial photographs taken by US reconnaissance aircraft of the same model of Soviet missiles in the USSR.  These flights were by manned high altitude aircraft performing the same mission as the US drone recently captured by Iran.  In the same debate, Ron Paul complained about the US "flying drones over Iran."

- Human intelligence from Cuban ex-patriots living in Miami, Florida was the first indication of offensive Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Condolence letter to Mrs. Anderson

- U2 Pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson was shot down and died over Cuba, 27 October 1962.

- Later, Kennedy ordered low level flights by Crusader jets over Cuba once every two hours.  Hardly a reduction in provocative actions.

- President Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba, arguably an act of war even though the action was approved by the Organization of American States.  Kennedy fell back on the typical Leftist tactic of renaming things, calling it a quarantine.  Part of the quarantine terms were to board and sink, if necessary, any Soviet ships sailing to Cuba.  It began 800 miles from Cuba and was later brought to within 500 miles of Cuba.

- Kennedy never picked up any phone to talk to Khrushchev!  The two exchanged letters, the first sent by Khrushchev about a "serious threat to peace and security of peoples."  Kennedy's letter in response laid the responsibility of the crisis squarely at the feet of the Soviets.  The letter exchanges did result in a typical Leftist capitulation, the US removed missiles in Turkey in exchange for Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba.  The Soviet officials that President Kennedy and his brother, the Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the president's little brother) were Ambassador Dobrynin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko.


The praise Ron Paul gives for John F. Kennedy's actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis are the same actions that he condemns even contemplating with Iran.

Congressman Paul is by far the libertarian with the highest profile in America today.  He has a fantastic education and a successful son who represents Kentucky in the United States Senate.  However, Ron Paul's idea of national defense is tantamount to issuing every coastal home a musket and two rounds of ammunition.  His attitude is shared, or seen as somewhat hawkish, by throngs of libertarians with roots in the modern Left.

Iran is an international belligerent beyond the level of Cuba when they were marching around Africa and South America until the collapse of the Soviet Union.  With Iran's training and support of Hamas and Hezbollah, they have launched direct attacks on US allies, most notably on Israel in 2006.  They threaten international shipping through the Straits of Hormuz and receive the wholesale support of neo-Marxists worldwide, as well as by Ron Paul.  In another post I plan to outline Dr. Paul's ideological alliance with the hard Left and Palestinian terrorists.  Note that Ron Paul is charging Israel with "acts of war" that he ignores in his Kennedy praise.

One tactic that both Marxist and some libertarians use is the "elected government" excuse, i.e., Gaza elected Hamas as their government, therefore Hamas can do whatever it likes.  Well libertarians, I ask you, whatever it likes to whom?  For one thing, the first acts the Gaza government did  (after Israel gave the Gaza strip to them) was to refuse to acknowledge Israel as a legitimate government and then declared war on Israel.  Somehow, the Ron Paul libertarians miss these little historic fact points and jump to the declaration that Israel is committing an act of war by enforcing a weapons blockade of Gaza.  While it is laughable when Marxists invoke that excuse, since the occasional novelty of elected Marxist governments did not begin until around the late 1970s, it is tragic when people who say that they know history and value freedom use the free election excuse.

The big difference between National Socialists and International Socialists is that the National Socialists tend to gain power by winning free, honest elections.  International Socialists rarely bother with elections and opt for military takeovers.  Do these libertarians truly believe that Hitler and Mussolini should have been left alone because they were elected?

No, a strong line needs to be drawn between the free peoples and the Socialist slavers.  Iran falls fully into the ranks of authoritarian Socialist republics, they just happen to use the Koran instead of the Communist Manifesto as their top-down planning guide.

If the libertarian position is truly on the opposite side of the spectrum from Socialism, then it should be there because it opposes the imprisonment of the mind and soul that Socialism thrives on.  Libertarianism cannot stand idly by and watch oppressors gobble up victims one border at a time, or worse, mirror the anti-interventionism of the British Union of Fascists.