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Life, Liberty and Happiness Depend on Law, Order and History

Posted on Thursday, July 2, 2020
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by AMAC, Robert B. Charles
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hisotryRecent events are unsettling.  They demonstrate how disconnected from history some have become.  They demonstrate why law enforcement is important, even as we aim for higher accountability.  They represent a rare educational moment, teaching that “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” depend on defending law, order, and history.

In the past three weeks, what began as peaceful marches for racial equality were overtaken by organized criminality and violent ideological groups and actions.

Criminals destroyed urban businesses and private property.  Ideological radicals – united by anarchist behavior, communist sympathies, and anti-American sentiments –defaced, toppled, desecrated, and destroyed public property.

Criminal and radical leftist groups have emerged in dozens of cities, taking over extended city blocks, toppling historic statues across the South, but also statues of Francis Scott Key, President Ulysses S. Grant, Union leaders and American Founders.

These ideological radicals – many supported by left-leaning city councils, mayors, governors, and members of Congress – have widened their target list.  Like Jacobins of the French Revolution, they deface and destroy statutes of statesmen and thinkers.

They aim to delegitimize the republic’s founding principles and documents – not least our Bill of Rights and Constitution – by discrediting, delegitimizing, and destroying reputations and representations of those who founded the nation, from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington.

Most Americans – arguably 99 percent – are not with this absurd, anti-democratic, anti-American violence.  They do not condone lawless destruction of public or private property, the desecration of history. They disavow, resist, and will rebuff violence.

That said, the danger posed by lawlessness like that of the 1960s is real.  In that time, America saw a young President, Attorney General, and Civil Rights Leader assassinated.  We suffered widespread bombings, were perpetrated by groups like the Weather Underground and communist-linked liberation movements. Today, urban violence is spreading to the suburbs, fanned by foreign adversaries, like China.  So, we must stay focused on – and proud of – American history.

We must recognize history’s complexity – and significance. That is why the most egregious act was defacing a North Carolina cemetery commemorating 5,170 American WWII veterans – with a crude Communist hammer and sickle.

No two ideas are more opposed – than giving one’s life to preserve freedom and advancing communist suppression of freedom.  If there is a historical prism through which to see what is happening today, that horrific act is the prism.  It teaches lessons.

First, all Americans must distinguish lawless from lawful behavior.  Non-violent marches, signs and demonstrations are protected.  They help reshape laws.  Violence – against people, property, and history – is never protected.  It is anti-democratic, anti-republican, anti-peace, and anti-American, no matter the justification.  Violence against people, property and history must be stopped, and then swiftly and surely punished.

Second, there is no place on American soil for a hammer and sickle, sign of international communism, both Soviet and Maoist.  To be clear, the symbol represents subjugation – totalitarian control of society, ending individual liberties secured by our Bill of Rights.

Third, juxtaposing a hammer and sickle – representing global communism – with a memorial in an American veterans’ cemetery with 5,170 WWII veterans is the height of sick irony, an abomination in current and historical terms.

Those veterans rose – with 16 million Americans – to save the world from totalitarianism.  More than 400,000 Americans died saving the world – literally – from a descent into incalculable evil, of the kind matched only by Soviet and Chinese horrors.

In total, scholars attribute to international communism between 85 million and 110 million murders, Soviet and Chinese dissidents whose lives often ended with a shot to the back of the head, plus tens of millions starved by both Stalin and Mao.  China continues to persecute, execute, imprison, and suppress political dissidents today.

Facts surrounding Soviet and Chinese Communism – often buried with victims – are stark and need remembering. Scholar R.J. Rummel, in “Death by Government,” found that 110 million lives were silenced by Communist leaders between 1900 and 1987. Stephane Courtois, in her “Black Book of Communism,” puts that at 85-100 million.

Others conducting analyses of both Soviet (extinct) and Chinese Communism (operational), including Benjamin Valentino, Steven Rosefield (“Red Holocaust”), Matthew White, “Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation,” and Stephen Kotlin in 2017, place numbers killed by Communist leaders in a similar range.

So, the idea that anyone on US soil would vandalize public property, target a cemetery and memorial dedicated to heroes of WWII, then place a hammer and sickle on that memorial– is objectively horrific. That act tells us – in a poignant and painful way – why understanding and honoring rule of law, American heroism, and history is vital.

If we lose sight of who we are, why we are proud of who we are, why history matters to each of us, and why rule of law must always be honored to keep liberty alive – we lose it all. Socialism is another word for progressive policies striving for communist rule, which should always be anathema to American ideals and unwelcome on American soil.

Here we are – in another educational moment.  We are invited to understand what freedom means – and what it does not mean.  We are reminded what so many died to protect, and what we are obligated to preserve.  And we are compelled to see that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” depend on defending law, order, and history.  Perhaps that is the silver lining on a dark cloud bank.  Let us hope so.

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Rik
Rik
4 years ago

As a young boy I was educated about the evils of Communism. My mother’s father had escaped Communist Russia with his wife and oldest son losing all property and fortune to come to be “free” in America. He settled in a factory town in Connecticut and took a job as a menial factory worker and resenting it not because of the type of work he did but because he had to leave family and friends behind. What impressed me most of him was that every Sunday he would buy the New York Times and read it from cover to cover and we’re talking a newspaper of 140+ pages. So seeing what is happening to our country today really angers me. I just don’t understand how so many young people today cannot think independently to question the absurdity of Communism. I know they’re being told it’s Socialism, but even then, where has Socialism proven so wonderful in history? And to think that here in America, the most revered country in the world, they would give up life, liberty and freedom to kowtow to Jackass politicians who will promise them the moon and deliver them into servitude just disgusts me! I have no children or grandchildren but I’m ready to fight a civil war, even at my old age, to guarantee those rights and freedoms for my brothers and sisters and their families. … Let’s get it on!!!

R Jeffrey Savlov
R Jeffrey Savlov
4 years ago

As a grandparent and the father of a retired Air Force veteran my concerns have always included our system of public education which has been hijacked by the left and socialists but has also been trimmed to exclude it’s most important tenets, our history and the history of the world and where things through history went wrong. That along with the apathetic child rearing and the lack of home education is most disturbing. Many parents chose to take a disturbing attitude with their children. When the children ask question regarding current events their answered with your don’t need to know that or some other inane reply. They should be sitting down with their kids, explain the incident and explain why it has happened and what possible solutions should include. We must stop failing as parents, as grandparent, as educators and as aunts and uncles. Teach our youth where to find and research the information, how important it is to look at all sides not just one and most importantly, how to think for themselves. That is how this stupidity will finally end.

PTY
PTY
4 years ago

“At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child —miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”—
 
P.J. O’Rourke

Annette Mennella
Annette Mennella
4 years ago

Bottom line is we need to drain our education swamp! All the despicable commie and socialists teach in all levels of education must be stopped! WAKE UP PARENTS, watch everything your kids bring home and ask what they were taught each day when they come home! Parents must start to reject all the propaganda that is being stuffed down our kids throats! Get out and buy history books and tell them the truth about what and why we are America and why we ARE GREAT, spend time with those kids! Even if your tired! Being lax will make them slaves to the government and freedoms will be lost! We must not loose our past or we have NO FUTURE!

Lawrence Greenberg
Lawrence Greenberg
4 years ago

“Life, Liberty and Happiness Depend on Law, Order and History” 
And that is exactly why the Left is destroying all of them: law, order, and history. Ever since The French Revolution, the motto of the Left has been: Power and control, at any price, at any cost. To attain their goal, they will lie, cheat, steal, and kill, and are doing all of those right now. Anyone or anything in their way will be destroyed – and we are witnessing all of that right now.

carl
carl
4 years ago

 

Tours Martel
Tours Martel
4 years ago

85 to 100 million is a gross understatement of Communism’s death toll. It’s more like 200-250 million. China occasionally updates the death toll of Mao, and Stalin’s is quite impressive as well.

anne Courtney olson
anne Courtney olson
4 years ago

These “children” may not realize the cost of this dangerous game until they are the ones fearing for their lives and standing in line for a loaf of bread or piece of a zoo animal to eat. The puppet master will not share the bounty with the puppet people.

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