The Trend of Giving Up Liberty Must Be Reversed

By, Chris Rossini

23 yrs ago E&W Germany reunified, the product of a universal desire for freedom and Western perseverance, foreshadowing end of Eastern Bloc.
— Donald Rumsfeld (@RumsfeldOffice) October 3, 2013

Interesting take...

Let's look at some history:

On Aug. 22, 1980 Congressman Ron Paul said on the House floor:

In 1979, our federal government granted the Communist regime in Poland an additional $500 million in loans and guarantees...

Why does our government continue to subsidize the Communists in Poland? Whose side is our government on, the Polish Communists or the Polish workers?

I believe that we should have a consistent foreign policy of nonintervention in the affairs of other countries. We should certainly not be subsidizing a dictatorial regime that is not supported by its own people. It is outrageous that taxes paid by the American people – people who sympathize with the Polish workers, not the Communist government – have been and are being used to prop up the government. I have introduced legislation that would end such foreign subsidies, H.R. 3408, and I intend to push for its passage through Congress. Our irrational policy of subsidizing those who hate freedom must be stopped.

Three years later, in 1983, Ron Paul would say on the House floor:

“Why are we engaged in military action against the Communists in which American lives are being lost when we cannot take the simple action of cutting off the flow of money to the Communists? For decades we have pursued this immoral course of action, asking American men to die fighting an enemy the American government has financed.”

If there was such a thing as "Western perseverance," it was surely championed by Ron Paul. For he was seeking to no longer prop up the Communists.

You see, the Soviets were a great boon for the power hungry in the U.S.

Remember what "conservative" William Buckley had to say in 1952: "thus far invincible aggressiveness of the Soviet Union imminently threatens U.S. security," and that therefore "we have got to accept Big Government for the duration–for neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged…except through the instrumentality of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores."

Foreign threat equals "totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores". Should it not equal "freedom" within our shores?

Let's not forget what was being said about the Communists at the time. Lew Rockwell once reminisced:

On the left, it was widely believed, even in those times, that these societies were actually doing quite well and would eventually pass the United States and Western Europe in prosperity, and, by some measures, they were already better off than us. And yet it collapsed.

Rockwell was absolutely correct:

“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.” - John Kenneth Galbraith, Professor of Economics, Harvard University

“What counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for economic growth…The Soviet model has surely demonstrated that a command economy is capable of mobilizing resources for rapid growth.” - Paul Samuelson, MIT, Nobel laureate in economics, 1985

and who can forget:

“If you understood what communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that we would some day become communist.” - Jane Fonda, at Duke University

What about the other side of the aisle?...Were they pleased that the Soviet Bogeyman was collapsing into the dustbin of history?

Lew Rockwell tells us the road that they would choose:

“Together Murray and I watched as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union dissolved, and we were intensely curious as to how the conservatives would respond. Would they return to their pre-war, anti-war roots? Or would they continue to push for the American empire? Well, we got our answer in 1990 with the beginnings of the Gulf War. It seemed obvious that this was Bush’s attempt to keep the warfare state fat and thriving…We waited for the conservatives to denounce the war, but of course it didn’t happen…”

In other words, sorry freedom loving people. Soviet Union or no Soviet Union, the military empire would expand, and the "totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores" would stay put.

Here's an excerpt from a speech, given by Lew Rockwell, on January 29, 2000:

I recall noticing a distinct lack of jubilance on the part of the ruling class when it woke up one day and found its reliable enemy (Soviet Union) had ceased to exist. Since then, the ruling class has engaged in a series of attempts to find some effective substitute for the Soviets, an enemy so formidable that it suppressed the libertarian impulse and inspired the old civic loyalties that the ruling class has come to know and love. But no matter what they have dreamed up…nothing quite works like it used to.”

Sadly, almost 2 years later, a tragic event would occur on 9/11/01. And once again, the movement here in the U.S. would be to drastically curtail liberty.

This is not a good trend at all.

We must always keep in mind Ron Paul's wise words:

“I'm convinced that you never have to give up liberties to be safe. I think you're less safe when you give up your liberties.”

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