Free
Dave Price
Via NRO, schoolkids get an unexpected lesson about repression and the yearning for freedom:
The class was at Brown Bay with V.I. National Park Education Specialist Laurel Brannick during V.I. Coastweeks in September when a man wearing flip flops, a bathing suit and a baseball hat suddenly appeared on the beach.He'll probably go back once he sees a couple Michael Moore documentaries and realizes he's forsaken that wonderful free Cuban health care for a heartless warmongering capitalist hellhole.
...
“In broken English, he asked us where he was and if this was St. John,” said Brannick. “When we told him it was, he almost started to cry. He was saying, ‘I’m free!’ and giving us the thumbs up.”
...
Lopez was able to relay his story to a Spanish-speaking student in the class. The Cuban immigrant traveled to St. Maarten, then Tortola via a boat. He then blew up an inflatable kayak he brought with him from Cuba and paddled toward St. John.
“It got a couple holes in it, so he ditched it when he got close to St. John and just swam in,” said Brannick. “He told us he’s a pharmacist, but he had no future in Cuba. He said we were his guardian angels.”
And Mexico is a relative paradise compared to many other places in the world.
I was amused recently to read that Islamic radicals have been embracing Che Guevara as an icon. The irony is so rich it's impossible for me to know where to start.
Any true liberal, or true conservative, should recognize the evil we're looking at when we contemplate what's happening every day on that island. The travesty is those so blinded by ideology they just can't see it.
I worry that America will only stay on top of the world for a second, compared to the Romans. We might be nothing but a temporary blip on the radar screen in the grand scheme of things. Of course we are not like the Romans, but America will fall from within because of lethargy, worthless public education, and the type of ignorance that leads people to ignore history and embrace people like Michael Moore.
I had a problem with him since I first watched Bowling for Columbine. He presented his work as a 'documentary', and most of my friends were too stupid to challenge it. Yeah, America is at fault because that lady didn’t keep her firearms safe. I say it was darwinian elimination of undesirable traits (sorry kid, I do feel sorry for you). Perhaps that woman should of discovered birth control before hooking up with her 'baby's daddy.' What next, America is at fault because she didn’t make her kids wear seat belts?
Same with Fahrenheit 9/11. Yeah, we invaded Afghanistan just to build an oil pipeline.
I'm not sure if many of you know just how many people around here (southern california) bought into Moore's bullshit. I'm sure up in San Francisco there were twice as many who bought into it. I was the only one at my house who knew that Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai (spelling?) was not an oil industry consultant, but instead a freedom fighter who fought the Taliban since they took over. I watched my roommates while the lapped up Moore’s bullshit, and it made me sad.
Democrats taught people like my roommates to "just get out and vote, always vote"... Uhhh, sorry, but learn the issues then vote, otherwise do us all a favor and stay home on election day. Gee, I wonder why it's the Democrats that push that get out and vote no matter what attitude? I wonder what party benefits the most from the uninformed/ignorant/selfish voting for what appears to be the most desirable (free health care? cool!)?
America was good at getting to the top, but we're horrible at staying on top. Parents who buy their kids $200 shoes, and have satellite TV, but no health insurance, then call upon the government to provide for their shortcomings, but also complain when a conservative history teacher makes their little kids cry because of teaching them about the holocaust... well, that type of crap will flush our country down the toilet.
I have lots of respect for my grandparents generation, but most of the baby boomers can kiss my ass.
If this view makes me a conservative republican, well, then I'm proud to be one.
(end of rant)
the 9/11 report
Are we doing anything constructive with Cuba?
It's us till the nanobots take over.
Anyways, we're not really an "American" empire. We're an empire of every free liberal democracy. America just shoulders much of the load for all of them.
I've had some euros argue a good case that america is an empire. A non-expansionist one though.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.