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If Obama proves unable to stand tall for America on principle, he will weaken America and place us all in great danger

Defending American Liberty: It’s still about Communism



At the 1964 Republican Convention, Barry Morse Goldwater said this about Liberty during a stirring speech where he accepted the Republican Nomination: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. ... Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." I remember well that the Democrat Party and Bill Moyers branded Barry Goldwater as a dangerous fanatic who would blow up the world. They made this smear throughout the 1964 Campaign, despite the facts that Goldwater was not only a distinguished Senator and a very good friend of the late JFK, but also that Barry Goldwater was a General in the US Air Force Reserve!

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In 1964, America was confronted with the relentless advance of Communist tyranny thoughout the world. The Soviet Union and Communist China were fighting proxy wars and propaganda wars all over the world through client nations. Liberal Elites constantly reminded us that if we had only treated Joe Stalin and the Soviets better in the aftermath of World War II that we would have avoided the Cold War and the Nuclear Arms race entirely. If President Truman had not used the Atom Bomb on Japan, they argued, we might well have avoided the Nuclear Arms Race. We would have all been singing "Kumbaya" in the 60s instead of fighting a Communist Proxy War in the jungles of Vietnam. Many  readers may have experienced this line of reasoning, or similar ones, from their Liberal professors in college, even to this day.   The true lesson was that Communism was not monolithic. The Soviets were, in fact, not eight feet tall. The Russian and Chinese Soviets were experts at "brinkmanship" I think JFK came to understand this all too well. He was assassinated by a Castro sympathizer and assassin, Lee Harvy Oswald. Oswald may well have been part of an ethereal communist cabal that evaporated went back under their rocks from whence it came once the deed was done.   But I digress.   Barry Goldwater's "extremist rhetoric" [a favorite Left Wing smear] words were certainly no more extreme than most of the writings of Paine, Jefferson, Hamilton or Madison before and during our Revolution. Take your time and read but a few randomly selected quotes from each of these ardent patriots and judge for yourself:   "It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate." - Thomas Jefferson   "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." - Thomas Jefferson   "The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God." - Thomas Jefferson "A thousand years hence, perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all nations in her favor, may sound like a romance and her inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain may just furnish materials for a village tale or extort a sigh from rustic sensibility, whilst the fashionable of that day, enveloped in dissipation, shall deride the principle and deny the fact." - Thomas Paine   "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."  - Thomas Paine   "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." - Thomas Paine   "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." - Alexander Hamilton   "The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death; and yet we know there have been those in all ages who, for the sake of preferment or some imaginary honor, have freely lent a helping hand to oppress, nay, to destroy, their country." Alexander Hamilton   "Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government." - James Madison "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -James Madison   These quotes speak to the mind of some of the foremost patriots of that era. Not one of these men was timid in defense of Liberty and Freedom. I am growing more skeptical as to whether most Americans have the "right stuff" to defend our freedom and liberties. In a sad, but almost laughable commentary on modern Americans, most voters seem to think [as indicated in the recent election] that the machinery and the bureaucracy of National Government is the guarantor of said freedom and liberties.   Not too many years after Goldwater spoke his words, the nation was tired of LBJ's and Nixon's failure to pursue victory in Vietnam without a strategy or a determination to win. I often heard people say that in retrospect, they wished they had voted for Goldwater. After more than 50,000 American lives lost, Americans had time to reflect. To this day, I believe that Barry Goldwater would have won that war against totalitarian aggression. Read his indictment of the Democrat policies on appeasement of communism during his 1964 acceptance speech:
"Now, I needn't remind you, or my fellow Americans regardless of party, that Republicans have shouldered this hard responsibility and marched in this cause before. It was Republican leadership under Dwight Eisenhower that kept the peace, and passed along to this administration the mightiest arsenal for defense the world has ever known. And I needn't remind you that it was the strength and the unbelievable will of the Eisenhower years that kept the peace by using our strength, by using it in the Formosa Strait, and in Lebanon, and by showing it courageously at all times. It was during those Republican years that the thrust of Communist Imperialism was blunted. It was during those years of Republican leadership that this world moved closer not to war but closer to peace than at any other time in the last three decades. And I needn't remind you - but I will - that it's been during Democratic years that our strength to deter war has been stilled and even gone into a planned decline. it has been during Democratic years that we have weakly stumbled into conflicts, timidly refusing to draw our own lines against aggression, deceitfully refusing to tell even our people of our full participation and tragically letting our finest men die on battlefields unmarked by purpose, unmarked by pride or the prospect of victory. Yesterday it was Korea; tonight it is Vietnam. Make no bones of this. Don't try to sweep this under the rug. We are at war in Vietnam. And yet the president, who is the commander in chief of our forces, refuses to say-refuses to say, mind you-whether or not the objective over there is victory, and his secretary of defense continues to mislead and misinformation the American people, and enough of it has gone by. And, I needn't remind you - but I will - it has been during Democratic years that a billion persons were cast into Communist captivity and their fate cynically sealed. Today, today in our beloved country, we have an administration which seems eager to deal with communism in every coin known-from gold to wheat, from consulates to confidence, and even human freedom itself. Now, the Republican cause demands that we brand communism as the principal disturber of peace in the world today. Indeed, we should brand it as the only significant disturber of the peace. And we must make clear that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced and its rejections with all nations tempered, communism and the governments it now controls are enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free."
Wow! It is no wonder that the anti-Communist Ronald Reagan was inspired by Barry Goldwater to change parties and become a Republican. We live in interesting times. I don't believe Communism died in 1991. It was discredited. So, the Communists have adapted. They no longer call themselves Communists, just as Democrats avoid the adjective "Liberal." They have cleverly infiltrated Interest Groups, Professions, and Organizations from which to wield their collectivist, socialist revoultionary influences and bullying tactics. Hard-boiled revolutionaries are predominating the Left-wing of the Democrat Party. Progressivism, Environmentalism, Higher Education, Teachers' Unions, Activist Organizations like ACORN, the AARP, Organized Labor and Government Workers' Unions have all adopted the "mass" politics techniques of classical Marxism. Examples, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, are just a tip on that iceberg; extreme Leftists in powerful and prestigious positions in American Education. We must face up to both of these challenges. But before we can totally isolate and cure the cancerous ideas of Collectivist Socialism at home, we must also defeat Totalitarianism resolutely and in detail around the world. Otherwise the cancer will return. So also today, make no bones about it. We are at war in the world; a war against Islamic Fascism overseas, and a war against ideas alien to American Constitutional Government at home. Parsing words about US intentions at home or overseas are not strategies for survival in a dangerous world. Historians, for example, now suggest that Red China believed they had a free hand in Korea because of a misstatement of US Foreign Policy by then Secretary of State Dean Acheson [under Truman]. More recently, a diplomatic blunder by our Ambassador to Iraq in 1990, may have signaled Saddam Hussein that he had a free hand to invade Kuwait. Similary, President Obama negotiating with dictators without precondition, is a recipe for the next international calamity. It is one thing to make fine speeches, to talk the talk. It is quite another to back up your rhetoric by walking the walk. American President Theodore Roosevelt said in a Chicago Speech in April 1903: "There is a homely old adage which runs: 'Speak softly and carry and big stick; you will go far.' If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoughly efficient navy, the Munroe Doctrine will go far." The Patriots I quoted above walked the walk and talked the talk. The eyes of the world are on President-elect Obama. Here is his big chance on the biggest stage to show that he is a freedom loving Constitutionalist American. If he shows he is up to that task we will prevail in Iraq and Afgahanstan, and we will counter the growing undemocratic influences in our own hemisphere. If Obama proves unable to stand tall for America on principle, and without regard to the whims of world public opinion, he will weaken America and place us all in great danger. I wish the new president well. More importantly, I hope he will be sanguine and zealous in the protection of our interests. Sadly, I have my doubts. As my father once opined regarding American Strength: "Better Brinkmanship than Chickenship."   WILLIAM R. MANN LTC, USA [Retired] Aut pax aut bellum!


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William R. Mann -- Bio and Archives

William R. Mann, is a retired Lt. Colonel, US Army. He is a now a political observer, analyst, activist and writer for Conservative causes. He was educated at West Point [Bachelor of Science, 1971 ]and the Naval Postgraduate School [Masters, National Security Affairs, 1982].


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