On a tip from my brother Gary
This past July, we had the pleasure of sharing a summer barbecue with a
refugee from Cuba . Our dinner conversation was starkly different than most.
This refugee came to the United States as a young boy in the early 1960s.
His family was more fortunate than most as they were able to bring a
suitcase and $100 when they fled Castro's newly formed revolutionary
paradise.
Our dinner consisted of all-American fare: hamburgers,
potato salad, watermelon and fresh ears of sweet corn. This is a menu
shared with family and friends nationwide, while celebrating the birth
of our beloved America on the Fourth of July.
We began with a simple discussion about our country and the direction
it has taken since Barack Obama came to power. We shared the usual
complaints about the sour economy and liberal social engineering emanating
from the rulers in Washington .
But then he said it. The sentence came naturally. I assume it was
unplanned. But it carried the weight of a freight train.
"You know when Castro took power, none of us knew he was a Communist."
We sat stunned. He continued, "Yes, we all thought he was a patriot, a
nationalist. Before the revolution he didn't sound like a radical."
The comparison at this point was easy, and I interjected,
"You mean just like Barack Obama?" He responded, "Yes, just like Barack Obama."
He continued, "We were all shocked as the government just continued to
grab more power. First they said the revolution is over, so please turn
in your guns. We all complied."
"I remember my uncle saying after it started, 'Castro will only nationalize
some of the big industries, he will never come and take our family hardware
store. 'But that is exactly what happened, Castro started with the sugar
mills and the large industries, but they eventually came and knocked on the
door of our family hardware store. My family had run this store for
generations. They said we now own the hardware store, you work for us.
And that nice, large four-bedroom home you own, it is now our
property also, and you can move yourself and five children into two rooms of
the house because others are moving in with you."
The lesson learned from this discussion is a lesson most
Americans refuse to hear. Political leaders can lie about their
agenda and once in office they can take totally unexpected turns.
If you had asked us three years ago if we thought General
Motors would be nationalized, we would have never believed it. We could
never contemplate a country where the rule of law, the most fundamental building
block of a justice society would be evaporating just like it
did in Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s.
But the news of injustice keeps increasing. Black Panthers are not
charged with wrongdoing by the U.S. Department of Justice
because their crimes are against whites. The bondholders of GM are
stripped of their assets without due process by the government. Governmental
leaders are bribed in full daylight only to have all investigation of
the crimes stifled by the Attorney General. The U.S. borders are
overrun with crime and illegal activity and the leaders in D.C. act as if it is
important to protect the lawbreakers while the innocent are killed and
overrun. When local communities attempt to enforce the law, they are
ridiculed and threatened as racists and bigots. They are sued by the very
administration entrusted with enforcing the law.
Without the rule of law the U.S. Constitution is a sham. Without the
rule of law our beloved America is swiftly becoming a country where only
the well connected and politically powerful will be safe.
As Michelle Malkin has so eloquently explained in her recent book, a
culture of corruption has replaced honest government.
The only way this problem will be fixed is by massive citizen action.
All honest citizens that want to be treated equally must come together
and demand that the favoritism, the bribes, the uneven
enforcement of law end now. And yes, it can happen here.
