Wow, quite some program there on the Daily Paul. I wonder what the good doctor's position is on any of this, and whether he endorses the site or any of its content.
Oye Oye OYE VAY! What a concept! Yup, Pol Pot himself couldn't have possibly said it any better!
Who would have thought that the Republican Congressman for the 14th congressional district of Texas (and presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1988) could have so much in common with the Khmer Rouge of 1975-1979 Kampuchea.
When the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in April 1975, age was reversed as a marker of status, very young children--the only ones considered pure--were indoctrinated to denounce and turn against suspect adults. Elderly, who were previously accorded great respect, were cast aside as useless and unproductive. Traditional norms of respect for elders were suppressed and the "Comrade Child" was praised as being "pure and unsullied by the corrupt past of the adults."
(Ponchaud, 1977, p. 143).
Special spy units, Kang Chhlop, were composed mainly of children and were used to spy on adults. One Cambodian woman recalled the power given to children under the Khmer Rouge:
In the Pol Pot times children could catch an adult if they thought they had done wrong. They could beat the adult. For example, if an adult was caught stealing fruit a child could tell the soldiers: "look they are our enemies". Then the soldiers would set a chair for the child to stand on so that they could beat the adult's head.
(Boyden and Gibbs, 1997, p. 44)
Children rose quickly up the ranks of the Khmer Rouge and it was not unusual for children to be in charge of workcamps at the age of twelve. Camps run by these children became notorious for the extreme and arbitrary violence inflicted on the inmates. Children, even more than adults, appeared particularly cruel. Even after Cambodia was liberated in 1979 by the Vietnamese, there remained a "residual fear of children" in the country (Boyden and Gibbs, 1997, p. 98).
Ron Paul wants to kill grandma :-(
ReplyDeleteScratch a GOP Libertarian and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Right-leaning libertarianism always develops into aristocracies.
ReplyDeleteAristotrocities? Libertarians don't have to listen to criticism or complaint because they have declared their independence from all human activities, being, proudly, islands unto themselves, for whom the bell never tolls.
ReplyDeleteYet, "perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him."
ReplyDeleteCase in point:
An Rand often spoke of moral absolutism, saying “There can be no compromise on basic principles,” but the realities of aging and illness seem to have softened her stance. Social Security, and perhaps Medicare, allowed Rand and her husband to maintain their quality of life, remain in their apartment and live out their final years with dignity.
Ayn Rand
ReplyDeleteAyn, pronounced "ine", as in "Mein Kampf".
ReplyDelete(´ー`)y-~~
LOL
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected.
In the same spirit, for accuracy's sake and out of fairness to the good Doctor, I feel it must be unambiguously stated here that neither Ron Paul nor the Libertarian party (or most, or some of it) are directly affiliated with the Objectivist Society or the philosophy of Ayn Rand as outlined in Atlas Shrugged and her other works.
I mean, the good Doctor did say he considered "all of Rand's novels worth reading." (The Revolution: A Manifesto)
ReplyDeleteBut...he has---how did he put it?---ah, "strong disagreements with her," you know..."on important matters."
Rand didn't make a sizable living from her popular novels? Well, anyway, for a woman who was as unbending and intolerant as she was over what she considered weakness and worthless expression of inferiority it's interesting to see that she lived on Social Security. When she went to Heaven did she thank FDR?
ReplyDeleteThat is, assuming she went in that direction. And that FDR was there too.
ReplyDelete