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The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has started a petition asking for former basketball star Dennis Rodman to be ejected from the Basketball Hall of Fame. Rodman is a supporter and frequent visitor to North Korea. He has previously said that he loves dictator Kim Jong-un and considers him to be a friend. The petition argues that his actions have damaged the integrity of basketball, and therefore merit his removal from the Hall.

The North Korean regime is one of the most brutal communist dictatorships in the world, starving its people, constantly threatening nuclear war, and now, murdering an American citizen. Almost unanimously, the worlds leaders continue to come together to condemn the regime while a select few attempt to humanize Kim Jong-un and praise the respect he receives from his people.

While those sort of attempts are expected from fellow dictators it is appalling that they come from a once household name in American sports. Former NBA star and Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman has embraced North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un as a friend for life and asserted I love him as he defended his human rights record. Rodman continued this one-man PR campaign for North Korea even as his fellow American Otto Warmbier fought for his life.

Rodman has long been known for his eccentricities, but this has gone too far. As a professional athlete and an NBA Hall of Fame member, Rodman is called to be a role model and set an example for the next generation. Individuals that praise murderers have no place being idolized by Americas youth or in any Hall of Fame in the United States.

According to the Halls Board of Trustees, a candidate may be removed if he or she has damaged the integrity of the game of basketball. Clearly, Rodmans actions have tarnished the name and reputation of basketball and it is time that he is removed from the Hall of Fame. Doing so will send a message that all facets of American society, from sports to politics, will stand firm for our shared values and reject the shameless coddling of murderous dictatorial regimes.

Rodman's support and embrace of a murderous dictatorship is certainly troubling, especially in light of Otto Warmbier's death at the hands of the North Korean regime.

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Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Launches Petition To ... - Townhall

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

This year marks 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia. That year, the centuries-old czardom of Russia and the brief liberal democracy that replaced it collapsed and was soon replaced by the Soviet Union, the worlds first stable communist state.

It was that year, a long, bloody, century ago, that the class warfare and revolutionary ideas of Marxism went from being the fanciful talk of disaffected intellectuals to a serious international political and historical force.

Since that fateful event, which the title of John Reeds Ten Days that Shook the World so aptly captures, communism through its various forms and adherents has directly led to the deaths of well over 100 million people and the subjugation of countless more across the world.

With the end of the Cold War, many Americans may believe that communism has now been relegated to the history books, and as a tragic holdout in nations like North Korea and Cuba or as a curious aberration in nations such as China and Vietnam. Yet on this 100th anniversary, it is worth the time for Americans to reflect on the lessons of the incredible hardships of this past century as well as the challenges the future may pose.

Over the course of the 20th century, the United States was the center of human freedom and God-given liberty in polar contrast to totalitarian ideologies, most notably communism.

Tens of thousands of American service members lost their lives fighting for the freedom of peoples around the world from communism.

Conflicts in such places as Vietnam and Korea, and other countless anti-Communist expeditions and engagements, were unique because these were not conflicts in self-defense like almost all of Americas other wars but were wars waged in the name of moral dignity and truth.

The stark contrast between America and totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union clarified in our minds and hearts the ideals and values that made us different from them. This contrast also often pushed us to live up to our ideals whenever we strayed.

Yet we are already showing worrying signs of forgetting our past.

In 2012, movements such as Occupy Wall Street attempted to capitalize on the real hardships many Americans were feeling in the wake of the financial crisis. However, rather than promoting more insulation in the system, many sought to throw out the system all together.

Since then, many of these attitudes have not dwindled but grown.

A 2016 poll by YouGov showed that while millennials still saw communism very unfavorably, they did so at a rate (37 percent) that was significantly lower than Americans as a whole (57 percent).

Furthermore, many millennials expressed worrying sentiments, such as distrust of capitalism, ignorance of communisms record and history, and support of Marxs quote from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.

Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders ran on redistributionist policies and class warfare rhetoric. The shocking level of support he and other similar candidates and movements did and still receive, as well as the rise of far more extreme trends such as Antifa and campus free speech suppression, are warning signs for the direction some in our country are sliding toward. It is incredibly tragic that such beliefs are taking root in the center of liberty and freedom in the world. Over the course of this past century, the idea of class warfare and totalitarian ideas gaining traction in the United States was laughable. Efforts not only by the government but by the citizenry itself ensured that such ideas would never be able to take root in this fortress of human liberty.

Ironically, the fact that communism has never taken root in America is likely a major cause of current increasing comfort with and interest in some of its tenets. Many other nations have directly experienced the hardships of communist tyranny and war, and have been hardened against the extreme lefts siren song through direct personal, familial and societal experiences. In contrast, in modern America communism has largely only been an abstract idea seen on TV or read about in books.

Now that the pressing existential threat of nations such as the Soviet Union has seemingly been alleviated, many have stopped combating the collectivist ideals which fuel Marxist thought. However, many of those on the ultraleft have not stopped pushing their anti-liberty ideas.

On this 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, it is time for all of us to remind ourselves and others of the ideals that define America individual liberty, the Constitution, rule of law, and God-given freedom. The lessons of this past century have been learned with too much sacrifice to be forgotten so easily.

Erich Reimer, a lawyer, is a Republican activist and commentator.

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The tragic Bolshevik legacy, 100 years on - Washington Times

The thing about old socialist politicians, like Bernie Sanders who is 75 and Britains Jeremy Corbyn who is 68, is that they have youth on their side.

Across the pond, the youth vote allowed the British Bernie Sanders to do a lot better than the so-called experts thought hed do in the recent general election. Here in America, we all know how the millenials went ga-ga for our Bernie. He got more millennial votes in the primaries than Hillary and Donald combined.

I recently made a reservation for dinner at a restaurant in a very liberal city in North Carolina using only my first name, Bernie and the young hostess was a little disappointed that it wasnt Bernie Sanders who walked through the door. I know this because she told me she was hoping it was Sanders who was coming in for dinner. She had a pleasant smile on her young face the whole time, but a pleasant smile is pretty much obligatory in the South, especially when youre disappointed.

The fact is a lot of millenials actually like socialism. A 2016 poll conducted by Harvard showed that a majority of voters between 18 and 29 51 percent rejected capitalism while a third said they supported socialism.

And a 2011 Pew poll of millenials revealed that there actually was more support for socialism than capitalism. Forty-nine percent had positive views of socialism while only 46 percent had positive views of capitalism.

How could this be? Doesnt everybody know by now that socialism doesnt work? Havent they heard the famous Margaret Thatcher line that, The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money?

If they did hear it, they havent taken it seriously. In a New York Times op-ed that ran under the headline Why Young Voters Love Old Socialists, Sarah Leonard, a 29-year old editor at the far left Nation magazine explains: [W]ithin this generation, things like single-payer health care, public education and free college and making the rich pay are just common sense.

Of course it is. Until you run out of other peoples money.

Lets acknowledge the obvious: Getting free stuff is fun mainly because its free! So it shouldnt be a shock that young voters fell head over heals for a (democratic) socialist like Bernie Sanders who promised them a free college education paid for by those miserable rich people who have too much money anyway.

And just imagine if the Democrats somehow manage to come up with a young, progressive, attractive, even sexy version of the old socialist from Vermont next time around. Republicans and more importantly, America could be in serious trouble.

But heres where millenials get off easy: No one is calling them out for what a lot of them are which is, greedy.

Heres how Thomas Sowell, the great thinker from California put it: I have never understood why it is greed to want to keep the money youve earned, but not greed to want to take somebody elses money.

So what we have is a greedy generation that feels entitled to all sorts of things including other peoples money. If this is the future, give me the past.

George Bernard Shaw had it right a long, long time ago when he said: A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

Who knew that Paul was 25 and voted for Bernie?

Memo to millenials: You wont be young forever. And when you get older and have jobs and pay taxes, who do you think is going to pay for all those free goodies you once demanded when you were young and forgive me not-too-smart? The bill for all that free stuff along with interest is going to come due at some point, right? And the next generation of millenials is also going to want free stuff. Youll be paying for that too.

One more piece of wisdom from Thomas Sowell, wisdom that young voters in the embrace of socialism might want to consider: If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone elses expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else.

Having second thoughts yet, millenials, about the virtues of socialism?

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Young Voters for Old Socialists - BernardGoldberg.com

Wouldnt we all prefer to live in an economy that brought out the best in us? Socialists often argue that their ideal system is more moral than the selfish greed of market life. But some of the best defenses of the free market argue that it in fact encourages virtuous behavior.[i]

Its in everyones interest to be honest and hardworking, for example, since news of ones not being so can easily spread throughout the marketplace and harm ones ability to make money.[ii]

Virtue must come primarily from outside the marketplace.

Other defenders of the free market, however, argue that while the free market depends on a culture of virtue, it cannot provide the sole foundation for that culture. Instead, virtue must come primarily from outside the marketplace, from institutions whose primary purpose lies beyond economic productivity. The most important advocate of this view was 20th-century economist Wilhelm Rpke.[iii]

Rpke defended the free market, but he did not think that the free market left to itself could produce the conditions favorable to its perpetuation. Instead, he argued that a free market order could not grow and flourish without the fertile soil of a sound moral fabric.

Rpke understood that the free market, at least to some extent, encourages morality and that the free market is clearly superior to a socialist economy: In capitalism we have a freedom of moral choice, and no one is forced to be a scoundrel. But this is precisely what we are forced to be in a collectivist social and economic system because people there are forced to act against their own nature, he writes.[iv]

If the collectivist economy is to function, it needs heroes or saints.

Why? Rpke explained that if the collectivist economy is to function, it needs heroes or saints, and since there are none, it leads straight to the police state. In all socialist economies or modern welfare states, moreover, the allegedly higher morality behind social programs is propped up by police and penalties [that] enforce compliance with economic commands.[v]

As a result, heavy tax burdens paid under threat of force make people unable to care for those closest to them as much as they may like, therefore effectively legislating what people in many cases would judge to be immoral. By contrast, only under political and economic freedom do people have the ability to be good, for to be good, an action must be committed freely.

An even more reliable source of virtue than the market, however, are local institutions whose primary purpose is not the exchange of goods and services. Ropke argues that social factors such as family, religion, and tradition provide the economy with an indispensable bourgeois foundation in which people exercise virtues such as

individual effort and responsibility, absolute norms and values, independence based upon ownership, prudence and daring, calculating and saving, responsibility for planning ones own life firm moral discipline, respect for the value of money, the courage to grapple on ones own with life and its uncertainties, a sense of the natural order of things, and a firm scale of values.[vi]

Such local institutions have as part of their primary purpose the inculcation of virtue and the enjoyment of higher-order goods, and they teach people a firm scale of values that reminds us that the creation of wealth and the spending of money are lower-order goods. In other words, the free market is a positive good that can nevertheless do little to show us the meaning of life.

Disregarding this truth, Rpke believed, tended to make the pursuit of material well-being drift into the demand for immediate material enjoyment, the economic manifestation of which was a Keynesian unconcern for the future that regards it as a virtue to contract debts and foolishness to save.[vii] Placing too much of a burden on the free market to provide us with the source of our social morality paradoxically undermines the perpetuation of sound economics and the free market itself.

To summarize, the free market does encourage some level of social morality, while collectivist economic systems undermine it. Yet Rpke argued, correctly I think, that we cannot rely primarily on the free market and certainly not on the free market alone to produce the social morality the market itself needs to thrive.

[i] McCloskey is the best contemporary advocate of this thesis. See, for example, Deirdre McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (University of Chicago Press, 2006); Deirdre McCloskey, Avarice, Prudence, and the Bourgeois Virtues, in Having: Property and Possession in Religious and Social Life, edited by William Schweiker and Charles Mathews (Eerdmans Publishing, 2004), 312336; and Donald McCloskey, Bourgeois Virtue, American Scholar, Vol. 63, No. 2: 177191.

[ii] McCloskey, Bourgeois Virtue, 182.

[iii] Rpke was a German economist who fled the Nazi regime first to Istanbul and then to Switzerland, where his writings would provide the intellectual groundwork of the wirtschaftswunder the German economic miracle that saw West Germany move rapidly out of the destruction of total war to being the most robust economy in Europe in only a few decades. He was present at the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society along with such great thinkers as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

[iv] Wilhelm Rpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market (ISI Books, 1998), 121.

[v] Ibid., 120.

[vi] Ibid., 98.

[vii] Ibid., 100.

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Does the market make us good? Does socialism? - Learn Liberty (blog)

Interactive dialogue on the OHCHR periodic update on Ukraine, 12 June 2017

Thank you Mr. President,

Human Rights Watch welcomes the periodic reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine provided by the Office of the High Commissioner.

We share the High Commissioners concerns over the impact repeated ceasefire violations in Eastern Ukraine have on daily lives of civilians. All parties should investigate attacks that caused civilian casualties and damaged civilian infrastructure and facilities, including schools, youth summer camps, and hospitals. We also urge the Ukrainian government to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration and to take concrete measures to deter the military use of schools.

We welcome the steps taken by the Ukrainian authorities that facilitate the crossing of the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, such as the move to make the e-pass permanent and steps to facilitate crossing for residents of the grey zones. But as high summer temperatures will bring new hardship to vulnerable civilians, more efforts are urgently needed, such as securing shelters from the sun, provision of water, sanitation and toilet facilities, and giving priority to assisting older persons, persons with disabilities, young children, and pregnant women.

While we had welcomed the release of all detainees who had been forcibly disappeared and held at the unlawful detention facility at the Kharkiv compound of Ukraine's security service, we remain concerned about the total lack of accountability for these serious violations. Russia-backed separatists have provided no information on incommunicado detention documented in separatist-held areas.

We are also deeply concerned about the Ukrainian governments recent restrictions on freedom of expression and access to information that are not only unlawfully disproportionate to any legitimate security concern, but are also harmful and counterproductive. This includes a 15 May decree banning public access to Russian social media platforms, news outlets, and a major search engine widely used in Ukraine and the requirement to activists and journalists reporting on government corruption to file public declarations of their assets.

Human Rights Watch has continued to document the harassment of pro-Ukraine activists and the Crimean Tatar community in Russia-occupied Crimea. Authorities exercising effective control on the Crimean Peninsula should urgently end persecution of members of the Crimean Tatar community and the arbitrary actions against defense lawyers and other peaceful critics.

Finally, Human Rights Watch urges Ukraines international partners to make it clear to Ukrainian authorities that the future of the country should be enshrined on the principles of respect for human rights and the rule of law. They should privately and publicly, including at this Council, call on the Ukrainian authorities to reverse the recent backslide on freedom of expression, to fully investigate allegations of arbitrary detention and torture by Ukrainian forces, and expedite consideration of the ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

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Ukraine: Interactive dialogue on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights periodic update ... - Human Rights Watch (press...