"FREEDOM IS NOT FREE" is the inscription on the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The Korean War started June 25, 1950.
Communist North Korea invaded South Korea, killing thousands.
Outnumbered South Korean and American troops, as part of a United Nations police action, fought courageously against the Communist Chinese and North Korean troops, who were supplied with arms and MIG fighters from the Soviet Union.
Five-star General Douglas MacArthur was Supreme United Nations Commander, leading the United Nations Command from 1950 to 1951.
MacArthur made a daring landing of troops at Inchon, deep behind North Korean lines, and recaptured the city of Seoul.
With temperatures sometimes forty degrees below zero in the Korean mountains, and Washington politicians limiting the use of air power against the Communists, there were nearly 140,000 American casualties:
- in the defense of the Pusan Perimeter and Taego;
- in the landing at Inchon and the freeing of Seoul;
- in the capture of Pyongyang;
- in the Yalu River where nearly a million Communist Chinese soldiers invaded;
- in the Battles of Changjin Reservoir, Old Baldy, White Horse Mountain, Heartbreak Ridge, Pork Chop Hill, T-Bone Hill, and Siberia Hill.
President Harry S. Truman contrasted communism with democracy in his Inaugural Address, January 20, 1949:
"We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God. From this faith we will not be moved ...
Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself, and therefore requires the rule of strong masters.
Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice ...
Communism subjects the individual to arrest without lawful cause, punishment without trial, and forced labor as a chattel of the state.
It decrees what information he shall receive, what art he shall produce, what leaders he shall follow, and what thoughts he shall think.
Democracy maintains that government is established for the benefit of the individual, and is charged with the responsibility of protecting the rights of the individual and his freedom ..."
Truman continued:
"These differences between Communism and Democracy do not concern the United States alone.
People everywhere are coming to realize that what is involved is material well-being, human dignity, and the right to believe in and worship God."
The word "democracy" has two main definitions:
- the first is a political form of government where every citizen votes on every issue everyday and the majority rules. This only successfully worked on a small city-state basis where every citizen could physically be present at every meeting;
- the second definition of "democracy" is simply a general reference to a "popular" government, where the population participates in ruling itself.
It was the second definition that came into common use.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their Communist Manifesto in 1848.
That same year, after France's 1848 Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his "Critique of Socialism":
"Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it.
Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number.
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
Democracy allows for individual capitalism, where a person can own private property and engage in business to improve his or her life.
Forbes Magazine published Rainer Zitelmann's article "Anyone Who Doesn’t Know The Following Facts About Capitalism Should Learn Them," July 27, 2020, in which he wrote:
"In 1820, 94 percent of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty.
By 1910, this figure had fallen to 82 percent, and by 1950 the rate had dropped yet further, to 72 percent.
However, the largest and fastest decline occurred between 1981, 44.3 percent, and 2015, 9.6 percent
Reading these figures, which were compiled by Johan Norberg for his book Progress, is enough to make anyone rub their eyes in disbelief.
For according to leftist anti-capitalists, these were the very decades in which so much went so wrong in the world."
Zitelmann continued:
"200 years ago, at the birth of capitalism, there were only about 60 million people in the world who were NOT living in extreme poverty.
Today there are more than 6.5 billion people who are NOT living in extreme poverty.
Between 1990 and 2015 alone ... 1.25 billion people around the world escaped extreme poverty — 50 million per year and 138,000 every day."
Friedrich Engels explained in Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, 1844, how the middle-class must be eliminated so that the socialist planners can rule without opposition:
"Every new crisis must be more serious ... than the last ... ruin more small capitalists and ... increase the number of the unemployed ... In the end commercial crises will lead to a social revolution."
Karl Marx had attended the University of Berlin, where he became involved with a radical anti-religious student group -- the Young Hegelians.
After being refused a university post because of his extreme views, Karl Marx began publishing a paper in 1842, which was banned in Germany.
He fled to Paris, then Brussels, and finally to London.
Marx founded the International Workingmen's Association and the Social Democrat Labor Party.
Marx's philosophy influenced:
- Adolph Hitler in starting the National Socialist Workers Party;
- Vladimir Lenin in starting the Social-Democrat Party;
- Joseph Stalin in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and
- Mao Zedung in the Chinese Communist Party.
Lenin explained:
"The goal of socialism is communism."
Lenin wrote in State and Revolution, 1917:
"The dictatorship of the proletariat will produce a series of restrictions of liberty in the case of the ... capitalists. We must crush them ... Their resistance must be broken by force ... There must also be violence, and there cannot be liberty or democracy."
Karl Marx wrote:
"The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
Marx also is credited with the observation:
"Take away the heritage of a people and they are easily destroyed."
Franklin D. Roosevelt explained that communism is nothing more than dictatorship, as he stated in his address to the Delegates of the American Youth Congress, Washington, D.C., February 10, 1940:
"I disliked the regimentation under Communism. I abhorred the indiscriminate killings of thousands of innocent victims. I heartily deprecated the banishment of religion ...
I, with many of you, hoped that Russia would work out its own problems, and that its government would eventually become a peace-loving, popular government ... That hope is today ... shattered ...
The Soviet Union, as everybody who has the courage to face the fact knows, is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world."
Unfortunately, Roosevelt's efforts to get the country out of the depression and arm for war involved crony capitalism, with lucrative government contracts being granted to politically-connected big businesses.
His high tax rates and burdensome regulations caused other businesses to out-source overseas.
Over time, these actions led to the creation of international big businesses whose patriotism was to their profits and who were not averse to working with socialist governments as a means secure monopolies and guarantee profits.
Capitalism split in two, with individual capitalism being patriotic, supporting the country that gave opportunities for advancement; and globalist capitalism which squelches competition by supporting big government socialist politicians who can return the favor with insider dealing.
Michael Rectenwald wrote in the article "What Is the Great Reset" (Imprimis, Dec. 2021, Vol. 50, Issue 12)
"Klaus Schwab and the WEF (World Economic Forum) have promoted the idea of stakeholder capitalism ... which ... Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has called 'communist capitalism' ...
The goal of the Great Reset is 'capitalism with Chinese characteristics'—a two-tiered economy, with profitable monopolies and the state on top and socialism for the majority below ..."
Rectenwald continued:
"The West began with capitalism and is now implementing a Chinese-style political system.
This Chinese-style system includes vastly increased state intervention in the economy, on the one hand, and on the other, the kind of authoritarian measures that the Chinese government uses to control its population.
Schwab and Malleret write that if 'the past five centuries in Europe and America' have taught us anything, it is that 'acute crises contribute to boosting the power of the state.'”
Winston S. Churchill gave an address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946, in which he introduced the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe the Cold War between Western powers and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Churchill stated:
"The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy.
For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future ... To ... fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time ...
Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization ...
Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention."
Roger Baldwin was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a 501(c)3 tax-exempt Foundation.
He graduated from Harvard in 1905.
When he was sent a questionnaire in 1935 by the editor of the Harvard College Class Thirtieth Anniversary Yearbook, Baldwin replied:
"I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately, for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."
Roger Baldwin twice visited the Soviet Union, as well as Vietnam, where he expressed support for Vietnamese Communist dictator Ho Chi Minh.
Baldwin wrote a book, Liberty Under the Soviets, 1928 (NY: Vanguard Press, 1928), in which he stated:
"Civil liberties ... though voiced for centuries by philosophers ... never became a political principle of any civilization until a growing capitalism revolted against feudalism and a rebel Protestantism against the Church of Rome ..."
Baldwin continued, revealing Communist hypocrisy:
"If they believed in freedom for everybody ... but they do not. They believe in ... power for the workers ... under the Party's leadership ...
Communists aid the workers ... in capitalist countries to the fullest possible expression of their class demands, while suppressing in Russia ... sections of the working class itself, differing with the Communist Party leadership."
Baldwin revealed the hypocrisy of communist thought:
"To Communists there is no inconsistency in denying civil liberties to all opponents in Soviet Russia, while demanding these liberties for their movement in capitalist countries."
Baldwin wrote:
"I joined. I don't regret being a part of the Communist tactic, which increased the effectiveness of a good cause. I knew what I was doing.
I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the Communists wanted."
In 1948, the California Senate Fact Finding Committee on Un-American Activities stated in its report, page 107:
"The ACLU may be definitely classified as a Communist front or transmission belt organization ...
At least 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of Communists who come in conflict with the law."
Dwight Eisenhower was quoted in TIME Magazine, October 13, 1952:
"The Bill of Rights contains no grant of privilege for a group of people to destroy the Bill of Rights.
A group - like the Communist conspiracy - dedicated to the ultimate destruction of all civil liberties, cannot be allowed to claim civil liberties as its privileged sanctuary from which to carry on subversion of the Government."
Eisenhower's warning of subversive communists could also be applied to present-day intolerant promoters of sharia Islam, trangenderism, CRT, or government mandates -- should civil liberties be extended to those who refuse to grant civil liberties?
John F. Kennedy cautioned, April 27, 1961:
"We are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies ...
We are opposed around the world by a ... ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence - on infiltration ... tightly knit, highly efficient ... political operations."
Prior to Lyndon B. Johnson's reelection to the Senate, the 501(c)3 Committee for Constitution Government circulated a pamphlet in 1954, in which Willis Ballinger wrote:
"A vote for Johnson - many Texans feel - will be a vote for more centralization of power and socialism in Washington; for more of the internationalism which is designed to abolish the U.S.A.; and for more covering up of Communist infiltration."
Wanting to silence this group, Johnson proposed the I.R.S. limit 501(c)3 organizations' involvement in politics, which later confused churches into self-censorship.
Socialist Antonio Gramsci founded the Italian Communist Party. He experienced a falling out, was arrested and put in prison, where he wrote his Prison Notebooks, 1929-35. In an article titled "Audacia e Fede," printed in the newspaper Avanti!, May 1916, Gramsci wrote:
“Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity."
James W. Wardner summarized Gramsci's views in his book Unholy Alliances, 1996:
"In the new order, socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
This led to an intentional effort to break down traditional American morals.
In 1950, members of the Communist Party USA formed the Mattachine Society, the nation's first homosexual rights organizations. which lobbied to repeal sodomy laws.
Brock Chisholm, the first director-general of the World Health Organization, stated:
"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas."
"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas."
President Harry S. Truman spoke at the laying of the cornerstone of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., April 3, 1951:
"Without a firm moral foundation, freedom degenerates quickly into selfishness and license.
Unless men exercise their freedom in a just and honest way, within moral restraints, a free society can degenerate into anarchy.
Then there will be freedom only for the rapacious and those who are stronger and more unscrupulous than the rank and file of the people ...
The international Communist movement is based on a fierce and terrible fanaticism. It denies the existence of God and, wherever it can, it stamps out the worship of God.
Our religious faith gives us the answer to the false beliefs of Communism.
Our faith shows us the way to create a society where man can find his greatest happiness under God.
Surely, we can follow that faith with the same devotion and determination the Communists give to their godless creed ...
... Every day our newspapers tell us about the fighting in Korea.
Our men there are making heroic sacrifices. They are fighting and suffering in an effort to prevent the tide of aggression from sweeping across the world ...
Our young men are offering their lives for us in the hills of Korea -- and yet too many of us are chiefly concerned over whether or not we can buy a television set next week ...
This is a failure to understand the moral principles upon which our Nation is founded."
In Lessons of History (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1968), Will and Ariel Durant wrote:
"The greatest question of our time is not Communism versus individualism, not even East versus West; it is whether man can live without God."
Conrad Hilton, founder of the hotel chain, spoke at a Prayer Breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel, following addresses by Congressmen, Senators, and Vice-President Nixon.
Hilton stated:
"It took a war to put prayer at the center of the lives of our fighting men. It took a war, and the frightening evil of Communism, to show the world that this whole business of prayer is not a sissy, a counterfeit thing that man can do or not as he wishes.
Prayer ... is a part of man's personality, without which he limps ... Men grope in darkness unless they believe that God, in His kindness, is willing to lift the shadows if we ask Him in prayer."
Truman stated while lighting the National Christmas Tree, December 24, 1952:
"Shepherds, in a field, heard angels singing: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men' ...
We turn to the old, old story of how 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life...'"
Truman continued:
"Tonight, our hearts turn first of all to our brave men and women in Korea.
They are fighting and suffering and even dying that we may preserve the chance of peace in the world ...
And as we go about our business of trying to achieve peace in the world, let us remember always to try to act and live in the spirit of the Prince of Peace. He bore in His heart no hate and no malice - nothing but love for all mankind.
We should try as nearly as we can to follow His example. We believe that all men are truly the children of God ...
... As we pray for our loved ones far from home - as we pray for our men and women in Korea, and all our service men and women wherever they are - let us also pray for our enemies.
Let us pray that the spirit of God shall enter their lives and prevail in their lands ..."
Truman concluded:
"Through Jesus Christ the world will yet be a better and fairer place."
General Douglas MacArthur warned in a speech to the Salvation Army, December 12, 1951, stating:
"History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline.
There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster."
Dwight Eisenhower was quoted in the Religious Herald, Virginia, January 25, 1952:
"What is our battle against Communism if it is not a fight between anti-God and a belief in the Almighty? ...
Communists ... have to eliminate God from their system.
When God comes, Communism has to go."
Dwight Eisenhower stated February 25, 1953:
"Almost 100 percent of Americans would like to stamp out all traces of Communism in our country ...
I went to Columbia University as its President and I insisted on one thing ... If we had a known Communist in our faculty and he could not be discharged ... I was automatically discharged.
I personally would not be a party to an organization where there was a known card-carrying Communist in such a responsible position as teaching our young."
At the College of William and Mary, May 15, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower stated:
"It is necessary that we earnestly seek out and uproot any traces of Communism."
First Lady Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower stated in a conversation at the Doud home regarding their son John Sheldon Doud Eisenhower, who was serving in Korea:
"He has a mission to fulfill and God will see to it that nothing will happen to him till he fulfills it."
Eisenhower addressed Congress, February 2, 1953:
"The calculated pressures of aggressive Communism have forced us ... to live in a world of turmoil ...
No single country, even one so powerful as ours, can alone defend the liberty of all nations threatened by Communist aggression from without and subversion within ...
I must make special mention of the war in Korea. This war is, for Americans, the most painful phase of Communist aggression throughout the world."
Fighting in Korea was halted July 27, 1953, with the signing of an armistice with North Korea at Panmunjom.
On December 24, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower stated at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree:
"The world still stands divided in two antagonistic parts.
Prayer places freedom and communism in opposition one to the other.
The Communist can find no reserve of strength in prayer because his doctrine of materialism and statism denies the dignity of man and consequently the existence of God.
But in America ... religious faith is the foundation of free government, so is prayer an indispensable part of that faith...
The founders of this, our country, came first to these shores in search of freedom ... to live ... beyond the yoke of tyranny."
--
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
I don’t know how you do it, but another excellent, historical lesson of why we fight for freedom and why we put our temporal liberties to work in service to proclaim the eternal liberties that ALL can have by grace, through faith, in Jesus! Great work!