Bob's Blog

hat tip Mike Miles

That is the punishment for this young American, who got the brilliant idea to steal a political banner off the wall in the hotel room where he was staying in North Korea.



Jennifer Kabbany writes in The College Fix,A

U.N. ambassador relayed the story of former North Korean prisoner Kim Young-soon, who recounted hunger so strong she and her fellow inmates would pick out kernels of corn from cow dung for food, adding “If there was a day that we were able to have mouse, that was a special diet for us.”

That is oppression. These are the people who have a right to say they “can’t breathe.” The residents of North Korea. The prisoners of North Korea. And now, American college student Otto Warmbier, who would probably give his pinky finger to be at any one of these alleged “oppressive” college campuses rather than where he is about to spend the next 15 years.

Brent Cochran writes at Ace of Spades,

What does Independence Day stand for? What is it a celebration of? It is NOT a celebration of the country as it exists. It is a celebration of the founding of this country. It is an exultation of the ideals of liberty and an act of veneration toward the men who gave tyranny the middle finger.

Those men risked, quite literally, everything. And they did it for an idea. For a hope. On faith. What they fought for had never been done before. When Patrick Henry declared “Give me liberty or give me death!” no one knew quite what liberty would look like. But they were determined to give it a try. They believed in the ideals of freedom. When our Founding Fathers declared “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” they did so not with heavy hearts and trepidation, but with boldness and, dare I say, joy. They were throwing off the yoke of oppression and grabbing their opportunity for a free life.

And by God they won. They succeeded. They were victorious.

Yes, they are likely distraught at what exists. There is much to bemoan, to rail against, to fear even. But not today.

Today, me and mine celebrate. We will eat, we will drink, we will colorfully blow some shit up. We will do so because brave men and women believed in freedom and liberty enough to dare all. They had far less than us, but still they had hope. Still they had faith. No one had shown them what liberty looked like, yet still they fought for it. I honor their memory today with that same hope, with that same faith. We have seen liberty, we have tasted freedom. We have done so because of those men and women and I will honor them and their memory and their sacrifice not in moroseness or anger, but in celebration and hope for the future.

Read more here.