Back in April, on the day that Eliàn Gonzalez was taken into custody by the federal government, the San Jose Mercury News published a letter by a 14-year-old girl. She suggested that Eliàn should return to Cuba with his father. Then, when he was older, he could decide for himself whether or not to come back to America. Simple, isn’t it?
The fact of the matter is that in Cuba there is no such thing as parental rights, because their is no such thing as individual/human rights. Or, to quote Fidel Castro’s own daughter Alina Fernandez,
“…But you know, among Americans, you use the word ‘custody’ and parental care and stuff like that. It doesn’t exist in Cuba. And then you’re forgetting, too, that the American legal system is not sending back a boy to his father. The American legal system is sending back a boy to a dictator who leads a regime that four years ago sunk a tugboat, killing 11 children, in front of the Cuban harbor. That’s the point.” [Larry King Live]
In totalitarian countries, the moment an individual makes the decision to leave for freedom, his life is on the line. The chances are that, if he isn’t jailed, he’ll die in an attempt to reach a distant border. If he survives, like Eliàn, there’s no guarantee that the country he fled to will allow him to stay. The real question raised by the letter is: Why doesn’t this 14-year-old know the difference between communism and individual rights?
In communist countries, children are taught about communism starting from a time before they can read, but most American children are not taught the difference between totalitarianism and liberty. Under every form of totalitarianism, individuals live by permission of the state. Where there are rights, the state exists by the permission of individuals. Under every form of totalitarianism, guns are used by the state against individuals. Where there are rights, guns are used by the state to defend individuals. Rights shield people against the initiation of force by other people — -and by the state. Yet somehow today rights, which protect our lives, are ignored or belittled, while force, which destroys our lives when not regulated by rights, is praised. A terrible moral inversion has taken place.
According to the plethora of recent polls, the 14-year-old’s perspective on the Eliàn Gonzalez situation is shared by many Americans. In adults that perspective can’t be explained away by naiveté or ignorance. There is too much evidence that totalitarianism causes death on a scale never before experienced in thousands of years of human history. Too many bones have been piled up by the like of Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, and Pinochet for any adult to be innocently unaware of the meaning of communism or fascism.
How is it possible for adults to ignore this evidence? The explanation may be that they no longer believe in individual rights. They can set aside the death of millions of individual people as irrelevant because they believe that individual people don’t matter — -which is what communists and fascists have been telling us for decades. “Individual rights” has become the shameful American secret that too few people are willing to talk about, let alone defend.
Opponents of Eliàn’s return may fear that he will become a victim of the totalitarian state. But at this point it’s more likely that Eliàn will grow up to become a totalitarian enforcer. After all, even the American government has shown him, with a rifle in his face, that it’s acceptable to use force against its citizens to end a discussion that the government doesn’t want to deal with. The very officials who swore to uphold the Constitution showed him that rights exist only how and when they permit. His communist teacher, imported from Cuba by our government, is merely continuing the lesson that our government taught and which the polls confirm many Americans believe: rights are not to be taken seriously, and we exist at the pleasure of an all-powerful state.
While Eliàn is being indoctrinated, with the collusion of our government, on the evils of individual rights, our children are left ignorant and undefended. The girl who wrote the letter doesn’t know that anti-individual teachers, media, government officials and, yes, perhaps even her own parents are making it possible for Eliàn to brandish a rifle in her face someday soon.
For a country to become totalitarian, a certain proportion of its citizens must become totalitarian enforcers. The polls show that there is already a substantial number of people in America who are no longer American — -who eagerly excuse and even support the totalitarian direction that our country has taken.
America IS the principle of individual rights. When that principle is no longer taught, understood or acted upon, there is no more America.