The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Insight: “Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.” —Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

For the record: “Did George Washington shoot dissidents by firing squad in summary executions to assure his supremacy of power? Did Washington imprison thousands, including teenagers, executing many into open-pit mass graves as now-vaunted ‘revolutionary’ Che Guevara did, leering like a psychopath? … Did Jefferson load up the dungeons with political prisoners? Did Washington expropriate private property of political opponents, right down to their wedding rings? Did John Jay end freedom to travel? Did Madison sic turba mobs to throw eggs and excrement against dissidents in their homes? Did Adams drive millions from their homes to uncertain fates on leaky boats? Did Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton default on billions of dollars of debt of hated creditors, as Castro did? Exactly the opposite. That’s the real record of the Castro ‘revolution.’ And for that reason, there is so much wrong with what Obama said in attempting to equivocate the two revolutions.” —Investor’s Business Daily

The BIG lie: “Cuba has an extraordinary resource — a system of education which values every boy and every girl.” —Barack Obama

False choice: “So often in the past there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate. Those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical, and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it neatly fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory. You should just decide what works.” —Barack Obama in Argentina

Constitutional contempt: “[P]ower is distributed across a lot of different institutions. It’s what we call separation of powers and decentralization. … This makes it hard sometimes for America to change as rapidly as we need to to respond to changed circumstances or problems.” —Barack Obama

One can hope: “Should we have let President Obama go to a Communist country? Isn’t there a risk of him deciding he doesn’t want to come back?” —Frank Fleming