By Mike Cronin

Most of my posts to date have been pretty heavy on how our bloated government is dragging us away from the ideal of liberty our founders envisioned.  Despite these criticisms and misgivings, I continue to work as a civil servant, because I think the USA is still the best place on the planet for individuals to aspire and achieve their dreams. We have a long way to fall before we reach bottom, and we can stop the slide.

By way of contrast, consider the latest reports of the inhumanity routinely visited upon the poor souls in North Korea.

“A North Korean prison camp survivor told of a pregnant woman in a condition of near-starvation who gave birth to a baby — a new life born against all odds in a grim camp. A security agent heard the baby’s cries and beat the mother as a punishment.

She begged him to let her keep the baby, but he kept beating her.

With shaking hands, the mother was forced to pick up her newborn and put the baby face down in water until the cries stopped and a water bubble formed from the newborn’s mouth.” (from http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/16/world/asia/north-korea-un-report/ )

Compared to the catalog of misery in that hell-hole, what happened at Abu Ghraib in the early days of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM was mere hazing, and water boarding terrorists isn’t much more than a mean prank.

As long as we have the freedom of speech, we can argue and protest all of the slips, missteps, debacles, and scandals that erode our freedom and are driving us towards the execrable brutality of living in a North Korean-style atrocity machine.