Defending Freedom

By Solomon Yue, Jr.

Republican National Committeeman for Oregon

02/13/04

Good Evening, It’s my pleasure to share with you my American experience including what this country means to me and why we must re-elect President Bush.

I was born in Shanghai, China, in 1959 into a capitalist family and spent the next 21 years under Communist rule. My late grandfather, John Yue owned a successful tailor shop in Shanghai. Later, after he escaped communist persecution in 1949 leaving us behind in China, he re-opened his tailor shop in Hong Kong and made his second fortune.

In a Communist society, being rich was evil. However, being labeled as a capitalist was not as bad as being labeled as the enemy of the state. My grandfather was labeled as such. He was the second in command of the British police department in Shanghai prior to 1949 since the city was divided into several foreign concessions after the opium war.

In a Marxist society, religion was opium of the masses. My grandfather being an elder of a Methodist Church in Shanghai and later in Hong Kong really was the worst part for my family.

As you can see, the day I was born, I earned three labels: offspring of a capitalist, offspring of the enemy of the state, and offspring of an “opium pusher”.

As undesirables, my family and I were greatly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. My father was locked up for three weeks without a trial. He was told to confess my grandfather's “crime” of exploitation. He was also told to admit he was a British secret agent working for my grandfather. I did not know my dad was a Chinese James Bond! Finally he was told to denounce his own religious beliefs.

When he refused to make these false confessions, the regime sent Red Guards to search our house for evidence and took our valuables in the name of redistribution of wealth. In addition, my family was ordered to vacate two rooms of our house in the name of equality so two poor families could move in. I came to learn the importance of private property rights in a hard way. My father was not the only one who paid for my grandfather's “crime” – my mother was sent to the countryside to be re-educated by the farmers.

I had no school to attend. Every morning, I was forced to attend four hours political study, in reality a brainwashing session. In the afternoon, I was sent to a factory to be re-educated by the workers. I became a true slave laborer when I was 13 years old.

In one session, a Communist teacher said socialism is superior because of its planned economy. Because of their greed, capitalists always over produce milk. To keep prices at high levels, they dump milk into the ocean. I couldn’t help it. I raised my hand and asked, “Teacher, on my way to school I saw a line for milk five blocks long. If socialism is superior, don’t you think we should produce more milk than those capitalists? There should not be a line for milk.” Fortunately, my only punishment was to write self-criticism for three days, a special form of brainwashing unique to Communism.

Let me tell you it was worth it, especially, when the teacher didn’t know what to say and my fellow students were shouting: “Aye, how about that”. The class was out of control. As you can see, I was born to be a “trouble-maker”.

I was also forced to study Mao’s Red Book and the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, and to criticize the evil of capitalism. However, I learned to defend capitalism by asking leading questions.

I used my grandfather as an example and asked the class: 1) could my grandfather make any money without providing a product which serves the needs of his customers? No.; 2) could my grandfather stay in business for a long time without satisfied customers coming back and doing more business? No.; 3) could my grandfather provide jobs to his workers, who had to support their families without having repeated business? No. Then, why was it called evil to make money, by satisfying the need of the people while providing jobs to support workers’ families? This time I out did myself.

It was my turn to be sent to the countryside and to be re-educated by the farmers. As a punishment, I had to spread fresh cow dung with my bare hands in the rice field. It was the lowest point of my life.

My situation was desperate. My dad told my grandfather that I was going to disappear in the night and my body parts could be sold all over Asia. My grandfather, who was attending the World Methodist Conference in Hawaii, told his friend, Glenn Olds, the president of Alaska Pacifica University, formerly Alaska Methodist University that I was in a lot of trouble because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Dr. Olds agreed to intervene on my behalf. Since he was the former Ambassador to UNICEF during the Kennedy Administration, he wrote to the US Consulate General Office in Shanghai about getting me a student visa to leave China. I was lucky. I was one who got away.

When I arrived in this country I knew only two English phrases: “Thank You” and “Coca-Cola”.

Upon arriving in America I envisioned what has remained my life-long objective: to make Karl Marx roll over in his grave, by discrediting his ideology forever. I also decided that if I could not succeed in a capitalist society, I would never be able to argue that capitalism was superior to socialism.

I spent my first year studying English at Alaska Pacific University. While working as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant and as a supermarket janitor during the summers, and as a clerk for the Learning Center during the school years, I earned a BA in Management Sciences in 1985.

While working as a research assistant for the Center for International Study and as a Market Specialist for Alaska World Trade Corporation, I completed my MBA in Marketing and International Trade from the University of Alaska in 1987. Today, I am blessed to call myself an entrepreneur with two successful businesses.

I am very grateful for what this country has done for me. It not only provided me a safe heaven, but also gave me liberty and freedom that I never had before. It offered me opportunities to be the best I could be. Today I could speak my mind without fear since all my rights are guaranteed by the Constitution. What a great country it is. Serving you as your National Committeeman is my way of paying back my debt to this country.

To me, America is more than the land of the free and the home of the brave. America is a beacon in the night, the liberator of the oppressed, the moral compass of the world, the defender of rule of law, and the last bastion of capitalism. America has been paying for its leadership in the world with not only its treasure, but also its blood. We should never ever apologize for who we are, what we believe in, and what we stand for.

We fought the American Revolutionary war in order to create a new nation under God with liberty and justice for all. We fought the civil war in order to eradicate slavery and save the union. We fought WWI in order to stop Imperialists’ empire building. We fought WWII in order to defeat Fascism and liberate millions from occupied Europe and Asia. We fought the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War (WWIII) in order to stop Communism’s expansion and save the world from a nuclear holocaust.

We won every war except the Vietnam War. We were victorious not because we were fighting for an empire or any individual and but because we understood we were fighting for a higher ideal called freedom, which is given by God and must be defended with blood. As freedom fighters, we have no territorial ambitions or demands, keep no slaves, and only ask for enough land to bury our falling warriors. As a victor we are a generous people. Not only did we pump billions of dollars into newly liberated countries to rebuild their economy, but we also gave them “the Marshall Plan” so people in those countries could enjoy democracy, live under rule of law, and be protected by a Constitution as we are. By deploying a mutually assured destruction strategy along with the star war strategy, we won WWIII without an armed conflict.

On September 11^th, 2001, WWIV was started. Once again, America is at war. Once again, we are called to defend our freedom and the entire free world. It is a fight between good and evil. Our enemy, who used terror as a weapon, attacked us on our soil. This single attack cost us three thousand lives and one trillion dollars in economic damage, causing a major economic recession. It is a war without national boundaries. It is a multifaceted conflict with hit and run tactics targeting civilians.

Today, we are fighting Islamic Fascism. It is more dangerous than Communism since the Islamic terrorists are willing to die for the promise of virgins in heaven. They are seeking weapon of mass destruction. They will use them on our civilian population in order to cause maximum damage and terror. This time, the mutually assured destruction strategy cannot work for us. Their goal is to destroy our free society, our economy, and our culture, essentially our way of life. They learned the Vietnam War lesson even better than the Democrats. They turn our value of life into a weakness and assume that we have no stomach for casualties.

In response, a logical strategy is to open a second front – Iraq, in order to defend the first front – our homeland, so we could take the fight to them. This is known as the Bush doctrine: pre-emption without seeking permission, regime change, and followed with a constitutional and democratic roadmap. America’s might is used to defeat evildoers. A world will be much safer if more counties become democratic.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank God everyday for George W. Bush being the President of the United State and the leader of the free world because America’s resolve is being tested once again. We must re-elect President Bush as our Commander in Chief. He knows what it takes to defend this nation and our freedom. When the Marine One flew over the still burning Pentagon, President Bush turned to those aboard and said: “you are looking at the face of war in the 21^st century.”

Consider if a Democrat President had been in the White House on September 11^th and what kind of damage he might have done to this nation? The Democrats had their opportunity to defend this nation and our freedom. They failed. Clinton did nothing after our embassies were bombed, which encouraged more attacks on U.S. interests. After USS Cole was attacked, Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and turned down Sudan’s offer of handing over Bin Laden.

The Democrats did not view Islamic terrorists as enemy combatants, who have declared holy war on us and who must be completely eliminated. They see Islamic terrorists as misunderstood and oppressed people expressing their anger through criminal activities. They want our law enforcement to investigate, criminal court system to prosecute, and society to understand Islam better. We did just that after the first bombing of the World Trade Center. This approach failed to stop the terrorists in attacking the World Trade Center again and other targets on September 11^th. As a Vietnam War hero, later turned into an anti-war leader, and now presumed Democrat nominee for President, Sen. John Kerry endorses this self-destructive approach in combating terrorism.

Soon America will be asked who we can trust to defend this nation, defeat Islamic Fascism, and protect our freedom. I am confident America will reject Sen. Kerry as our next Commander in Chief because America understands peace and prosperity is only through strength, not appeasement. America also understands that in exercising strength, character matters.

America can’t afford to have a Commander in Chief in wartime, who has contempt for our service men and women, who will not support our military, and who has a track record of undercutting our national security.

Sen. Kerry testified under oath in Congress regarding war atrocities, supposedly committed by our troops in Vietnam, which he did not witness. He voted against the first Gulf war. He put down the honorable men and women, who serve in the National Guard. He voted for the Iraq war resolution, and then voted to deny our troops, who have been shot at daily in Iraq, the support they needed to finish the job. After the first World Trade Center bombing, he voted to cut intelligence spending by $1.5 billion and voted to slash defense spending by $6.5 billion in 1996.

After Bin Laden sent more terrorists to Iraq hoping to cause more casualties in order to force us out of Iraq, Sen. Kerry used our combat casualties as a political issue calling for our troops withdrawal before the job is done. While our troops were still in harms way, Sen. Kerry compared President Bush to Saddam Hussein, calling for a regime change in America.

Whose side is Sen. Kerry on? Why is Sen. Kerry so willing to play politics with the lives of our service men and women? Does Sen. Kerry realize by calling for our troops withdrawal he is actually aiding and abetting our enemy’s objective?

Let me leave you with this story, in 1975, my Communist teacher showed us a propaganda film – the Saigon evacuation. She tried to make two points: 1) America was a paper tiger, and 2) America could be defeated politically because we did not have the stomach for high combat casualties, then the anti-war movement would use the casualty issue to pressure our politicians to withdraw our troops.

In the past, Sen. Kerry was a leader of the anti-war movement and actually aided and abetted America’s enemy. Col. Oliver North reports that in his 1985 memoir about the Vietnam War, a North Vietnamese general wrote that if it were not for organizations like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S.

Sen. Kerry cost us the war.

Today, Sen. Kerry again fails to see America’s real enemy. He will lead America to another defeat tomorrow because as the presumed Democrat nominee for President, he is already aiding and abetting Bin Laden’s objective of forcing America out of Iraq. What would happen to our economy, our freedom, and our way of life if America fails to neutralize the threat to our very existence?

Ladies and gentlemen, do you realize if we do not learn anything from our past, that history will repeat itself. The lesson to me is we must be resolute in light of our combat casualties, we must continue to support our troops in the Iraq Theater and finish the job, we must continue to practice the Bush doctrine, we must re-elect President Bush as our next Commander in Chief, and we must defend our freedom at any cost.

Thank you, May freedom live forever! God Bless America!