Moscow Show Trials Redux

The View From 1776:

Obama’s shameful campaign to criminalize officials in the Bush administration is reminiscent of Stalin’s purges of his opponents in 1936-38.

Through the office of Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama actively supported a witch-hunt aimed at destroying the careers of Bush administration attorneys who provided legal advice about the limits upon interrogating captured Islamic terrorists. Hating President Bush wasn’t enough. It was necessary figuratively to spill some blood.

Between 1936 and 1938 Stalin staged public trials of of Soviet military and political leaders whom he regarded as rivals. All of the trials resulted in convictions and executions for alleged treason.

American liberal-progressives at the time applauded the show trials as necessary to stop opposition to socialistic progress toward perfection of human nature and political society. In fact, liberal-progressives continued to defend the trials until after the fall of the Soviet Union and revelation of KGB documents.

The common good, an abstraction called “humanity,” as defined by Stalin or American intellectuals, always trumps individual rights.

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