For this side note, I'm going to expand upon a Facebook post I wrote up recently. Much of what I'm going to say is just verbatim on my post, with an extra side of meat I guess. I try to keep my Facebook posts a certain size since a long Facebook post just becomes too much text at some point.

So, just to get into this, let me start off by quoting to you an article written by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, himself a Cuban, it was for the Daily Wire, he stated the following with respect to the protests in Cuba. He said this, "Cubans have a right to be free, and the American people should support them.

On Sunday, July 11th this year, we saw something in Cuba that we have never seen, protests in over 52 cities. It is important to remember that this all started as a Facebook Live broadcast from one city that then spread throughout the country. It was organic, it was leaderless, it was not part of an organized effort.

It was just people who are tired and couldn't take it anymore. But this had been brewing for some time in Cuba. It began with the opening of the Internet and with Cubans having access to information, websites and social media from all over the world, and the ability to communicate with one another.

Communists, socialists, Marxist dictators always use the same tactic, they keep people divided. They keep people from speaking to one another, they keep people separated from one another, and unable to compare notes. What you are hearing now is people who are tired of living in a country where you cannot have your own opinion, where you cannot express yourself, where the government wants to control everything, everything you do and everything you say.

They control where you live, control where you work, control how you can travel, and control what kind of work you can do. And they hold it all over your head. Cubans are tired of it. These protests were not about COVID. These protests were not about food shortages. Cuba has been dealing with food shortages forever, and COVID is spreading throughout the world.

These protests were about what the protesters said they were about, libertad, which means liberty. The Cuban people want to live like Cubans live in Miami, and Tampa, and Orlando, and all over the United States and the world. They want to live free. They want to be able to pick their own leaders.

They want to be able to work with their own hands and provide for their family. And they want to live in a country where thinking differently than the people who are in charge is not a crime, particularly when the people who are in charge are people you cannot replace and have no role in putting there whatsoever.

Justice, liberty, and freedom are the most noble causes any of us can be a part of, and we are inspired by what the people in Cuba are doing. We should continue to amplify their voice and support them and their cause. They have a right to be free, and we should support them.

That was Senator Marco Rubio writing for the Daily Wire. I said this before, and I'll say it again. Ideas have consequences. Ideas have consequences. Richard Weaver wrote the book Ideas Have Consequences. He coined that term, and it is very, very true. At some point in any nation, when the vast majority of the citizens decide to abdicate their command for personal responsibility and accountability, they will eventually seek government to be their savior.

You see this pattern over and over again with various nations serving as examples. This same pattern holds true because all of mankind carries the same nature, or in other words, they are built the same way. You also see this, though, in the history of Israel. Let me read to you 1 Samuel 8 verses 10-22.

It says this, "So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king. He said, 'This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen, and they will run before his chariots.

He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants.

He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. He will take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves will become his servants.

Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves. But the Lord will not answer you in that day. Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel and said, "No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like the nations, that our king may judge us and go up before us and fight our battles." Now after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the Lord's hearing.

The Lord said to Samuel, "Listen to their voice and appoint them a king." So Samuel said to the men of Israel, "Go, every man, to his city." You see, for the nation of Israel at this time, God was supposed to be their king. But they decided collectively to take God off of his throne.

They wanted to be like the other nations who were mercilessly under the tyrannical rule of despotic kings. Before their wish is granted, Samuel even warns them, letting them know that indeed a human king will be cruel and merciless. They will not experience the freedom they had under the rule of God.

And this is what people don't understand. We will all be ruled by something or someone. It is within our design to be ruled. You will either be ruled by a holy God who is completely wise, loving, kind, and just. Or you will be ruled by flawed and sinful humankind who is exactly the opposite.

Either God will reign over you or sin will reign over you. And so people forget the creation mandate, that we are called to subdue and cultivate creation. All of us are called to engage in our natural and God-given design to work, to be productive, and to reflect God's image upon creation as a worker, since God himself is a worker and a creator.

When this command is negated at some point, society will cease to function since no society could self-sustain with a significant portion of its population living off the other as parasites. Communism, socialism, Marxism isn't just some economic philosophy. I've already talked about this in the Marxism podcast. It's not just an economic philosophy.

It's a complete and totalizing worldview. And when that viewpoint becomes the lens of the government, only those in charge will prosper while the rest will become property of the state. It is a form of Gnosticism that has just put on a different jacket. It is straight from the pit of hell.

What is completely unsurprising to me is that the practical outworking of this ideology is total destruction. But that is to be expected since evil is nihilism eventuated. What is also completely unsurprising is that in this wreckage and carnage, many people will cry out to God out of despair. Those that know should take advantage of every opportunity.

This is James Hong, and I'm signing off.