To live in New York is to be surrounded by people suffering from various pathologies, many of whom you encounter on a daily basis if-like most of us-you use public transportation. Living here also means being surrounded by Marxists of varying hues, including Maoists, Trotskyites, and-as the photograph above illustrates, supporters of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Most of the time, international supporters of the only communist hereditary dictatorship fly under the radar. Outside of the faltering consortium of ethnic Koreans living in Japan-whose own stability has been imperiled for obvious reasons-there are not many people willing to support a regime which has killed enough of its subjects to rank comfortably between Pol Pot and Mengistu Haile Mariam in the annals of historical, third world despotism.

The event which occasioned these paeans to The Great Leader was the opening night of Red Dawn, a 1984 action-adventure thriller involving a Soviet invasion of the mainland United States that-much to the chagrin of the director of the original film-is being remade into a would-be blockbuster where the main antagonists are North Korean shock troops. Being a state-barely-where an economy  doesn’t exist and ICBMs are too poorly designed to reach the shores of the United States appears to have its advantages, at least from the perspective of a Hollywood film producer.

However, those going out of their way to avoid controversy usually have it thrust upon them, whether it be in the form of racially insensitive tweets, or a counter-protest staged by a bedraggled band of true believers led by an SDS spokesman who resembles a more unkempt version of Eric Stoltz, ca. The Butterfly Effect.

You thought SDS had disappeared with the departure of the last Americans from the U.S. embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam? Alas, it’s still extant, as is the Workers World, which peddles old ideas from the new left slightly repackaged-emphasis on slightly-for the Internet Age. The bilingual edition of the latter no doubt aimed to appeal to emigres from that vast swathe of Latin America which is infatuated with socialism, notwithstanding its rather obvious shortcomings.

Whether the proclivity of newcomers to favor government management of the economy will translate into increased support for The Great, Dear, Omniscient Leader is a matter for future generations to decide, but the spirited crowd of approximately half a dozen devoted communists seemed to be solidly in the corner of Kim Jong-Un and opposed to the shameless political dwarfs behind the cinematic reincarnation of this motion picture.

One of the scheduled speakers was the man wearing the jaunty keffiyeh seen above, who hails from the workers’ paradise that is post-Batista Cuba. Apparently, Raul Castro’s tropical paradise is, like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, another victim of malicious, patently false Western propaganda. You might be asking yourself why, if that’s the case, he is in New York City right now instead of Havana. Oh, you vile, imperialist cur.

There was also an unofficial spokesperson from Occupy Wall Street whose purpose I wasn’t able to readily discern, although perhaps it was intended to add ballast to a movement that has seen better days. Most recently, when the Soviet Union existed as more than a whimsical advertising campaign from Hershey’s.

In fact, one of the points emphasized by our Alexi Lalas look-alike was that North Korea had a thriving economy during the untainted, benevolent reign of the Soviet Empire. Aside from the fact that this is wholly inaccurate, this assertion is 100 percent true. Still, you wonder why a regime that prides itself on its rigid autarky would rely upon its two largest neighbors in order to survive.

One of my hopes for the anti-Red Dawn/pro-deranged, overtly racist, vaguely Confucian Communist junta demonstration was that its small number of participants would be dwarfed by a slightly larger group of trolls, a la Communists for Kerry or Bureaucrash during its heyday.

Alas, no such hilarity ensued. I did get the chance to capture an amusing confrontation between comrade Maupin and a friend of mine who was also there to record this historic event. I don’t recall what was said verbatim, but I’m sure it involved a denunciation of capitalist lickspittles and/or running dogs of imperialism. For those of you who are interested in watching this tete-a-tete for yourselves, you can view it in its entirety on Youtube, which I’m certain would have been created by North Korean engineers if their nation hadn’t been bombarded by Western disinformation campaigns.

Sarcasm aside, one of the most disturbing aspects of this rally was a brief speech delivered by an envoy from the America-Democratic Republic of Korea Friendship Committee, who parroted the same lies you find published regularly by North Korea’s official news service.

Like the useful idiots who traveled back from Moscow with nothing but praise for Joseph Stalin-even as he was in the process of liquidating class enemies within the Soviet state-this loathsome creature returned from Pyongyang in order to stand upon a soapbox-quite literally-and laud the achievements of  a state which is synonymous with indifference to human life and the ruthless suppression of anyone who dares to exercise his natural rights.

It’s sickening to think that such a creature walks among us, but like ignorance, disease, and hatred, he is a pestilence which has yet to be eradicated in a world where knowledge is at the fingertips of most of humanity. A sad yet ineluctable truth that we’ll have confront as plunge ahead into an era just as turbulent as the one which occasioned a cinematic classic of the Cold War.

Update: Breitbart coverage here.  Also, a write-up from North Korea News. Watch Adrian Hong’s speech Escape from North Korea. A much longer speech by a survivor of a North Korean concentration camp can be viewed here. Hat Tip: Todd Seavey.

The ringleaders behind the premeditated murder of special agent Zapata continue to be rounded up south of the border, including two very important handlers of the criminals who shot Zapata and his fellow ICE agent, Victor Avila.

However, I’d like take a step back from the gritty details of this investigation and examine the some of the misguided media coverage of the purported “root causes” of the attack on these two courageous ICE agents. Specifically, the ongoing libertarian narrative that decriminalizing drugs and opening our borders will somehow cause narco-criminal/paramilitary groups like the Zetas and Beltran-Levy cartels to magically disappear.

For the record, I do support some form of marijuana decriminalization, not because I think it will be a panacea for solving the problems currently afflicting Mexico, but because I believe the costs of enforcing pot prohibition have come to outweigh the perceived benefits to the American public. Plus, it is the sort of drug that can be regulated in a relatively routine manner, a la alcohol or tobacco, without incurring great social or economic costs as a society. It would probably decrease the profit margin of most Mexican drug cartels as well, since over sixty percent of the drugs that are imported to the U.S. through Mexico are controlled by gangs that subsist on the profits of marijuana cultivation and/or distribution.

That being said, one of the things that irritates me to no end is the assumption by the left-and for the purposes of this discussion, I’ll include libertarians in that group since they agree with the left wholeheartedly on both Mexico and emigration from Mexico-is the notion that it is the proliferation of drugs in this country-and violence directly related to those drugs in Mexico-is somehow uniquely America’s responsibility. A perfect illustration of this misguided chain of reasoning can be found in a column by the usually perceptive Mary Anastasia’s O’Grady, which was published by the Wall St. Journal the other day. Unfortunately, Rupert Murdoch’s desire to monetize every piece of his media empire means the column is behind a subscription pay wall.

However, if you are a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal-and despite its wrongheaded editorial stance on immigration, it is as good a newspaper as you’ll find in today’s charred media landscape-you would read a column that essentially said we are at fault for the murderous criminals wreaking havoc across the Mexican landscape, including-presumably-the unjustified attacks on agents Avila and Zapata. She even goes so far as to quote approvingly the former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Casteneda,  a wide-ranging pundit, former Communist, and overall slanderer of America and Americans, in support of her assertions. Although, ironically enough, he disagrees with Ms. O’Grady on the issue that is the subject of her patently absurd column.

The notion that we are at fault for Mexico’s problems is not only factually incorrect, it is incontestably racist, if we believe racism to be the application of different sets of standards to different groups of people based upon their skin color, ethnicity, or the cultural-linguistic group to which they belong. As my lodestar in all things in this life, the great Adam Carolla, concludes,

I’d argue that the guilty white liberals in this country are actually more racist. Take the example of drugs coming in from Mexico. The left is basically apologizing to Mexico and explaining that it’s our consumption of these drugs that’s creating the market and funding their corrupt government, police, and army. It’s not the drug dealers’ fault, it’s our fault for consuming the drugs…While constantly completely about racism, they engage in the ultimate racism. They treat Mexico as if they are inferior and incapable of governing themselves. If these drugs were coming out of Canada, they wouldn’t be blaming the U.S. They would insist that Canada fix the problem and fucking fast. It’s belittling and far more racist. 

Just replace the word “liberals” with libertarians and you’ll see our point. BTW, if you haven’t already bought a copy of Adam Carolla’s latest book-I have a hardcover copy, my friend has the book on tape-DO IT, NOW! It even has a great page devoted to explaining why the “building a fence never works” people are complete retards. Here’s the Amazon link where you can purchase the book. Trust me, it’ll be the best twenty-five bucks you’ve ever spent in this country.

In conclusion, libertarians don’t know what they’re talking about-at least with regard to the inextricably linked issues of Mexico and immigration-and Adam Carolla is awesome.