Castro was a poor man's version of Stalin and Mao

The Communist dictator responsible for making the lives of millions of Cuban citizens miserable is dead. Yet, watching the media in the immediate wake of Fidel Castro's passing early this morning, one saw "real" news sources (the same ones who got the 2016 presidential election entirely wrong) advocating for the sort of restraint and balance around the "context" and "narratives" associated with Castro's life that you would never see given to any decent conservative. Such "fairness" is to be reserved for Leftist strongmen because all storylines are not equal, and the Left must protect its own hide.

Completely predictable, the media contrasted celebrations among the Cubans of South Florida celebrating the tyrant's death, with the idea that Castro was a revolutionary resistor of America whose record in seeking out social justice and fighting inequality was mixed but impact was monumental. As the Times put it:

His legacy in Cuba and elsewhere has been a mixed record of social progress and abject poverty, of racial equality and political persecution, of medical advances and a degree of misery comparable to the conditions that existed in Cuba when he entered Havana as a victorious guerrilla commander in 1959.

Here's a rule that the media should follow when it comes to balance -- when there are victims of government malpractice, focus on the victims. Because the facts are that whatever Castro's supposed belief in building a Communist utopia on Earth, this provided a convenient facade for a savage authoritarian who almost led the world to nuclear holocaust, and did lead the Cuban people to slavery and impoverishment.

The truth is that Castro was no romantic revolutionary -- and do not let the staged mourning or even the genuine, Stockholm syndrome-induced outpouring of affection we will see depicted in still-Communist, still Castro-controlled Cuba fool you -- he was a poor man's Stalin or Mao. I say "poor man's" only because he didn't kill quite as many people as they did.

But like his socialist superiors, Castro was responsible for imprisoning, torturing and executing thousands of "enemies of the regime," that is anyone who challenged his fascist rule.

Castro was dedicated to the violent overthrow of the capitalist order, and colluded with the Soviet Union against the United States and West generally, from pointing nuclear weapons at America during the Cuban missile crisis, to sponsorship of espionage activities that persist to this day.

Castro turned Cuba into an economic basket-case by nationalizing industries wholesale and replacing the rule of law with his bloodied iron fist.

There is a reason that those who could escape from the island did, seeking refuge among other places in a United States that cherished and protected the freedom they lacked, and flourishing ever since. Note that for decades people have not been flocking in droves to Havana's shores seeking out Hillarycare-style healthcare or anything else.

The media is no doubt going to assert that Castro was a "complicated figure," seeking to airbrush out the families he broke up, the lives he ruined and the people he killed in his quest for "justice" as they always do for those on the Left. Remember, the history books look far more favorably upon Mao and Stalin than they do Hitler because in part Hitler, a national socialist, was labeled as being on the "Right." In the final analysis, I suspect those who acknowledge any of the myriad reasons to think of Castro as the human scum that he was will find a way to compare him to Trump to save face among their fellow progressive journalists.

Our president himself legitimized Castro in opening up relations with his brother, effectively subsidizing an enemy regime to the detriment of its people. We must not do the same. We must remember the lives of those like Armando Valladares and the countless others less fortunate who toiled in Castro's gulags. Let us pray that today they are receiving a modicum of relief. And let us hope that someday the Cuban people will be able to throw off the yoke of Castro's Communism and enjoy the blessings of freedom of which they have been deprived for so long.

Ben Weingarten is Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media LLC, a media consulting and publication services firm. A graduate of Columbia University, he regularly contributes to publications such as City Journal, The Federalist, Newsmax and PJ Media on national security/defense, economics and politics. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.