Obituaries of Kim Jong Il are being published across the nation's newspapers, and the hermit country's dictator is blamed for North Koreans' mass sufferings.

Kim Jong Il was certainly an evil monster, but what the media overlooks is that he was merely an effect of North Korea's failed system, not the cause of it.

The root cause of the backwards, oppressive state is its economic system--communism--not the personality of the brute that is in charge of the state. Dictators can't exist without centralized control, and centralized control is exactly what communism provides. Yet no mainstream commentary is focusing on that fact, including the Star's.

Stalinist dictator Kim Jong Il's death at age 69 or maybe 70 -- the official mythology varies -- offers the people of North Korea some small, faint hope that their lives may get better.

Il was not the communist dictator of North Korea, he was the Stalinist dictator. See the distinction? Mainstream commentary overlooks communism's role in North Korea's poverty, as if to say North Korea isn't an example of communism's failure, it's an example of Stalinism's failure. This distinction is popular so that the Left's agenda of a more socialist economic system is untied from real-world examples of socialism and communism. Let's not forget that National Socialism in Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics killed tens of millions of people in the 20^th century. Other euphemistic systems for socialist states like the People's Republic of China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea killed millions of more. If oppression pervades a country, chances are the word socialism or one of its euphemisms is nearby. Hugo Chavez is a member of the United Socialist Party, and Kim Jong Il was a member of the Workers' Party of North Korea.

The demonstrably failed economic system present in each of those repressive regimes is resurgent and becoming dominant in the United States, aided by our unwillingness to realize that history teaches us brutal dictators are at the end of socialism's path.

Not only do brutal dictatorships require a big, centralized government to exert control, such a government inevitably leads to dictatorships. The nature of government is to grow, and the nature of power is to centralize. If we also throw in that power corrupts, then those three dynamics eventually result in a huge government under the control of a few corrupt men. Naturally, in many places where socialism has taken hold, that's been the result, whether it's taken the form of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Hugo Chavez, Robespierre, Pol Pot, or Kim Jong Il--all members of the economic left.

In fact, dictatorship from the economic right, which is comprised of laissez faire capitalists and small-government libertarianism--is impossible, since we eschew big government, the prerequisite of oppression.

No war on Christmas, huh? One of "hundreds" of battles over Christmas, the LA Times reported, is taking place in Santa Monica.

For the last sixty years, Santa Monica-area churches set up nativity scenes in the public Palisades Park. This year, atheists applied for and reserved 18 of the 21 spots that are open to display, forcing the churches to downsize their displays. The LA Times reports:

The Nativity story that once took 14 displays to tell -- from the Annunciation, continuing to the manger in Bethlehem and onto infant Jesus' journey to Egypt and back to Nazareth -- had to be abridged to three and crammed into two plots.

Now, people walking down the sidewalk pass scenes of the Annunciation, the creche and tidings of "Peace on Earth." Then, a few yards away, a poster from American Atheists: "37 Million Americans Know MYTHS When They See Them. What do you see?"

How mean-spirited, and what a interesting picture they paint of liberal "tolerance." 

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of Freedom From Religion Foundation, called the displays "litter."

"It's littering -- literally, littering -- these spaces," Gaylor said of such displays, which she said are a "territorial attempt by Christians to impose their beliefs in this season."

"That creates an atmosphere of intimidation," said Gaylor, who noted that the organization's banner was destroyed by vandals after being hung in Palisades Park. "Christians are the insiders, and everyone else is an outsider."

It seems Gaynor's group is the only party trying to intimidate anybody. She said December is FFRF's busiest time of the year for the organization's attorneys. People need to be threatened with lawsuits, after all. 

Left-wing Hollywood leader Alec Baldwin was kicked off an American Airlines flight on Tuesday, prompting a Twitter rant that was critical of the company.

When limousine liberals like Baldwin get imperious, it draws the attention from the right, which is always tickled when so-called defenders-of-the-people are caught being something other than the joe-six-packs they pretend to be.

According to American Airlines, Baldwin behaved like a brat on the flight. On the company's Facebook page, it posted its version of events.

Apparently Baldwin would not stop playing Words With Friends on his cell phone when asked to turn off his electronic device.

The passenger ultimately stood up (with the seat belt light still on for departure) and took his phone into the plane's lavatory. He slammed the lavatory door so hard, the cockpit crew heard it and became alarmed, even with the cockpit door closed and locked. They immediately contacted the cabin crew to check on the situation. The passenger was extremely rude to the crew, calling them inappropriate names and using offensive language. Given the facts above, the passenger was removed from the flight and denied boarding.

I guess Baldwin thinks the rules don't apply to him and he has a quick temper, something conservatives are quick to bring up. In 2007, Baldwin, who has aspirations of running for office, left this message for his 11-year-old daughter.

"So I'm gonna let you know just how I feel about what a rude little pig you really are," Baldwin sneered. "You area a rude, thoughtless little pig, ok?"

I have a personal experience with the talented actor. While working for the Los Angeles Dodgers as a concierge in 2004, Baldwin and a young girl (I presumed his daughter) entered the stadium in the VIP section. The girl accidentally spilled the contents of the bag on the floor in front of me, and Baldwin was irritated. We picked up the contents, and a coworker escorted him to his seat (whom he tipped generously). He wasn't rude to the young girl, but I can sort of see how he can get testy.

But that's neither here nor there. The bottom line of the American Airlines incident is that Baldwin advanced conservative suspicions that liberals who like lots of rules and regulations don't like it when they apply to them.

Portions of Simi Valley, including two schools, were locked down Tuesday afternoon due to a massive manhunt to catch three men who robbed a jewelry story on Sequoia Ave.

The Star reported that the men ditched a car then fled on foot into a neighborhood. Police cordoned off a wide area and brought in dogs and a helicopter to find the men, whom they considered armed and dangerous.

While ABC News reported "three African-American male suspects allegedly robbed" the store, the Star didn't feel compelled to include a complete visual description of the fugitives--one of whom is still at large--because that would bring up the sensitive issue of race. But do the residents affected by the manhunt deserve to have a full picture of what the suspects look like, for their own personal safety?

It depends, according to Star policy.

Joe Howry, the former editor of the Star, articulated why most newspapers don't repeat the race of suspects--even if most police departments do--in a 2009 editorial.

The Star's policy is to include ethnicity/race in suspect descriptions, provided there is enough detailed information that ethnicity/race is relevant and likely would be helpful in leading to an arrest.

If a large manhunt involving three armed suspects doesn't warrant such details, then you're not going to read many Star stories where race is mentioned (unless it's this or this). Howry tells us why the policy is in effect:

The Star believes that to include ethnicity/race in a general description perpetuates stereotypes and is not precise, accurate or fair. In other words, providing a very broad and general description of a crime suspect that includes race/ethnicity increases the chance that innocent people will be implicated and possibly harmed.

Howry acknowledged that reporting on race "tests the competence and ethics of journalists" particularly when it comes to the "most fundamental of reporting tasks: the description of crime suspects." But he ultimately dismissed critics' claims that excluding racial information from dangerous suspects is a form of political correctness.

"What may appear to be political correctness is, in truth, acting professionally and ethically to do what's right," Howry wrote.

Had the policy been borne of political correctness, it might be more understandable--race is a third rail that nobody wants to touch due to the special-interest firestorm that awaits anyone who does. Instead, the Star's policy is to not "perpetuate stereotypes" that "increases the chance that innocent people will be implicated and possibly harmed." In other words, it's their duty.

On the subject of protecting innocent people, don't the residents of Simi Valley deserve to know what the armed manhunt suspects in their neighborhood look like so they steer clear of them?

Adam Foxman, who reported on Tuesday's robbery, is no stranger to this criticism. In a 2009 Crime Blog entry, he wrote, "We often receive criticisms from commenters and law enforcement officials about our policy in regards to printing the description of a suspect's race..."

Foxman went on to explain--and I'm pararphrasing--that the Star did report that a suspect in a 2009 robbery was black because other descriptions given about the suspect were specific enough not to implicate all black men. Foxman wrote:

One reason we are cautious about printing racial descriptions is that there are potentially negative ramifications of using race as a descriptor. Unlike, say, height, race is not a hard and fast descriptor, and using it without other specific details could lead to profiling that negatively effects people and doesn't really help police, we believe.

Like Foxman, I've also heard criticism from law enforcement officials. Two Ventura County police chiefs complained to me about the Star's policy as well. I'm sure they're comforted to know that journalists are best equipped to decide what information helps the police catch suspects.

In effect, critics of such policies--the Star is by no means alone on this in the industry--contend that willfully withholding important facts regarding the physical description of suspects because of doubts as to whether its readers will form the correct conclusions is a form of advocacy.

That's a slippery path for journalists to tread. If a media outlet sees its role as selecting certain facts to make its readers reach a predetermined conclusion instead of reporting all the facts so they can reach their own conclusions, then we don't have journalists--we have activists, to the extent of which they engage in such practices.

Mainstream commentators have been slow to realize the trouble in which the U.S. dollar is mired. After all, it's the world's reserve currency. It's been that way since World War II, which encompasses most--if not all--of the lifetimes of opinion makers who reach such conclusions.

It's difficult to reach beyond our own personal experience and touch abstract concepts of economics and even history, despite our common sense telling us that our lives, cities, nations, economies, and even our planet is in a constant state of flux.

The United States will always be the most powerful country on the planet--we'll always have democracy, we'll always have the best economy, the best standard of living, and the best equipped military, and the dollar will always be on top. Not by any action of ours, mind you, but by the sole virtue of that's how it's always been in our limited frames of reference.

It's a bias that's built into our psyches. When we're young, we can never imagine growing into adulthood. As adults, we can't fathom getting old. It's only when you're old and confronting your mortality when you look back and think, "I wish I only knew" and regret you didn't consider your impermanence when you were prioritizing your life. You didn't consider it because it was outside your personal experience, even though you were aware it happens to everybody. Deep down you thought it would never happen to you. When you were young, you would always stay young because that's all you'd ever been to that point.

Remember in 2007 when everyone though the stock market had reached a permanent plateau? Or in 2005 everyone though the housing market would go up forever? Or in 1998, when everyone thought Internet stocks would never fall? Guess what--they did. It was inevitable, yet people found ways to fool themselves.

The same is true with the U.S. dollar. Signs of impending collapse in Internet stocks and housing were there in 1998 and 2005, respectively, but few realized it because the opinion makers failed to put things in the proper context. Like aging and death, it was out of their personal experiences and not something pleasurable to ponder. It was more satisfying to enjoy it as if it were never going to change.

That sentiment exists in 2011 vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar. The Star recently editorialized that "despite what the doomsayers have been saying about the U.S. dollar, it is still the world's most trusted reserve currency and the one the world turns to in an emergency."

I could be considered a dollar doomsayer, but I don't challenge the assertion that it's still "the world's most trusted reserve currency" because it's the ONLY reserve currency. That's like saying the uncle's whose guts you hate is your favorite uncle because he's the only one you got. It's true, but that doesn't speak favorably about your relationship with him, does it?

I also agree that it's the one the world turns to in an emergency. The dollar surged after the global economy collapsed in 2008, only to plummet soon after. We're seeing that play out again given all the troubles with the Euro. 

Of all the currencies the dollar is the most trusted. But all fiat currencies are in trouble, and that's really the point that we dollar doomsayers are trying to make.

Even before the current economic crises, which our leaders tried to fix by printing billions of dollars out of thin air, the dollar lost 95% of its value since we went off the gold standard.

The official inflation rate in 2011 is not quite 3 percent. By the way, shouldn't we in the media have some healthy skepticism about what statistics the government produces that may benefit them? If we used the methodology in place that we used in 1979, the inflation rate is closer to double-digits, according to CNBC. I guess that makes them dollar doomsayers, as well.

The warning signs are here, just like they were in 1998 and 2005 and 2007. But that's never been enough to convince most people.