[](/sites/default/files/uploads/2013/06/kate-upton.jpg)What are Kate Upton’s politics? Who knows. She keeps it to herself. It is an unnoticed part of her appeal – the fact that one can be a fan of her without having to be wary of some agenda being pushed, or be insulted by arrogant political proselytizing and condescension, is something that is tremendously yet unconsciously appreciated. She is as decent and classy as she is beautiful.
Unfortunately, while it is expected that she would have critics (who doesn’t?), her detractors have proven time and again to be her antithesis. They reveal themselves to be absolute losers, and slime balls to their core. And last week, in which she turned 21, they proved it once again. By the simple fact of having bumped into her uncle, Michigan Congressman Fred Upton, and some of his Republican colleagues in New York, she was accused by anonymous left-wing commenters of a) racism; b) being airheaded; c) not caring about the poor; and other things that shall go unmentioned. (Ironically, these are – literally – the same morons who destroyed her home state of Michigan.)
But to celebrate her birthday is more than an appreciation of her beauty and grace. It is also a celebration of freedom – because hundreds of millions of people owe their freedom to the Upton family.
The many examples of how the Uptons so greatly contributed to advancement of liberty are too numerous to chronicle in one article. But I wish to highlight just one of the most dramatic – and unexpected – examples.
In what was, as William Safire wrote, “one of the great confrontational moments of the cold war … Nikita Khrushchev, bombastic anti-capitalist leader of the Soviet Union, and Richard Nixon, vice president of the United States with the reputation of a hard-line anti-communist, came to rhetorical grips” in the famous “Kitchen Debate” at the 1959 American exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow. Standing inside of a model American kitchen, the Soviet dictator resorted to the debating tactic of screaming at Vice President Nixon about how much better Soviet Communism was than American Capitalism, and all Nixon had to do to win the argument was point to a Washing Machine, the invention of Frederick Upton 50 years before, to show how much better our system was for the common person. The Russians who witnessed this spread the news about it throughout the Soviet Union and fueled 30 years of discontent over the fact that their Communist system couldn’t produce helpful things like that – they were only able to produce missiles and guns – and they kept demanding change, which is the equivalent of a death sentence to Communist governments.
This is not to say that Frederick Upton, great grandfather of Kate Upton, invented the Washing Machine in 1911 for the purpose of undermining the Soviet Union (which wouldn’t even come into existence for another six years). The man was simply doing what Americans do: building a product that makes life easier, and selling to those who wanted it. It was the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith at work. It just so happened that with this product, Smith’s “invisible hand” would one day be able to reach out and slowly strangle the ghost of Karl Marx.
The collapse of the Soviet Union happened for many reasons – especially once the fight was taken to them by Ronald Reagan (in who’s administration the other Fred Upton, Kate’s uncle, served) – but the fact that life was so demonstrably better in the West served to undercut there claim to their creation of a “worker’s paradise.. Freedom inspires genius, and genius inspires innovation, and innovation inspires a better life. It’s what America is all about.
Kate herself contributes to this tradition. When she goes to other places around the world, she becomes a representative of what our society really is – that we are more than what they see and read about coming out of Washington. That we the people are really, really, awesome.
So three cheers to Kate and her family. You make us proud. And ignore the idiot critics – nothing defeats them more than when they see you succeed.
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