By Mike Bibb
Quang H. Nguyen, AZ St. Rep. Dist.Additional similarities between Safford, Arizona and Silver City, New Mexico — comparable sized towns located about a hundred miles apart — both have large copper mining operations nearby, and college campuses conveniently situated within the communities.
Eastern Arizona College, in Thatcher, Arizona, next door to Safford, recently welcomed Arizona State Representative, Quang H. Nguyen, to speak at its annual Constitution Day ceremony on Sept. 17, 2026.
In essence, Mr. Nguyen's oration related to his childhood experiences in South Vietnam during its war with the North Vietnamese, and the struggles Communism inflicted throughout the region.
"Don't let people tell you Socialism is awesome. Communism isn't an economic system… it's a death machine. More than a hundred million people slaughtered in less than a hundred years. If you're well-educated, you can't be controlled. If you're well-fed, you can't be controlled. And if you're well-armed, you definitely cannot be controlled," he warned the EAC audience.
Nguyen (AZ Dist.1), probably opened a few ears and eyeballs with his unanticipated speech. If, for no other reason, than he survived this part of his life in South Vietnam — in the 1960s-'70s.
At 12-years of age, he escaped the sorrows and bloodshed when Saigon (then Capital of South Vietnam) capitulated to Hanoi (Capital of North Vietnam), and the North Vietnamese army in 1975.
Today, the combined countries are known as Vietnam.
United States' active involvement lasted from 1960 to about 1973, when most of the troops had been withdrawn. Saigon collapsed on April 30, 1975, signaling the end of major hostilities.
Approximately, 58,200 U.S. military personnel perished in the war.
Now, 51 years later, the war is a distant memory, and reasons for our involvement nearly erased from public consciousness, or not accurately portrayed.
Certainly, an infrequently discussed subject in a majority of contemporary high school and college classrooms.
Instead, the acclaimed glories and benefits of Communism and Socialism are spewed through the ether by social media meat heads and corporate news sympathizers, with little mention of the universal miscarriage of these fraudulent government schemes.
Even our own Democrat Party is rapidly transitioning into the Democratic Socialists of America, disseminating the same tried and failed Communist-Socialist gibberish of the past 150 years.
Still, all the bogus crap of socialism can't camouflage the reality of Mr. Ngyuen's warnings — he's been there, experienced it, and got out to tell the story.
Also, he expressed the importance of the Constitution's First and Second Amendments, and urged students to be proactive in their civic duties by studying the Constitution and participating in elections.
Further, emphasizing those points by pronouncing "I bleed red, white and blue."
Seems odd, but it really isn't, that foreign-born citizens seeking more freedoms and opportunities, and who've traveled here legally from oppressive regions of the world, often appear to possess a greater sense of patriotic responsibility in striving to maintain these concepts than many people born on U.S. soil.
Maybe, for the simple fact most Americans have no idea how a large portion of the Earth's population exist, or the depressed economic and harsh political conditions they live in.
In contrast, we can speak our minds on topics of concern, attend the church of our choice, get upset if the electricity goes off for a few minutes and the AC blows hot, grocery store is low on cottage cheese, so we go to another store, ask AI for answers to our problems, Congress bickers back and forth over which state is going to receive more federal aid, and bet on next year's Super Bowl winner.
Ordinary routines in the United States.
Yet, many countries don't have these options, because they don't have the opportunities, financial incentives or manufacturing facilities to produce commercial products that sometimes malfunction and cause inconveniences.
Generally, we simply fix or replace them, or order a substitute part online.
Discomforting, but not life threatening.
The same basic principles apply to our political structure. Together, we elect and replace leaders we're not satisfied with. Sometimes, it takes a while.
Sure, mistakes are made, but we try to correct them the next time around.
However, with a Communist or Socialist government nothing changes unless the ruling elite decides it should.
If a person complains too loudly, they are often never seen again — Rep. Nguyen found out when his cousin was executed at a North Vietnamese prison camp.
Which, is probably one of the reasons Rep. Nguyen reminded us "the Second Amendment is the essential shield for the First."
He speaks from knowledge and experience because, we're reminded, it takes a "good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun."
Even on a global scale.
