In a recent presidential debate, Congressman Ron Paul made a bizarre equivalence between a Chinese dissident taking refuge in America and Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan, as he was attempting to criticize American foreign and defense policies generally. And while it may come as a relief to dissidents like Yu Jie that, according to Paul, “if a Chinese dissident [came] over here, we wouldn’t endorse the idea, well, [that the Chinese government] can come over here and bomb us and do whatever.”

Yu is a prominent Chinese dissident, writer, and Christian, who arrived in the U.S. last week, as reported here and here. He had been held under house arrest since 2010 and denied permission to publish in China. As for Paul, it’s worth reviewing his views on the use of American military force, as well as America’s moral authority and political leverage on behalf of people suffering and often dying around the world, and particularly in China.