Thanks, Kaslin! You beat me to it! (Are you on my Facebook page?)
This was an excellent column by Lana - her story of life in the USSR, leaving that oppressive life for the U.S, and what she sees happening now, is one of the chapters in our upcoming book (Pursuing Liberty).
Her question, “how can any American ask me why I left the USSR?” is the key.
Because they went through the idiot American school system where no one said squat about how bad it really was.
A friend of mine went to the PRC at the age of 40 in 1998, and was Shocked! I tell you Shocked! that the police did what they did there. I looked at him and asked, "what the hell did you expect? It's a Communist country!" and he simply looked stunned, and said "well I didn't know it would be like THAT".
This from a baby boomer educated in South Carolina, for God's Sake.
That's how, Svetlana: willful ignorance.
Who said the following? (no cheating):
There are those who seek to convert us to a form of socialistic endeavor leading directly to the path of Communist slavery.
It [socialism] discourages development of moral forces which would preserve inviolate our representative form of government, answerable to the will of the electorate
These pressures have already caused us to depart sharply from the course so long held toward national strength and moral greatness. Our economic statute built under the incentive of free enterprise is imperiled by our drift through the back door of confiscatory taxation toward socialism.
Are we going to preserve the religious base to our origin, our growth and our progress, or yield to the devious assaults of atheistic or other anti-religious forces
Are we going to continue to permit the pressure of alien doctrines to strongly influence the orientation of foreign and domestic policy, or regain trust in our own traditions, experience and free institutions, and the wisdom of our own people?
In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are heading with such certainly. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy, but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.
Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions — those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed in to political and economic decline
There can be no compromise with atheistic Communism - no half-way in the preservation of freedom and religion.
The people have it in their hands to restore morality, wisdom and direction to of our foreign and domestic affairs, and regain the religious base which in times past assured general integrity in public and private life.
Our great strength rests in those high-minded Americans whose faith in God and love of country transcends all selfishness and self-serving instincts.
We all dream of of the day when human conduct will be governed by the Decalogue and the Sermon and the Mount.
While we are at it:
Who Said The Following?
1. “The God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
a. The Dali Lama
b. Cecille B. DeMille
c. Thomas Jefferson
2. “Here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”
a. Mother Theresa
b. Jimmy Swaggart
c. President John F. Kennedy
3. “It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
a. Anita Bryant
b. Jerry Falwell
c. George Washington
4. “The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable day, in the History of America. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
a. Kenneth Hagin
b. Barack Obama
c. John Adams
5. “So great is my veneration for the Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country and respectable members of society.”
a. Richard Dawkins
b. Biggie Small
c. John Quincy Adams
6. “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
a. Billy Graham
b. Franklin Graham
c. Alexander Hamilton
7. “The Continental Congress urges its fellow citizens to ‘confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his [God’s] righteous displeasure, and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness.’”
a. Ken Blackwell
b. Jimmy Carter
c. John Hancock
8. “...The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?”
a. Pope Pius X
b. John Calvin
c. Benjamin Franklin
9. “Were my soul trembling on the wing of eternity, were this hand freezing to death, were my voice choking with the last struggle, I would still, with the last gasp of that voice, implore you to remember the truth: God has given America to be free.”
a. Sandy Patti
b. Pat Robertson
c. Patrick Henry
10. “And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
a. Robert Schuller
b. Jonathan Edwards
c. Abraham Lincoln
We hope you are not looking for the answers.
The quote by Zinn is a gem:
“Objectivity is impossible and it is also undesirable. That is, if it were possible it would be undesirable, because if you have any kind of a social aim, if you think history should serve society in some way; should serve the progress of the human race; should serve justice in some way, then it requires that you make your selection on the basis of what you think will advance causes of humanity.” - Zinn, “A People’s History of the United States”, p. 646
I added it to this page: http://conservapedia.com/Howard_Zinn
We also have a few orthodox enclaves and one friend converted. A few of the church members even imported Russian wives with kids. I wondered what is with this guy; Russian wife, family, church? I think the kids were having a tough time readjusting to life in Ak.
I also have a Russian buddy, his wife and he came over on a school program scholarship. They just recently became citizens and bought their first home. He said there was no comparisons to the freedom and economics we have here and back in Novasibirskt. He also said that he had to change his last name, as it was German sounding from his ancestors who came to Russian back in 1700's. Hard to make it if people think your ethnic heritage was German. My friend is doing well here, involved with youth hockey, plays on adult league, and no plans on going back; though he has been back to see relatives. Good guy, I promised to take his son and him caribou hunting this fall. He considers himself American now, wants his son to serve in military when he comes of age. Funny thing, he still believes Russian hockey is far superior to anything in North America; no changing that, ha. So I'm ordering that Anatoly Tarasov biography from Amazon for him. ha.
We do have a Russian Christian community up in Big Delta. They have been there 20 years and have assimilated, though many of the locals never will accept them.
I guess most people I know are more concerned about the economy than politics; but both are found in America.
btt