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Why America Is in Real Danger
Townhall.com ^ | August 11, 2020 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 08/11/2020 4:17:43 AM PDT by Kaslin

Americans have long been proud of the fact that, unlike European countries, America never went the route of totalitarianism as embodied in communism, fascism and Nazism.

This achievement may be coming to an end.

In order to understand why, it is first necessary to understand why European countries embraced -- or fell victim to -- totalitarian doctrines.

Until World War I, the primary beliefs that gave life meaning, both on a national and personal level, were Judeo-Christian religions and patriotism (love of one's nation). What gave people moral guidance were Judeo-Christian values.

For most Europeans of the younger generation, World War I, with its seemingly senseless slaughter of millions, ended belief in Christianity and, in many cases, ended the people's faith in their nations. God was deemed absent; religion was deemed unnecessary; and national identity was widely seen as a cause of the war.

That left a void that was almost immediately filled by communism, fascism and Nazism.

In Russia, World War I led directly to the Russian Revolution. Even before the war ended, in 1917, the czar was overthrown, and later that year, the Bolsheviks (the Russian communists) took over. As awful as the czar was, there was far more freedom under him than there was in the Soviet Union until the fall of communism 72 years later, not to mention the murder of more people -- 20 to 40 million -- under the Soviet regime.

In Italy, the rise of fascism followed World War I. And in Germany, the Nazis came to power just 15 years after the end of the Great War. Nazism conquered most of the European continent during WWII, and after Germany's defeat in 1945, the Soviets imposed communism over all of Eastern Europe.

Though there were communists, communist fellow travelers, Nazi sympathizers, racists and anti-Semites in the United States, neither communism nor fascism nor Nazism took root here. The primary reason was that, unlike most Europeans, Americans did not lose their faith in Judeo-Christian religions and values or in America after World War I. America remained so religious that, in 1954, the words "under God" were inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance recited daily in American schools.

However, by the 1950s, faith in America, Christianity and what we call bourgeois middle-class values was largely limited to older Americans. The post-World War II baby-boomer generation was already being indoctrinated in secularism and anti-Americanism. As early as 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school prayer was unconstitutional.

By the late 1960s, vast numbers of baby boomers were attending demonstrations that were as much against America -- routinely characterized as an imperialist and colonialist aggressor country with an evil military -- as they were against the war in Vietnam. It was not uncommon to see America spelled "Amerikkka" or "Amerika" at protests and in graffiti.

When I was in graduate school at Columbia University in the early 1970s, I was taught that men and women are not inherently different from one another and that the Cold War was between two superpowers (equally at fault), not between freedom and tyranny.

Another generation has passed, and the post-Christian, left-wing baby boomers have come close to achieving complete success. The mainstream print and electronic media, universities, high schools and elementary schools, the arts and now sports have all been conquered by the left. Except for sports, from the beginning of the 20th century, they were almost all liberal, but now they are left.

We now have the answer to the question: What will happen to America if Americans lose faith in God and country as the Europeans did after World War I? What will happen to America when Christianity dies as it did in Europe after World War I?

The way things now look, America may have its bout with some totalitarian doctrine -- almost surely some form of leftism. Liberty has never been a left-wing value. From Lenin on, wherever the left has come to power, it has suppressed liberty, beginning with free speech. Already, despite a Republican president and a Republican Senate, America has less free speech than at any time in its history. Exactly one year ago, I testified before a Senate subcommittee and wrote an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal about YouTube (owned by Google) placing more than 100 Prager University, or PragerU, videos on its restricted list.

And things have gotten much worse. Last week, PragerU was locked out of its Twitter account for retweeting a press conference of eight physicians in Washington, D.C., which had already received 17 million views, and Facebook has just informed us that if we even cite studies that show possible benefits of hydroxychloroquine (with zinc) in the early stages of a patient with COVID-19, we will lose our Facebook account.

And then there is the "cancel culture" -- which is merely a euphemism for leftist suppression of dissent. People are booted from internet platforms, fired from their jobs or have their reputations smeared and their businesses ruined for differing with the left -- on anything.

We are also undergoing a nonviolent (as of now) version of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, with individuals forced to issue humiliating public recantations of their beliefs and attend reeducation sessions (we don't yet have reeducation camps, but they should not be ruled out as a possibility if the left is in control).

Another communist norm taking root in America is the rewriting of the American past. We are living a famous Soviet dissident joke: "In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it is the past that is always changing."

On almost all social issues and many economic ones, the American left is more radical than the left in Europe. Europeans across the political spectrum are more wary of ideological fanaticism because of the vast scale of death and suffering that resulted from communism, fascism and Nazism.

One might say that Europe was inoculated against fanaticism. Europeans are more preoccupied with working less, traveling more and being taken care of than with ideological movements. But America, which has not suffered under fanatical, irrational, liberty-depriving ideologies, has not been inoculated.

Without such a vaccination, what replaced Christianity in Europe may well do the same in America.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: lawandorder
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To: LouAvul

‘God is watching, and make no mistake, we reap what we sow.’

God is watching, but is biding his time to do anything about it...? I’m sure that comes as great comfort to those already aborted souls...


21 posted on 08/11/2020 6:39:18 AM PDT by IrishBrigade
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To: IrishBrigade

“Oh ye of little faith.....”


22 posted on 08/11/2020 6:48:25 AM PDT by LouAvul (Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Psalms 9:20)
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To: RoosterRedux

That’s exactly what they’re doing, redefining history, treating down Christian values and on it goes. Also, they’re turning away from dogs and more people are embracing cats. God help us all.


23 posted on 08/11/2020 6:53:00 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: LouAvul

Most people don’t want to talk about a solution because it’s way out of their comfort zones. There’s only one solution. People turn their hearts to God, and clean house.


24 posted on 08/11/2020 6:54:26 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: Kaslin

Regarding the Socialist/Communist Utopia that the left wants:

I was talking with a good friend a few days ago. She has a terminal illness and really is getting the best care available. She was saying that Nationalized Healthcare would be a good idea (she has private Health insurance). I told her that she had no idea how much care she wouldn’t be getting, if we did had Socialized Medicine. I didn’t want to be cruel, but I did want her to know that Socialized Medicine is the shiny object with destruction behind it.

The Left promises Utopia, but would deliver tyranny. I pray that the people awaken to it’s true nature.


25 posted on 08/11/2020 6:55:47 AM PDT by originalbuckeye ('In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act'- George Orwell..?)
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To: Bulwyf

Cats are independent thinkers asserting their God given liberties. Dogs serve the collective.

I love both however.


26 posted on 08/11/2020 7:04:23 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: Kaslin
Couple what Prager has postulated with the downward trajectory of the intelligence of the average American on the street and it's obvious that we're really screwed.

Just a couple of photos of what we see everyday in America today.


27 posted on 08/11/2020 7:12:50 AM PDT by CodeJockey (Dum Spiro, Pugno)
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To: CodeJockey

Kunteesha in a brawl with Shonuffus?


28 posted on 08/11/2020 7:14:13 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (They are openly stating that they intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live.)
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To: bramps; RoosterRedux
bramps: And which version of the seventy-five bazillion versions of Xianity is the correct one? Or does it not matter?

RoosterRedux: I will never understand the conservative love affair with Dennis Prager. He is not a conservative but an old time liberal who seems conservative because we've moved so far Left. If you will notice, he always distinguishes between "liberalism" and leftism and always defends the former.

He is also a very poor religious model. How many conservatives are aware that Prager is not Orthodox, that he is essentially a rationalist who has re-written the Bible (The Rational Bible) to take out all the stuff he doesn't like? You know, like that great guy Thomas Jefferson?

29 posted on 08/11/2020 7:34:53 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Modernism began two thousand years ago.)
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To: LouAvul

... America is in crisis. We’re not going to last. Who cares why. We need to be thinking of a solution.
———-

I agree but the temptation is to come down hard on the leftists, when all we should do is enforce the law. Make them martyrs is exactly what they want.

However we can’t be afraid to enforce the laws. And that is what they want in order to cause an over reaction on our part.


30 posted on 08/11/2020 7:41:28 AM PDT by Wildbill22 ( They have us surrounded again, the poor bastards- Gen Creighton William Abrams)
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To: RoosterRedux

I love Dennis Prager’s writings and have sometimes thought of him as a Saul on his way to being renamed Paul.


31 posted on 08/11/2020 7:50:47 AM PDT by AmericanMermaid
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To: Bulwyf
"Also, they’re turning away from dogs and more people are embracing cats."

...and don't get me started about the half-caff soy latte replacing the good ole cup of black coffee.

32 posted on 08/11/2020 8:32:32 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: polymuser

The question is, where are we on that circle?


33 posted on 08/11/2020 8:43:52 AM PDT by MrChips ("To wisdom belongs the apprehension of eternal things." - St. Augustine)
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To: MrChips

Entering bondage, Soros, USCOC, Uniparty and rogressives/leftists hope.


34 posted on 08/11/2020 8:46:06 AM PDT by polymuser (A socialist is a communist without the power to take everything from their citizens...yet.)
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To: Zionist Conspirator
Prager is definitely a conservative, but then as many have pointed out conservatism hasn't conserved anything. Decades ago Buckley cried "Stop", but the best we could muster is "Caution. Slow Down".

If empires are doomed to failure, then it appears the American Empire is on its inevitable descent. Calls to a more conservative political philosophy or a religious awakening will merely slow the fall.

We may eventually get a truly conservative and religious political order but only after a revolution, a collapse, and the imposition of some type of monarchy or tyranny. The seeds of destruction were not sown in the 60's or even in the 20's after WWI. They were sown much earlier, maybe even as early as the Reformation or even going back to the Renaissance when Europe was reintroduced to the rest of the world and started having doubts about the one true way to God.

35 posted on 08/11/2020 8:46:53 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: Zionist Conspirator

bramps: And which version of the seventy-five bazillion versions of Xianity is the correct one? Or does it not matter
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

If you asked the hordes that are doing the rioting, looting, and general mayhem, which following word do you think you would be least to hear as describing their faith?... or any politician pushing this crap? Think carefully about your reply. Eternity is a long time.

Atheist
Agnostic
Catholic
Jewish
Born Again Christian


36 posted on 08/11/2020 10:18:36 AM PDT by bramps (It's the Islam, stupid!)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Up here in northern Alberta, it’s socially unacceptable to be caught drinking the soy or things like that. I don’t know how Starbucks maintains a presence either as it’s social suicide to be caught at one heh.


37 posted on 08/11/2020 11:18:02 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: SoCal Pubbie

My redbone pup ate two kittens last night and I don’t know if I’m supposed to be mad about it. On one hand poor cats, on the other hand he’s supposed to hunt cats. It’s a catch 22.


38 posted on 08/11/2020 11:19:32 AM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: bramps
You forgot to include Calvinist...

… or maybe you were predestined not to.

39 posted on 08/11/2020 11:33:35 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: polymuser

40 posted on 08/11/2020 11:46:12 AM PDT by Bratch (If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.)
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