The truth is non-partisan

This week Clean Skousen died, just short of 93 years old. A prolific author, he courageously fought against the Communist threat in America when it was unpopular to do so. As a young boy, I remember his book "So you want to raise a boy" on my father's shelves. My father who is now 87 read most of what Cleon wrote and shared much of it with me. I naturally became an avid reader of his works. (See nephew Mark Skousen's tribute at http://www.mskousen.com/index.html.

With the fall of Communism in eastern Europe, these countries were finally open to western thought and influences. I visited recently with a good friend and his wife who returned from the Ukraine where they served as a missionary couple. They reported that the vestiges of communism still exist in those countries. It may be another generation before these people are free of the attitudes and habits of that tyrannical system. Most noticeable is the lack of trust for one another. People don't say hello to each other nor do they visit with each other. Neighbors don't know neighbors; nor do they help one another.

Even though communism may not be the threat it once was, we still need to be vigilant. The enemies of freedom and agency are not so obvious, but they are there, both internationally and at home. Enemy number one may be ourselves. As Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and it is us."

Our stature and reputation as a nation have never been so low. We have become the new colonialists, secretly and openly forcing our will on other nations. And at home we face our own crises. In America our constitution is in a shambles from unchecked executive power, courts that legislate, and a Congress that is corrupted by special interests. Are we doomed like the Roman Republic before us to become the slaves to an oligarchy and the ideology of an elite.