By Steve Levy
Congratulations, America! This glorious experiment that revolutionized the world for the better has now hit 250 years of age. When asked if our new nation was a monarchy or a democracy, one of our founders, Benjamin Franklin, replied, “It’s a republic, if you can keep it.”
We survived the Civil War. President Lincoln prayed that our battlefield victories would ensure that this amazing country of, by, and for the people shall not perish from the face of the earth. We pray his words will continue to endure.
The history of the world is replete with empires rising and falling — from the Greeks to the Romans, to the Ottomans to the Brits.
America’s influence was not just economic and cultural; it was also wrapped in the blanket of liberty. Up until the American Revolution and the advent of capitalistic investment, free trade and the opening of new markets, 95% of human beings born on this planet lived their entire lives in poverty and were subjugated to the totalitarian rule of a despot.
But America’s economic and political structure changed the world forever. America’s egalitarian streak allowed those born in poverty to rise through the economic ladder to live in a level of comfort and to pass on to his or her offspring the potential for an even better life to come. Freedom of thought and a concentration on the individual over the state permitted innovative ideas to flourish.
In essence, America was the greatest political structure ever devised. Americans, who believed that their freedoms were God-given, felt obligated to ensure that every human being throughout the planet could enjoy these blessings. Of course, there were contradictions with slavery and discrimination, but we felt so strongly about these ideals that we engaged in a Civil War to end this stain.
When I entered my International Politics 101 class at Stony Brook University, my left-leaning professor started off by claiming that, in international politics, there were no good guys or bad guys, only national self-interests. Even though I was only 18, I knew he was wrong then, and I continue to believe that he is wrong today.
There is no moral equivalency amongst nations. There are indeed good guys and bad guys. The bad guys are the Chinese Communist Party, who confine Muslims in remote camps, prohibit free speech, and provide credit scores to the populace based on whether their behavior conforms to the liking of the party.
The bad guys are the Islamophobic fascists in the Taliban who refuse to let girls go to school after fifth grade.
The bad guys are the terrorists in Hamas, who teach their children that Jewish people are Satan and should be killed.
The bad guys are the radical leaders of Boko Haram who kidnap Catholic Nigerian children to convert them to Islam.
The bad guys are the old Soviet Bloc, which spied on their constituents and prevented their residents from leaving the country.
The bad guys are the Castro and Chavez Communists who seized private property.
The bad guys are the Marxists who suppress one’s freedom to worship.
The good guys are the Western world led by America — the liberal democracies in Western Europe, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and other like-minded nations that value freedom of expression, freedom of the individual, and freedom of religion.
What worries me is that the good guys are starting to doubt their worth. Marxists have infiltrated the Western world, and have taken advantage of our freedoms by dominating our educational system, which molds the future generation. They have been teaching a critical race theory that the world is divided into two groups: those who exploit and those who are exploited. And they claimed that it is the white Western capitalistic world that exploits, and it is the Brown and Black individuals around the world who are exploited.
Ronald Reagan famously said that our freedoms are just one generation from being extinguished. I thought it was hyperbole, but I now realize he was correct. I’m seeing with my own eyes in real time how, in one generation, our nation has changed so incredibly.
In the past, there were threats from the right, such as the KKK, but both parties coalesced to push back on this affront to our values.
But today, one of our two major political parties is now being consumed by Marxists, and a majority of that political party prefers socialism, the baby sister of communism, over free markets and traditional American values that made us a powerhouse of political and economic freedom. A majority of them are not proud to be Americans. They dislike this incredible country — about 25% say they would fly our flag. And a huge swath of our youth states that they will not fight to defend their country.
The Marxists recognize that the surest way to topple America is to totally open our border and eviscerate the concept of national sovereignty.
So the question remains whether this amazing experiment can continue to exist for another 250 years. With the recent rise of Communists within our political structure, we should be more concerned if we can exist in the next 25 years.