Dennis Prager has a recent article posted on Townhall.com discussing the invasion of totalitarian thought into mainstream, anti-American organizations.
As a graduate student in international affairs at Columbia University, I specialized in the study of totalitarianism, especially, though not only, the communist variety. I found the subject fascinating, but I never for a moment imagined that any expertise gained in this field would prove relevant to American life.
Sad to say, it has turned out to be the most valuable subject I could have studied. The totalitarian temptation is not confined to Nazis and communists; it can rear its head in any society and gradually destroy it. And as the Soviet dissident joke notes, one quick way to identify totalitarian threats to liberty is to identify those who falsify the historical record on behalf of their cause.
In America today, two groups are most actively engaged in falsifying history: the ACLU and the anti-smoking movement.
One of the students I am tutoring right now is currently reading George Orwell's 1984. (A quick, characteristically female aside: I needed an extra copy but couldn't find it at the little bookstore I visited. I kindly asked the sales associate if she could help me find "Orwell's 1984." She looked back at me, clearly baffled, and said, "What's that?" ...sigh.) While most of his ideas of a completely totalitarian state seemed somewhat far fetched in 1949 America, 22 years after the title's date we seem closer than ever to that miserable utopia.
Read the rest of Dennis Prager's revealing article here.
Posted by Portia at May 10, 2006 10:09 PM | TrackBack
