Better that we follow in the footsteps of the freedom-hungry Eastern Europeans and lay waste this tyranny. Otherwise, someday we may have to construct a memorial to our loss of America that reads, “We just didn’t want Freedom enough.”

Originally published in 2014. Republished annually: To honor the victims of Communism, and those brave souls that fought and died for freedom. To commemorate the 31st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. And to honor my wonderful friends in Hungary and at the Hungarian Embassy in Washington, DC. They understand what freedom and faith are all about. And for more obvious reasons.

(Part One)

The 31st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989 is bittersweet this year. President Reagan had urged, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Likewise, we implore the God of the universe to give us the grace and courage. Help us tear down the remaining and encroaching walls of tyranny, despotism, and injustice in every corner of the globe, including our own. God, awaken those in our nation who have fallen under the spell of socialism and identity politics.

Part Two:

Today most Americans still appreciate the blessing of being free in the United States and honoring those who died for freedom. But we are threatened by those who have amnesia about the past. And by those who have allowed greed and envy to consume them and to seduce them into believing the lies of socialism. Many today don’t have a clue or the ability to identify with the hunger for freedom of a young East German teenager, Peter Fechter, who died rather than live under tyranny.

Peter Fechter was only 18 years old when he became one of the first victims of the Berlin Wall border guards. He was shot trying to climb over the wall on August 17, 1962. He fell back onto the east side of the wall and bled to death. The boy’s agonizing, hour-long death was witnessed by people on both sides of the wall. But his screams for help went unaided, with both sides afraid to intervene.

This teenager’s story should be told in every high school and university in the United States. Far too many high school and college students know nothing of fighting for freedom. Instead they fight for “safe spaces” and intersectionality. They think they are “woke,” when they are actually in a socialism-induced coma.

The memorial to young Peter Fechter constructed on the Zimmerstrasse at the spot where he died reads, “he just wanted Freedom.” Today many Americans, as well as others, seem to have forgotten the value of freedom. Not our wonderful active military forces and the veterans that we honored this week. But many Millennials are shockingly ambivalent about, or even favorable to Communism. They are helped in that direction by politicians, the media, and Big Tech.

In addition to Leftist politicians, much of the media has devalued freedom. A reporter for the left-leaning BuzzFeed declared on Twitter that “victims of Communism” is a “white nationalist talking point.” The reporter, Blake Montgomery, made his breathtakingly offensive remark after President Donald Trump signed an executive order making November 7 the “National Day for Victims of Communism.”

After a backlash, Montgomery deleted his tweet and apologized. But Montgomery is just the tip of the iceberg. Groups like Antifa and Students for a Democratic Society (what are they in — a time warp? Or just a mind warp?) use social media to mock and disrespect victims of Communism. Today they, along with the Marxist cult group that calls itself Black Lives Matter create victims out of criminals and want to eradicate law enforcement.

In my most merciful fantasies, I would like to send them all to North Korea.

In the swirling chaos of “a world turned upside down,” as the insightful Melanie Phillips has called it, some Christians acquiesce to this tyranny. They make blanket assumptions about all those who believe the world needs to be turned right side up, just short of calling them the names that the Left itself uses…Actually many do call them the same names now. Enter virtue-signaling churches in 2020, the year in which the Dominion of Darkness has been working overtime, and not just in November.

Apart from the insult of sweeping generalizations, the critics of what they call “the far right” or worse, ignore that in reality those whose favor they desperately seek hate them, with their moderate position, as much as they hate conservatives.

Better that we follow in the footsteps of the freedom-hungry Eastern Europeans and lay waste this tyranny. Otherwise, someday we may have to construct a memorial to our loss of America in the days of new generations that hate and despise us for our cowardice that reads, “We just didn’t want Freedom enough.”