{"id":1617,"date":"2006-05-14T13:28:55","date_gmt":"2006-05-14T17:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=1617"},"modified":"2006-05-15T18:00:20","modified_gmt":"2006-05-15T22:00:20","slug":"how-to-identify-american-totalitarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/how-to-identify-american-totalitarians\/","title":{"rendered":"How to identify American totalitarians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.townhall.com\/opinion\/columns\/dennisprager\/2006\/05\/02\/195835.html\">Townhall.com<\/a> Dennis Prager May 2, 2006<\/p>\n<p><em>In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it&#8217;s the past that is always changing.<br \/>\n&#8212; old Soviet dissident joke<\/em><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In America today, two groups are most actively engaged in falsifying history: the ACLU and the anti-smoking movement. <\/p>\n<p>. . . <a href=\"http:\/\/www.townhall.com\/opinion\/columns\/dennisprager\/2006\/05\/02\/195835.html\">more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Townhall.com Dennis Prager May 2, 2006 In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it&#8217;s the past that is always changing. &#8212; old Soviet dissident joke 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, &#8230; <a title=\"How to identify American totalitarians\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/how-to-identify-american-totalitarians\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about How to identify American totalitarians\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}