Marxist Takeover in the U.S. Leads to the Self-destruction of a Superpower

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Two months have passed since the inauguration of Joe Biden and his administration, and in that time, the radical left's agenda has been pushed forward at a stunning pace.

The elderly figure in the White House, guided by his progressive handlers, has offered us a textbook example of disastrous politics — zealously pursuing ideological utopias at the expense of the nation's well-being and its citizens.

As for the mainstream media, nothing has changed. They continue to report selectively, desperately trying to cover up the radical agenda and present a distorted reality that masks the true nature of what is unfolding.

Through a series of executive orders (EO), the Biden administration has dismantled President Trump's accomplishments in just a few short weeks. The southern border is in chaos, border wall construction has been halted, and illegal immigrants are flooding into the country due to Biden’s promises to reverse his predecessor’s policies. The cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline has caused significant economic harm. The return to Obama-era foreign policies has already weakened U.S. relations with Russia and China.

A new arms race and Cold War scenario are taking shape. Cultural decline has accelerated with executive orders that push for the inclusion of biological males in women’s sports and taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for military personnel. The list of troubling changes goes on.

What is equally appalling, however, is the complacency within the right-wing establishment in this country. There are few signs of any real resistance, either politically or socially. The convenience of the corrupt status quo in Washington, D.C., has led even many Republicans to accept the realities of electoral fraud, a cognitively impaired leader in the White House, and the damage wrought by the left over the past two months. A handful of brave senators and representatives, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have stood against the tide, attempting to prevent the worst outcomes.

Republicans are now looking to the midterm elections in 2022, hoping for a shift in power that might reset the balance in Congress. However, this hope may be futile. Early in March, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping piece of legislation, the “For the People Act 2021,” a 791-page bill that many see as a blatant attempt by the Democratic Party to secure their rule for generations to come — if the nation even survives their current term.

This law enshrines measures for election manipulation and fraud. It removes voter ID requirements, allows illegal immigrants to vote, lowers the voting age to 16, and institutes automatic voter registration whenever someone interacts with government services. In short, it legalizes the very practices that turned the last election into a spectacle of voter fraud on a scale that has never been seen in a free society. Biden has already indicated his support for the bill and is expected to sign it into law. It is currently under debate in the Senate, but it appears unlikely that Republicans will stop its passage.

We are witnessing a prime example of reckless governance — a regime that, in its zeal for ideological fantasies, is disregarding the will of the people and accepting disastrous consequences for the nation. If the past two months and the current state of U.S. politics cannot serve as a warning about the dangers of poor leadership, nothing will.

The modern-day Jacobins, intoxicated by wokeness, identity politics, political correctness, and globalist ideals, are determined to undermine the foundational principles of our civilization. For now, they seem to be succeeding, and unless a long-overdue moral and intellectual counterrevolution takes place, the victory will be theirs. However, hopes for such a shift are slim. The key pillars that uphold the moral and spiritual fabric of society — the media, academic institutions, culture, and the arts — are largely in the hands of a corrupt and ill-educated elite.

These institutions continue to promote a false narrative, obscuring the true nature of what is happening and, more critically, what is at stake in terms of our civilization’s future. Increasingly, concerned citizens must turn to alternative media, attend speeches and interviews in person, and — most importantly — apply critical thinking and healthy intuition to uncover the truth.

Above all, we must speak out to change the prevailing atmosphere of cultural and moral decline.

Charlie Hebdo, a Beheaded Teacher and the Abuse of Free Speech

Could we possibly imagine a serious ethical and moral framework that would justify the killing of a person who, under the guise of artistic creativity or political freedom of expression—despite being degrading to specific individuals or groups—expressed their convictions? Of course not. The brutal beheading of the teacher must be unequivocally condemned. There may be causal explanations for such an act, but there is no excuse for it.

However, the horrific act that led to the teacher's death should not obscure the fact that the teacher himself made a mistake. Rather than using the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from Charlie Hebdo as an example of the abuse of free expression, he used them to justify and exemplify free speech. In doing so, he unintentionally triggered a misguided radical to commit a politically and religiously motivated murder.

The reactions to the French teacher's beheading by an Islamic extremist further reveal, with few exceptions, how inadequately educated many of the so-called "educated" people are and to what extent they lack the capacity for critical thinking.

It should be the task of every educator to convey that freedom of expression is not absolute and, therefore, not unlimited. Like all other areas of human activity, free speech must be limited by the responsibilities inherent in the exercise of human freedom. Elsewhere, I have discussed the connection between freedom and responsibility and made clear that they are two sides of the same coin. We cannot think of freedom without responsibility, and responsibility is void if one is not free to act. The liberty of human beings is, therefore, about responsible freedom. Irresponsible freedom—defined as the arbitrary exercise of will, manifesting itself in unchecked egoism—gives only the illusion of freedom. A person who is a prisoner of their impulses and self-centeredness is not free; rather, they are held hostage by their own morally deficient personality.

From my essay on the Crisis of Morality: "True human freedom is finite freedom, limited by the conditions of social coexistence and the legitimate aspirations of all other individuals. We must not mistake freedom for independence from everything; instead, it must be understood as a choice within the framework of something larger."

This quotation highlights that our responsibility as human beings extends to all other individuals and living organisms, in every social and political context, because they hold relevance in relation to our actions. The boundary between our freedom and the freedom of others, when expressed in a formal and universally applicable manner, is what we commonly refer to as justice.

Injustice, therefore, occurs when one's freedom extends beyond the boundaries of justice and infringes upon the freedom of another, thus preventing them from exercising their own choices. When we meet the demands of justice through our own actions, we practice ethical and moral righteousness. This principle also establishes the ongoing responsibility of the legislature to define, at any given time and place, the legitimate claims to freedom of all individuals in relevant contexts and to codify them into law. The application of justice is dynamic, as it must account for the evolution of human coexistence and its respective contexts, but the concept of justice remains timeless and unchanging. This truth explains why positive legislation that neglects this normative principle can embody wrong—something that has occurred throughout history.

As a result, it becomes clear how utterly irresponsible and morally unjustifiable any form of blasphemy is, as it violates the legitimate claim of religious practitioners to freedom, without justification for such interference. Even if a legal provision (whether immoral or ill-conceived) were to permit blasphemy, it would never be ethically justifiable to mock or ridicule another person's faith. Provoking Muslims by making fun of the Prophet Muhammad is just as inappropriate as provoking Christians by mocking Jesus Christ in satirical works or art. In Paris, Charlie Hebdo was misguided and irresponsible when it mocked Islam's religious figures in its satirical magazine, just as Pamela Geller’s cartoon contest "Draw Muhammad" in Garland, Texas was irresponsible. In both cases, the agitators hid behind misinterpretations of the principle of free expression—either a misguided understanding of the U.S. First Amendment or a neglect of the moral-philosophical ideal that dictates responsible action.

Truly free and responsible individuals have long understood that responsible behavior is never simply about complying with the law. They recognize that legal provisions primarily set the boundaries for what one cannot do to avoid harm, while moral responsibility dictates what we must do and how we should act.

 

 

The United States of America – Is a Hegemon Devouring Itself?

Half a year before last fall's presidential elections, I argued (see my blog essay "U.S. Presidential Elections and the Future of the West" https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2016/04/2016-us-presidential-election-and.html) that the fate of this country and the entire Western civilization will depend on its outcome. By denying Hillary Clinton the presidency, we must prevent a third term of Obama's Marxist-Globalist policies. The result was one I had predicted and hoped for; Trump won. In a follow-up essay, I explained how the U.S. and the world were supposed to get a respite from the insanity of previous years. 

But a look at Washington D.C. some eight months into Mr. Trump's presidency makes one wonder about wasted chances and failures to implement urgently needed policy promises. It appears that President Trump's pragmatic instincts succumbed to neoconservative imposition from within the White House as well as the Senate and the Congress.

 

Instead of vetoing it and signaling decisive course correction, a seemingly helpless Trump signed a sanctions bill on Russia and had himself bullied by the mainstream media into moral relativism and the absurdity of designating (fascist) right-wing violence worse than (equally fascist) left-wing violence. He disregarded the Virginia governor and Charlottesville mayor's lawlessness, both of whom intentionally and purposefully let a demonstration turn violent by ordering police forces to stand down. 

While fortunately proclaiming the end of nation-building and democracy export, Mr. Trump caved to the pressure for a troop surge in Afghanistan and the continuation of U.S. presence there. 

 

The malice of Never-Trumpers and the hateful obstructionism of Democrats and neoconservative Republicans appear to force Trump to continue the past two decades' terrible policy failures. He seems, at least partially, to abandon the promises he ran on in his presidential campaign. 

 

Given my political philosophy expertise and my participation in educational efforts in Eastern and Southeastern Europe after the end of the Cold War, I have tried to get in touch with the Trump administration since campaign times, particularly since its inauguration. But, alas, to no avail. I admit that I felt the need to do something about Washington's overbearing strategic blunder that has caused so much damage to global affairs. And I was sure that only President Trump gave hope to overcome and defeat the previous administration's wrong ways (after Rand Paul as the best suited among the Republican establishment candidates had dropped out). 

 

As repeatedly addressed in my blog essays, I sensed the lack of philosophical depth in U.S. politics. I had observed the mistakes ill-educated and ideologically disoriented politicians and advisors, liberals as well as neocons, had perpetrated time and again, and from whose apparent failures they refused to learn. I witnessed how the establishment of a post-Cold War New World Order started as an initially well-intended and seemingly meaningful project. In 1991, the transatlantic alliance instituted close relations with Russia in the North Atlantic Cooperation Council/NACC (later on named Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council/EAPC). The creation of NATO/Partnership for Peace (PfP) in 1994 intended to expand the alliance's reach to meet the new challenges Out-of-Area in close cooperation with Russia. 

I shared the initial enthusiasm for building a new stable and just world order by providing educational input in multiple undertakings within the PfP framework. Sadly, those good relations soon became perverted by nothing else than Washington's geostrategic arrogance and hubris.

Propaganda from both sides aside, relations began to sour due to aggressive power projection and the increasing neglect and alienation of Russia's and other global players' strategic and economic interests by the U.S. and its European and NATO allies. Of course, this carelessness happened in combination with the old strategic ploy for vindicating one's unjust policies by reversing actual cause-effect relations. As so often before in history, it resulted in the grounding of U.S. foreign affairs and national security policies on intentional misconceptions and outright lies. While the U.S. pushed NATO closer to Russia's borders and engaged in ever-bolder imperialism, it blamed Russia precisely for what it was doing itself. 

 

Two cases may exemplify this reversal of facts and the blaming of an alleged and yet never existing so-called "Russian aggression" and Mr. Putin's dream of reinstating the boundaries of the "Old Soviet Empire." In the summer of 2008, after Georgia invaded South Ossetia, a tiny province that had won its independence in the 1990s, and Georgian artillery had killed Russian peacekeepers, the Russian army entered and chased the Georgians back into their own country. Since then, Russia has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, very much to the chagrin of the U.S. and the U.N.  

The aggressor was not Vladimir Putin but Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili, a megalomaniac and now stateless sociopath who had been brought to power in 2004 by one of the US-engineered color-coded revolutions, at the time under Bush II. By annexing those two provinces, Georgia as an ally to the West would have enlarged its national territory and moved NATO-friendly terrain closer to Russian borders, despite a tendency in those provinces that broke from Georgia in the early 1990ies for ethnic and other reasons, to instead ally with Russia. The same applied to Transnistria and Moldova, both of which show interested in joining the Russian Federation. Thus, the question arises, astutely asked by Pat Buchanan, why in a time of peoples' self-determination, the U.S. (and the transatlantic community for that matter) support every ethnic group or fledgling republic that secedes from Russia, but considers any ethnic group or little state moving toward Russia a threat, a traitor, and insinuates it could only take place because of Russian imperialism? The only viable answers are:

 

• A paranoid and untenable Russophobia endures in Washington.
• A misconceived strategic design for a post-Cold War global setting dominates national security circles.
• An astounding lack of any sound political philosophy of international relations abounds among Washington's elites who to this day impose their unreasonable concepts on the White House and the U.S. State Department. 

 

 The distorted narrative on foreign affairs and Russia's role is kept alive by the paranoid Washington elites at all costs. It became tangible in early August this year when the honorable Vice-president Pence, speaking in Montenegro, the tiny nation in the Balkans that had just become the newest member of NATO. He repeated the apparent national security lies about Russia vis-à-vis Georgia. As was to expect, he also replicated the falsehoods about Ukraine to justify the offensive deployment of forces and missiles to Poland and the Czech Republic, and other Eastern European Nations. In Ukraine, President Putin responded to a U.S.-backed coup, which had ousted a democratically elected political ally of Russia. He bloodlessly seized the pro-Russian Crimea where Moscow's Black Sea fleet was present by Treaty. The West alienates Russia and Putin now over a reaction it could have easily foreseen, had it only pursued just and wise policies that acknowledge the existential interests of other global players. I commented on all this in more detail in several earlier blog entries ('Russophobia - Achilles' Heel of US-Russia Relations of February 17, 2017, https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2017/02/us-russia-relations-russo-phobia.html and 'Ukraine - Another Failure of Western Interventionism' of February 22, 2015, https://www.edwinseditorial.com/2015/02/another-failure-of-western.html).

 

Not Russia, but the U.S. has become the primary threat to world peace and global stability through aggressive policies of indifferent power projection that neglected legitimate geopolitical and geostrategic claims of other international players. Over the last two decades, the old buffers of the Soviet Union toward the West, most of all Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and not to forget the Baltic States, have all become full-fledged NATO members; with only minor diplomatic resistance from Russia and clearly no intent to invade those countries or reinstate the boundaries of the old Soviet bloc. It is of strategic importance for Russia and a core consideration for her national interest to keep Ukraine, an important geopolitical region that it designated the 'Near Abroad' somehow in a militarily neutral state. 

 

But the foreign relations experts in Washington do not rest contented with all the strategic blunder on the ground and in military terms. They pair their misguided policies with economic foolishness by way of economic warfare through sanction regimes that impact not only the U.S. but allies and partners in Europe and beyond as well. Just ignorant politicians could jubilee over the significant disruption of Russia's economy, the Ruble's inflation, and working "trade barriers." What they forget or perhaps willfully put on the line is the fact that the European Union is, by far, Russia's leading trade partner and accounts for about fifty percent of all Russian exports and imports and seventy-five percent of all foreign investments in Russia. From whatever angle, it sure comes at too high a price to prop Russia as an artificial enemy for one's own failed imperialism and as the scapegoat for a presidential election's unsuccessful outcome. After all, the presidential candidate herself as secretary of state had caused the blunder in cooperation with the presidential predecessor. 

The opposite of what the strategic calculus of Washington wanted to achieve is happening – not only is the global standing of the U.S. diminishing, but the hegemonic superpower harms itself in various policy fields. Putin increasingly writes off the U.S. and the West and enters into a Russian-Chinese strategic alliance. And if Washington continues to ignore and alienate Russia, the European Union and individual European countries will have to weigh their commitment to the North-Atlantic Alliance against their own economic and security interests. The latter process is what has commenced in Europe right now. It is relatively easy to comprehend that if Washington is not coming to its senses, a continuation of this policy will drive a wedge into transatlantic relations. 

 

Will President Trump be able to stand up against all these war-mongering and Russia-hating Democrats, Neoconservative Senators and Congressmen, Brass-Officer advisors, and Military-Industrial lobbyists? Will he bring home the troops from Afghanistan and Syria and end the aggressive posture of U.S. and NATO forces in eastern and southeastern Europe and the Baltic Region? After all, he was elected to complete the conglomerate of provocative, aggressive, and, indeed, unethical policies the United States has pursued in recent years.  

 

Not forget we must that the appalling course of U.S. foreign affairs policy of late runs parallel to the deterioration of internal politics in the United States. The civil war over ideas and convictions – a real culture war – is in full swing and seems to intensify day by day. Relentlessly dishonest and Trump-hating news outlets push it, above all CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, and, the most abysmal and painfully foolish of all, MSNBC. The degree of disinformation and corruption is mind-boggling in its unreasonableness and almost inconceivable in its blatant immorality. The Washington swamp is real. It is so bad that certain commentators even identify an ongoing silent coup to oust Trump by the joint conspiracy of mainstream media, deep-state exponents, liberal politicians, and radical left-wing interest groups. The latter, who organize protests wherever Trump appears and carry out counter-demonstrations with the explicit aim to instigate violence, which they blame on Trump, are funded by billionaires like George Soros or Mark Zuckerberg. 

 

The pigheadedness of never-Trumpers and all those politicians, pundits, and commentators who were so wrong about Trump never being able to win the presidency seems boundless. These people give precedence to their stubbornness and political and ideological inertia over the nation's best interest. Insight into one's wrongs and judgment errors, learning from mistakes and wising up, and notions like critical self-reflection no longer count or even exist in certain people's consciousness. Instead, they are doubling down on stances that experience has proven wrong. Unprecedented obstructionism not only from the opposition party but from the GOP's ranks – the most despicable example provided by the traitor senator John McCain on the repeal vote on the Affordable Care Act – dominate the domestic political landscape. 

 

 A look into U.S. politics, not even a year into Trump's presidency, reminds one of a young and fledgling republic in some Third World region of the globe. In the previous blog essay entitled 'A Sick Republic' of July 5, 2017 (https://edwinseditorial.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-sick-republic-yeah-dude-im-talking.html), I outlined the parameters of this profoundly flawed political system and the unmatched decay of intellectual and moral political standards in the U.S., which continues to push the nation toward more violence and outright civil war. 

 

Who or what could remedy this state of affairs of division and hatred in the United States society that goes far beyond any acceptable measure a functioning republic could withstand in the long run? How can we overcome this mental tyranny of the left that denounces everybody and everything running counter to their views? How can we break the vicious collaboration of forces on the political left to remove Trump from office, even at the cost of throwing this country into mayhem and internal violent conflict? The only answer I can come up with is "success." 

 

 To improve relations and defeat obstructionism, President Trump and his allies in Senate and Congress will have to be successful in pulling off a significant tax reform for businesses and working citizens. Furthermore, they will have to push through a decisive modification of the healthcare system, in both cases with immediate and tangible results that can no longer be hidden from the public, not even by hostile news media outlets. A new paradigm in foreign and security affairs is overdue. It should feature pragmatic strategic prudence and restraint rather than globalist adventurism. The U.S. has to disentangle from the continued involvement in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and bring troops home. It should abandon regime change interventionism and come to a new understanding in US-Russia relations. These steps should enable the nation to recover and find political and social stability. 

 

The United States finds itself at a crucial crossroads at this point. The significance of the moment goes far beyond saving Mr. Trump's presidency and marks a juncture that determines the future not only of this nation but the future direction of Western civilization as a whole. 

 

Let's make no mistake. The election of Donald Trump to become the 45th President of the U.S. came at a point of existential significance as to the future course of our civilizational development. It is the defining moment of decision between, on the one hand, liberal-Marxist globalism in conjunction with cultural decadence and the rise of moral relativism in ever more secularized social milieus; and in contrast, on the other hand, the furtherance of orderly (international) relations among sovereign nations with western countries grounding their pluralism in traditional morality and a minimal nucleus of their Christian heritage. 

 

It is clear before the power of our reasoning that both opposing sides in this ongoing culture war over principles and values cannot claim the same amount of validity for how they envisage our Western-style democracies' future path. Opposing concepts in all kinds of social and political realms – immigration, the rule of law, gender and race relations, education, economics, international affairs, etc. - cannot be equally meaningful. The course of social and political 'progressivism' that we have witnessed in recent years is either the right one for a prosperous future or a pernicious concept that destroys our societies and our civilization in its entirety. Yet, who could honestly believe, considering the evidence of societal mayhem, confusion, and polarization regarding open border globalism in recent years, that cultural progressivism is the right way as we advance? 

 

It might be wise for the left to end their demonization of conservative politics and specifically of President Trump, and give the man and his program a chance to succeed. But for this to happen would require the mainstream media to stop its one-sided anti-Trump crusade and bethink their exact principal role as an unbiased and objective interface for information and dialogue between people and government. 

Furthermore, perhaps even more importantly, it will take the ceasing of obstructionist efforts from certain Republicans in Congress. Full support of Mr. Trump's by his party, whose representatives have to set aside personal vanities and sanctimonious reservations, and a constructive political opposition that recovers at least some minimal sense of fairness decency, appear to be immediate requirements for success. 

 

The period of trial and error and political and social experimentation with the radical ideas of the left, domestically and internationally, has to end. It is high time that the Washington elites and stakeholders come to their senses, intellectually and morally, and refocus on this country's common good, which is so closely related to the entire western hemisphere's well-being.

The Crisis of Morality

If society turns immanent - I use the term immanence in the Kantian epistemological tradition of everything that remains within the boundaries of possible experience - and loses its transcendent basis, its particular religious-metaphysical reference, it will perish. Western civilization has profoundly gone down this path in recent decades, and restorative measures have been mostly ineffective. Yet, every culture arises from its religious foundation, derives its cohesive strength from it, and perennially regenerates itself through it. The common denominator for any civilization has got to be transcendent. Everything immanent, above all also science, is prone to opposing and conflicting interpretation, which is why anything immanent cannot serve as a constant unifier. The paradox of this truth lies in the fact that precisely the faculty unable to fathom the transcendent, namely human reason, comes to acknowledge the necessity of the transcendent.

In sacred terms, the transcendent manifests itself in religion; in secular terms, the transcendent manifests itself in morality. As religion serves as the horizon of meaning and represents common and uniting values, morality – and by no means economy – is the underpinning category of immanent life routine.

As civilization as a whole disintegrates when it loses its religious foundation, so do social and political life fail if morality subsides. We can ultimately lead every crisis of politics back to a moral crisis or, more precisely, to the fact that the fading of morality has not been detected or reacted to in time.

Morality constitutes the crisis of responsibility, as only the moral human being binds itself to act responsibly because of an inner and voluntary disposition to do so. Whether one excels in the economy, is an educator, contributes to the safety of the society by way of constabulary or military service, or works as a politician on bettering the social conditions of his constituency – the quality of their achievements depends on their morality, which is their commitment to act responsibly.
 
The notion of freedom inextricably links the categories of morality and responsibility. Only if the human being is free to decide between alternatives to act can he take on responsibility for his actions and be held accountable for his doing (or not doing). Not being able to withdraw from this responsibility constitutes the intrinsic moral quality of being human.

Human freedom is about responsible freedom. Irresponsible freedom, epitomizing in unconstrained egocentrism, is mere arbitrariness and no freedom at all. True human freedom is finite freedom, limited by the conditions of social coexistence and all other individuals' legitimate aspirations. Liberty must not be mistaken as independence from everything, but instead has to be considered as a choice to something.

Inappropriate use of freedom equals irresponsibility, which equals immorality. The absence of a personal and inner disposition to act righteously necessitates the enforcement of correct behavior from the outside. While morality cannot be imposed from the outside but rather springs from an intimate and inner urge to "ought" righteously, legality comes with law enforcement. Indeed, we cannot even imagine human statutory law without its intricate linkage to the ability to be carried through by force.

Suppose we put these considerations into a political context. In that case, we find throughout history and the modern world governmental systems that allow for freedom and individual responsibility, and those collectivist forms of government that don't. Thus the futility of the debate about capitalism versus socialism as socialism is a collectivist form of government, whereas capitalism is a form of economy. While the relatively closed and collectivistic socialist societies typically embrace the economic concept of a planned market economy, free and open democratic societies usually feature free-market economies as the typical characteristic of capitalism.

Capitalism can only exist in a political environment that allows for responsibility – for there are freedom and morality – and can only survive if the proponents of this system are generally prone and willing to use that freedom by acting morally. Thus, capitalism's problem is not the lack of legal regulations, but rather the irresponsibility – in other words: the immorality and human immaturity – of its proponents. The one who cannot impose boundaries upon himself in a self-legislating manner needs to get the proper behavior forced upon from the outside. Inappropriate, dishonest, and illegal behavior is even possible under existing laws and regulations. The political system of open and democratic societies, and the economic system of capitalism can function in the end only if the inner moral disposition, the outlined sense of responsibility, can be instilled and realized. This ideational concept is empirically sound in general terms.  On Wall Street, the one who derives his incentives to act mostly from greed and the idea of personal enrichment proves his moral immaturity to the same extent as the guy from Main Street, who buys himself a home on a loan that he can't afford. Both have not understood the meaning and import of free society and its ensuing stakes for the individual.

The price of freedom is the responsibility, and those who are unwilling to pay this price, do not deserve freedom. They must not wonder why they are subjugated continuously to regulations, legal impositions, and governmental encroachment.

Although the subject of further consideration, it becomes quite clear that only through appropriate socialization and education processes can the desired attitude on life be achieved. All those national and international comparisons on high school and college levels of knowledge and education regarding mathematical, technological, and language skills are vain, as long as the instruction does not result in independent judgmental abilities. And the quality to acknowledge the significance and indispensability of responsibility as the existential manifestation of freedom in any social context.