It has long been my contention that the lie-laced, entitlement-based, infantile grievance protests of college students is part of a much broader problem — the complete breakdown of Western civilization.  Specifically, I’m referring to the disappearance of the longstanding certitudes and values that made America the strongest and most civilized nation in world history and brought about the emergence of anarchy to fill the void.

While anarchy, in its purest form, is the most certain path to freedom, the reality is that it does not work for people who believe in the principle of non-aggression and want only to be left alone.  The reason anarchy doesn’t work in actual practice is because there will always be those who believe aggression against others is justified by their noble aims.  Such a belief is a clear sign of a psychopathic personality, so it’s not difficult to understand why the Democratic Party is now the party of anarchy.

It’s also not difficult to understand why knowledge-challenged college kids are caught up in a game of “monkey see, monkey do;” i.e., they are merely mimicking adults — especially those on the Radical Left who believe that people who disagree with their anti-Western way of life must, at the very least, be silenced.  Even better, they would like to see them punished.

Liberal fascism recognizes no laws, especially when it comes to free speech.  Liberal fascists believe that both lying and the use of violence are justified in order to achieve their moral ends.  This arrogant, sanctimonious view of life goes back at least to Vladimir Lenin and, even before him, Karl Marx, who organized it into a philosophy and gave the Bolsheviks a blueprint for revolution.

Increasingly, I hear people lament the fact that there are no longer any rules or certitudes guiding people’s conduct.  They do not understand how it came to be that everything that was once considered moral, admirable, and normal is now looked upon as immoral, contemptible, and abnormal.  And vice versa!

What makes the desecration of Western values possible is that Americans have become so weak and fearful of backlash from the Radical Left that they are afraid to speak out.  As a result, nothing is off limits, not only in America but in all Western countries.  Virtually everything is acceptable, no matter how vulgar, immoral, or anti-freedom it may be, because people no longer have the courage to judge.

Out-of-wedlock childbirth is okay, because we dare not judge.  Infanticide is okay, because we dare not judge.  Allowing foreigners to live in the United States without documentation is okay, because we dare not judge.  And so on … you know the list.

Worst of all, the minority now rules the majority, and they do so through loud, hateful, threatening rhetoric that is intended to intimidate those who stubbornly cling to Western values.  For example, about 4 percent of the population identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, yet they have the power to close down a business if the owner refuses to violate his religious beliefs and cater to their wishes.  But, of course, we dare not judge them.

Ayn Rand had a diametrically opposed view of all this when she said, “The precept: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’ . . . is an abdication of moral responsibility:  It is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.”

Rand went on to say, “There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.”

Translation:  Judge and prepare to be judged.

There’s no question that history is filled with injustices.  Torture, murder, and slavery are an integral part of human history.  But today something different is happening.  As chaos and lawlessness replace Western values, one senses a growing concern among mainstream Americans.

When a society abandons its certitudes, when radical ideologues are allowed to impose their beliefs on others, it loses its will, its moral fiber, and the consensus needed to defend itself against those who would destroy it.  When a nation’s generally accepted code of conduct is replaced by the belief that it’s wrong to be judgmental toward those who are a threat to civilized culture, when law-abiding citizens allow students to riot and quash free speech, when they apologize to criminals and glorify them as victims, it’s an open invitation for barbarians to walk untouched through the front gate and force their uncivilized way of life on others.

What’s the endgame of all this for those with untoward intentions?  First, a population can become so apathetic, so submissive, and so guilt ridden that it not only is afraid to pass judgment but it abandons its own certitudes.  Second, if allowed to go on long enough, the endgame can be a police state as a result of people becoming so frightened and desperate that they are willing to give up their liberty in exchange for safety.

We’re coming up on the 50^th anniversary of Woodstock, and how well I remember how the hippies of the sixties made the abandonment of certitudes sound so wonderful.  There were no absolutes, they assured us.  Everything was relative.  Drugs, free love, and destruction of “the man’s” institutions were the wave of the future.

Well, the future has arrived, and it doesn’t look all that great anymore.  What it looks like today is nonstop victimization, perversity, hatred, and violence.  Maybe it’s time for civilized people of goodwill to wake up and have the courage to start judging — and prepare to be judged.  And, of course, push back.  Freedom is not free.