In 1953, I was 30 miles from Nagasaki, in the port city of Sasebo, Japan, on the way to Korea during the war there to keep communism from trampling every corner of Asia.

I did not know it at the time, but Nagasaki, the second city to be A-bombed in 1945, the last year of World War II, had a significant Christian population. It was a legacy of Japan’s 16th century opening of ports to foreign explorers and missionaries. Significantly, Nagasaki was once known as the “Capital of Christianity” in Japan. And so it was that on August 9, 1945 tens of thousands of men, women, boys, girls and babies vanished instantly from the face of the earth in one burst of an atomic bomb.

I bring these facts of history up to highlight the inevitable inhumanity of global warfare and to underline the importance of Christianity to people anywhere on earth. That importance evidently reflects something deep in the human spirit that overrides cultural and political considerations.

Fast-forwarding to present times, the importance of Christianity in political affairs may be sensed from the fact that faithful followers have been branded as terrorists by officials of government in this nation. Plainly this faith touches something much deeper than politics.

In view of the freedom of religion wisely instituted in the Constitution, we must wonder why such extreme carelessness of duty on the job has not been grounds for official censure, at the least.

But that’s another story . . .

I’ll continue by asking, what is it that could make a U.S. government official regard Christians as a threat to America? The idea occurs to me that anyone who thinks that way is behaving as though he/she has been drugged somehow. A silly notion?

Well, Karl Marx famously remarked that religion is the opium of the people, suggesting that it keeps people ignorant and in bondage. Not like communism, right? It seems to me that Marx overlooked an opiate of his own: the guaranty of equity. Equal shares of the products of labor for everyone is a goal that cannot pass the test of reality. Pursuing it has in fact been a source of misery for everyone, which every honest fact check will bear out. But the hooking addiction of perfect equity – expecting “equality for everybody” – is needed to make people swallow state communism.

Tranquilizing people for political purposes is well demonstrated in two famous novels. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World the drug used in its technocratic dictatorship is “soma,” which makes people euphoric and pleased to follow instructions. In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four the tranquilizing agent used in its Big Brother dictatorship is “double-think,” which makes people forget who or what they are, ready to follow Big Brother’s commands.

And I will add a nonfictional political tranquilizer, an “opiate” called wokeness that is being tested in America. It is being used by leftist radicals to make people swallow totalitarian government. But in whatever scenario, fictional or nonfictional, communist or corrupted democracy, the motivating drive is to help establish state dictatorship over the people.

Returning to the importance of Christianity in America, it is now beyond guessing that this country’s domestic enemies have made Christianity a target of annihilation. They don’t regard Christianity as just another dismissible “cult” but as an intolerable block to the transformation of America into an authoritarian state, which it cannot be as constituted.

Something needs to be made clear about the domestic enemies of America who call themselves “liberal.” It will shock many to learn that true liberals can be Christian. In his run for president as the Democrat candidate in 1952, Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois from 1949 to 1953, stated publicly: “I would say to any Americans who cling to illusions about communism and its fake Utopia: wake up to the fact that you are in allegiance with the devil and you must act soon if you hope to save your soul.” (Speech in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sept. 12, 1952). And: “Our deepest convictions and hopes [involve] our ... future as a Christian nation.” (Speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sept. 1, 1952.) [From excerpts I recorded in 1952 from Adlai Stevenson’s book of speeches.]

As to the importance of politics in America, those awake since midcentury have been aware of the declining regard for America among Democrats and many Republicans in congress, as well as the declining opposition between the two parties. Although their cooperation has at times been one of bipartisanship, it has also been one of collusion to defy the interests of America. It’s an association that has earned the name Uniparty.

Explaining how America got a virtual one-party government uncritical of communist ideology and unconcerned about it is way beyond the reach of an essay. I can, however, draw attention to a way of making minds accept authoritarian (i.e., communist) state rule.

The change in attitude concerning the threat of communism among some of our elected officials makes me think of having been “drugged” into buying it. It’s an outlandish idea, I know, but I think it’s worth a spin . . .

Karl Marx famously claimed that religion is “the opium of the people.” Was he perhaps overlooking an “opiate” of his own to win the hearts and minds of the people? I’m pointing to the promise of equal shares of the products of labor for everyone. That this total equity is unattainable is proved by the fact that it has never worked where implemented – worked for the people, I mean. Their end of the bargain turns out to be subsistence at best, more likely some form of misery. In practice, the carrot dangled in front of the people for accepting total equity is a sugar-coated lie, effective as any drug.

Moving to a bottom line, the bad news is that dictatorship in America has been steadily advancing and accelerating since Barack Obama took office. Who hasn’t noticed? The woke, most likely. The good news is that the complicit leftist media has gotten its comeuppance since Trump took office, and fewer and fewer people are buying its lies.

I think I’ve said enough to validate the growing belief that we are in a global war without troops, physical weapons, locations, and political strategies – a fight for hearts and minds that can rightly be called a spiritual war.

Finally, I have two most important questions to ask. How did we get from fighting communism overseas to fighting it here at home? And how clear must it be that we’ve been invaded by domestic as well as foreign enemies?

Anthony J. DeBlasi is a lifelong defender of Western culture and civilization.

Image: Anthony J. DeBlasi, by permission