The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 26, 2021, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Franklin, Tennessee.

I live about 20 minutes south of the Canadian border, which used to be called the longest undefended frontier in the world. People moved freely back and forth across it all day every day. But now it’s been closed for over a year. At one point my daughter asked me to drive her up there, because there was a 30-minute opportunity for people on one side to talk to their friends on the other. “Sad!” as President Trump would say. It was like Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin during the Cold War, except that both sides are now like East Berlin. 

I don’t know how this happened, but it is just one indication that America, and the West in general, have become almost unrecognizable from what they were not that long ago.

Look at just three things we have lost. 

One is equality before the law, something absolutely essential to a free society. In its place, we now have politicized law. If a policeman fatally shoots someone, whether his name is released to the public depends on whether the shooting is consistent with the preferred narrative of the ruling class. A policeman recently took down a young woman who was threatening the life of another young woman with a knife, and that policeman was immediately identified—indeed, his photo was posted and he was threatened by NBA superstar LeBron James on Twitter. On the other hand, we know nothing of the policeman who shot dead an unarmed woman in the U.S. Capitol on January 6. His name will apparently never be released to the public.

Second, border control. Functioning societies, at least since the Peace of Westphalia three centuries ago, have borders. America has no southern border and no plans to get one. The official position of our government seems to be that any of the seven billion persons on this planet has a right to come and stay in the U.S. for three years, until his or her assigned court date comes up. As the number of people with pending cases continues to grow, that three years will extend out to five or seven or 15 years. If we get all seven billion people to come here, the court system will break down entirely and maybe we can go back to having a functioning border.

And third, dare I bring up the fact that it is a real question whether we can go back to agreeing to have open and honest elections? And if we don’t have open and honest elections, control of our borders, and equality before the law, then we don’t have the conditions for politics or free government. 

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EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: 

Earlier this month, three U.S. Navy destroyers and a British warship conducted an exercise in the frigid waters of the Barents Sea, the first time U.S. surface ships have ventured into Russia’s Arctic backyard since the mid-1980s.

It comes as global warming is melting the polar ice cap, opening new sea routes and increasing competition for oil and mineral resources, with Russia, in particular, aggressively seeking to assert its preeminence in the region.

“Russia has really prioritized the Arctic as a region that is going to be so important for its future, both economically and militarily,” said Heather Conley, an Arctic expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Moscow is well aware, she said, that, in the next 30 years, “the country that controls the Arctic controls the world.”

Conley is one of the authors of “America’s Arctic moment,” the think tank’s recent report that details Russia’s increasing militarization of its islands in the Arctic Ocean in much the same way China has been militarizing islands in the South China Sea.

That includes rebuilding a naval base and installing a new, powerful radar on Russia’s Wrangel Island, located just 300 nautical miles from Alaska.

“Russia has returned to Soviet-era outposts and has built new military facilities in the Arctic Circle,” Adm. James Foggo, commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, said in a podcast last year.

“Russia’s even built an icebreaker that can carry the Kalibr [cruise] missile,” said Foggo. “So, I’ve got to ask: Who builds an icebreaker with a missile battery on board?”

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The trade agreement negotiated in 2018 by the U.S., Mexico and Canada languished for more than a year as congressional Democrats pressed the Trump administration to extract concessions from Mexico on labor regulations and pharmaceutical patents. The amended USMCA, successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, was signed this week, putting an end to 14 months of political wrangling. But to those of us who live in farm country, the pact means a lot more than politics.