A Warning from Eastern Europe
By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 27, 2012
A recent column by Jacek Zakowski in Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza was selected by The Week magazine as one of the best columns in Europe for the issue of August 3rd. Zakowski expressed his displeasure that Poland was gradually giving up the liberties it had fought so hard to gain after the fall of the Soviet Union. He noted that the liberal democracy Poland built after 1989 is “gradually turning into a repressive democracy.” Here’s how The Week summarized the column, including quotations from the original:
“A quarter of a century after the overthrow of communism, we have forgotten why it had to be overthrown.” We remember the censorship, the empty shelves, and the tanks in the streets, “but we forgot that these were only symptoms.” The disease was the arrogance of power. And that rot can set in even in a democracy.
But I guess we know that.
Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.
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Posted by: John J Plick -
Aug. 28, 2012 5:01 PM ET USA
Mat 12:45 "Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last [state] of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation." “Freedom” is a gift from God alone, it is NOT a “gift” from the Devil. This is the “error” of “the Garden” and threatens once again to become a “stumbling block” for mankind.
